We've Got to Be that Light

Dr. Jeff Goldstein, Director of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education has shared this video with a number of teachers across America.  Dr. Jeff, along with NCESSE, has brought us the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program, a program that allowed us to send science to space aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis and is allowing us another opportunity for performing real science in space, but this time aboard the International Space Station.  I will discuss SSEP in more depth in another blog post, but I thought I would share this video with you.  It made me smile and I hope it will do the same for you.

We've Got to be that Light.

True Education

True educators have a passion for education.  It's not just a "job", a mere career choice.  True educators put in full (50-60+ hours) work weeks and then go home and research the newest methodologies and, pardon the pun, schools of thought on school itself.  This ardor, if unbridled, may lead to... dare I say it?... change.  And, it's not as if this change isn't needed.  Everywhere you look, if indeed you are looking, there are statistics, personal horror stories and media attention that all boil down to one simple fact: students today do not or will not learn the way students did in the past.  This is not news to educators, the very people who have been on the front lines of the proverbial battle in the classroom.  So we know the problem, now what?!

Dictionary.com's first entry under "education" is as follows:

(n):the act or process of imparting or acquiring general knowledge, developing the powers of reasoning and judgment, and generally of preparing oneself or others intellectually for mature life.

Most public and many private schools administer standardized assessments to determine whether or not and to what degree general knowledge and powers of reasoning and judgement are imparted.  Most educators (and in fact, all that I have personally interacted with) agree that we must somehow determine whether or not we are truly educating our students but they do not agree that standardized "tests" are the appropriate means of assessment.  Another quandary.

But wait, there's more to that definition...  the purpose of education is essentially to  prepare oneself or others intellectually for mature life.  Hmmm.  I don't know about you, but 99% (if not more) of my out-of-school, "mature",  life requires skills, knowledge and abilities that I must demonstrate through application to  real-world situations and problems.  When a [insert random car or house part] dysfunctions, we are not given a three page exam and handed a pencil.  Instead, we have to problem-solve and first assess whether it's a problem we can solve ourselves or if it is beyond our area of expertise.  If we are unable to resolve the problem, we must know who to go to for resolution.  The solutions are results of naturally occurring problems because without a pre-existing problem, there is little motivation toward achieving an actual resolution.

Susan has 10 apples.  She eats one and gives Joe three apples.  

Maria gives Susan two oranges for one apple. How many apples does Susan have now?

a) three

b) four

c) five

d) six

While you may have been busy keeping track of Susan's apples, many students may have already selected an alternate answer: "e) who cares?".  And, really-who does?  There is no Susan,  there are no apples, there is no interest in answering this math "problem".  This is not a problem that needs a solution.  

The good news is that there real problems that need resolution.  You may be confused as to why that's good news, so I'll shed a little light for you using just one example.  Many schools in Northwest Indiana are participating in a food drive called Spread the Love.  Our school, Avicenna Academy, is participating.  During morning announcements I share statistics about hunger and food insecure homes here in "the region" that we call home.  In mentioning this to our students, I realized that we can do more than just participate in an annual food drive.  This year our school will begin designing and hopefully executing a very large community garden.  Students will create and tend to the garden in collaboration with the greater NWI community.  We will donate the bulk of the food that we grow to local food banks.  Avicenna Academy's Community Garden will serve as a learning tool for our students.  This year the bulk of the lessons will likely be science oriented and there is plenty of opportunity for extension to social studies and mathematics/economics.

The current plan has all of our students engaged:

-Preschool through First Grade is responsible for researching and providing happy homes within our garden for earthworms and helpful insects.

-Second Grade is responsible for determining which type of non-food plants can be planted to aid in air filtration.  

-Third Grade is responsible for selection of the types of vegetables we will be able to successfully grow.

-Fourth Grade is responsible for designing and executing a nutrient-rich compost heap while

-Fifth Grade will work on rain barrel irrigation.

-All of our Junior High students will be responsible for determining soil type to help the younger students in their work and they will be working together to organize the layout of the garden.

The entire school, faculty included, will come up with a plan to tend to the garden and will work on environmentally-healthy ways to minimize crop-destroying pests.

The problem is hunger.  The solution is a garden.  The byproduct is that our students learn through doing and helping.  There is an application, a real result and actual work.  All of this work will require investigation and research which will utilize the technology skills that our students already have and will help them to re-fashion some of those skills so that they may be applied to educational endeavors not just video gaming. 

There are plenty more exciting things going on in our school this year, but I do not have time to address all of them right now.  Instead, I'm going to hit "publish post" and wander into classrooms to see how our teachers are engaging our students today.  I am going to continue encouraging alternate paths to education.  

Change takes time but the first step in the right direction requires courage, faith, hope and a fire in your belly.  We have it.  Do you?

 

Technology

Our media center will be undergoing a change this week as we update our old computer centers and send them into classrooms to make room for the new, faster machines to come in.  Once all is settled, we will begin our MAP assessments that we adopted earlier this year. 

One important thing to keep in mind as it pertains to technology is that we not only need to obtain the necessary hardware and software, but we also need to have people trained on how to properly use the technology.  As we update our technology, we will be training our teachers on how to use the equipment.  In addition, the professional development will often include suggestions for use. 

I am in the process of trying to determine the feasibility of getting the iPad 2 in lieu of textbooks for our middle school students.  We may be adopting the technology for the 2011-2012 school year if the texts that we desire can be found in a compatible format.

Star Sponsorship Program

We have started a new program at Avicenna to help us not only increase enrollment, but to allow us to provide an Islamic education to Muslim students who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford the tuition.  Please read more about it here.

