Interactive whiteboards

From Judy A, one of  our fabulous reference librarians:

In the November issue of Educational Leadership there is an interesting article by Robert Marzano on teaching with interactive whiteboards. In it Marzano discusses the increasing use of whiteboards in the classroom and their effect on student achievement. His study found that using whiteboards was linked with a 16 percentile point increase in student achievement, with three features particularly related to achievement: the learner-response device, the use of graphics and other visuals, and the reinforcer (applications teachers can use to indicate that an answer is correct).

 The article also mentions potential drawbacks of the technology and suggests how teachers might use whiteboards more effectively.

 To obtain a copy of Marzano’s article or to find out more about interactive whiteboards, contact the library at (416) 395-8289.

 Judy Ameline, Librarian

Social acceptance in inclusive classrooms

In the latest issue of Education Canada (v. 49 #4)  there is an article by Judith Weiner titled Fostering Social Acceptance in Inclusive Classrooms. The author states that “the mere presence of students with learning disabilities in general education classrooms is not inclusion.  Inclusion involves meaningful participation by these students, achievement in accordance with their abilities, and social acceptance by teachers and peers.” How perfect are those two sentences! Students with special needs often have no friends; they  can be ignored, or  bullied and not accepted into the classroom and playground.  The author did an observation study of a successful inclusive classroom and this article discusses their findings.

Contact the library for a copy of the article, and any others on this topic. (416) 395-8289.

Rowan

Teaching ELLs

For a great article on teaching English Language Learners, read the article(here) by Claude Goldenberg titled Teaching English Language Learners: What the Research Does-and does not- say.

Girls dominate science fair.

Today’s Globe and Mail includes an article by Hayley Mick (page L1,2) about the 2009 Canada-wide Science Fair, noting that more girls than boys are participating and winning the competitions. Is it a reflection of the one subject area (seems not) or does  it reflect all areas of education (seems to)? Some say the boys are not motivated enough, or they don’t want to  do that work and would rather be involved in sports.

Back in the ’80’s when I started working in education libraries, we were buying resources on encouraging girls to excel, to participate in what were then non-traditional roles and courses.  Now it has flipped and we are buying resources to support male students.  Do you think we’ll ever get this right?

The link above won’t last long, so if you don’t read it soon, you’ll have to contact the library for a print or database copy (see my blog from earliar  about newspaper articles).

Rowan