MAP Testing, Differentiated Instruction & Schedule Changes

Beginning in January of 2011, Avicenna Academy will be utilizing Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) testing to provide us with quantitative, long-term data regarding your child's academic growth.  This data can be used not only to determine actual academic progress over the course of several years, but new data can be used to place your child according to his or her ability in any given subject area.  MAP is given three times throughout the academic year, so we can track progress during the school year instead of waiting for the annual ISTEP+ scores to tell us whether or not our teaching methods are working for our students. 

Specifically, with the MAP tests, we will be using results to place your students into ability groups according to subject areas so that advanced students are not bored and students who may be struggling with a particular subject are not frustrated.  For next semester, we will be using this information to place according to ability groups within classrooms.  All students in K and up will be tested.

Example: Students A and B are both in fourth grade.  They are both 9-year old, male students.  Student A tested at a third grade level for Math, while Student B tested at a 6th grade level for Math.  The teacher will look at the students' reports and place them into a grouping within their fourth grade classroom so that she may differentiate instruction according to their ability.  Specifically, she will teach a topic to all students, but she will alter something about the lesson so that Student A does not feel as if he is lost and not as smart as other students and so that Student B does not get bored and begin to "check out" mentally.

Differentiated instruction is a key phrase in education that implies that the teacher is going to alter her teaching method to fit the students' needs.  We no longer live in a world where we expect students to sit silently in their seats and listen while we stand up front and talk at them.  Instead, through countless studies over several decades, educators have found out, to nobody's surprise, that we all learn differently.  Our current culture is one where children are exposed to things like television and video games which flash thousands of images at them within a minute.  Students of today do not learn the same way their parents did even 20 years ago.  Because of this, professional educators have created teaching methods to reach students where they are so that they may lead them to where they need to be and beyond, if their ability allows. 



In order for our teachers to differentiate instruction in an appropriate way, we must first know where our students are, hence the use of MAP.

MAP is given at the beginning, middle and end of the year so that we can not only track student progress, but if a student's ability changes, he or she may be placed in a different group with instruction that's appropriate for that child. 

To accomodate for the long-term goals of the school as they pertain to our students' growth, the school day will be elongated from the current 7 hour day to a 7.5 hour day.  We will be dismissing at 3:30pm instead of 3pm.  This schedule change allows for a few important modifications to our school day:

1) We can organize the day so that classes that require utilization of particular "parts" of the brain are consolidated, lessening the transition time required for focus between subject areas.

2) We can allow our students a small break in the morning for them to eat their snack and socialize instead of eating snack while working.  This provides them with an opportunity to take a break and not become overwhelmed with their studies. 

3) We can add time to Arabic, Quran and Islamic Studies, the three classes that parents have specifically requested be elongated. 

4) We will add formal computer courses and a more appropriate PE curriculum to our school week.  Technology is especially important today as we are a global society, competing for jobs anywhere in the world.  And, increasing our physical dexterity and skill will not only provide opportunity for our students to be more active and healthy, but will allow their minds another break from strict academic courses.

I realize that there are many changes coming up, but I assure you that I've worked hard to assess the needs of our students and of the school itself and truly believe that the changes we are making this coming semester will lead Avicenna in the right direction.  Our children have an amazing ability level and I want to make sure they are challenged appropriately.

If you have any questions, as always, please feel free to contact me.  I look forward to the opportunity to discuss my ideas with you and to get your feedback.

Where does Avicenna stand?

Avicenna Academy Compared to High Performing Lake & Porter Counties' Public Schools

Percent Scoring Pass or Pass+ on ISTEP+

Spring 2010

Math & English Language Arts

Grades 3-5

Math
School Name	location	% pass or pass+	number of students tested, grades 3-5
Morgan Township Elementary School	Valparaiso	97	157*
Washington Township Elementary School	Valparaiso	95	185
Avicenna Academy	Crown Point	94	16
Beiriger Elementary School	Griffith	94	157
Wallace Aylesworth Elementary School	Portage	93	243
James H. Watson Elementary School	Schererville	93	235
Parkview Elementary School	Valparaiso	93	121
Northview Elementary School	Valparaiso	92	168
Memorial Elementary School	Valparaiso	92	165
Kolling Elementary School	St. John	91	282
Jerry Ross Elementary School	Crown Point	91	527

English Language Arts
School Name	location	% pass or pass+	number of students tested, grades 3-5
Avicenna Academy	Crown Point	94	16
Morgan Township Elementary School	Valparaiso	94	157*
Washington Township Elementary	Valparaiso	94	185
Dwight D. Eisenhower Elementary School	Crown Point	93	232
Northview Elementary School	Valparaiso	93	168
James H. Watson Elementary School	Schererville	93	235
Memorial Elementary School	Valparaiso	93	165
Kolling Elementary School	St. John	92	282
Jerry Ross Elementary School	Crown Point	92	527
Parkview Elementary School	Valparaiso	92	121
George Bibich Elementary School	Dyer	91	234
Jonas E. Salk Elemenary School	Merrillville	90	238
Peifer Elementary School	Schererville	90	215
Boone Grove Elementary School	Valparaiso	90	140

Source of Data:
 IDOE School & Corporation Summary, Grade and Content Area Reports (2010)

*School & Corporation Summary and Grade and Content Area Reports DO NOT MATCH (inaccurate data) therefore the % reported is based on School & Corporation Summary only.

Parent Survey

Our parent survey is still available to all parents.  It will take approximately five-ten minutes to complete and every parent is invited to participate.

Click here to take the parent survey.