Posts Tagged “lessons”

**pulled from the New York Times and written by Winnie Hu**

Selling Lessons Online Raises Cash and Questions

Between Craigslist and eBay, the Internet is well established as a marketplace where one person’s trash is transformed into another’s treasure. Now, thousands of teachers are cashing in on a commodity they used to give away, selling lesson plans online for exercises as simple as M&M sorting and as sophisticated as Shakespeare.

While some of this extra money is going to buy books and classroom supplies in a time of tight budgets, the new teacher-entrepreneurs are also spending it on dinners out, mortgage payments, credit card bills, vacation travel and even home renovation, leading some school officials to raise questions over who owns material developed for public school classrooms.

“To the extent that school district resources are used, then I think it’s fair to ask whether the district should share in the proceeds,” said Robert N. Lowry, deputy director of the New York State Council of School Superintendents.

The marketplace for educational tips and tricks is too new to have generated policies or guidelines in most places. In Fairfax County, Va., officials had been studying the issue when they discovered this fall that a former football coach was selling his playbook and instructional DVDs online for $197; they investigated but let him keep selling.

A high school English teacher in upstate New York said her bosses barred her from selling plans used in her classroom; she spoke on the condition that she not be named.

Beyond the unresolved legal questions, there are philosophical ones. Joseph McDonald, a professor at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development at New York University, said the online selling cheapens what teachers do and undermines efforts to build sites where educators freely exchange ideas and lesson plans.

“Teachers swapping ideas with one another, that’s a great thing,” he said. “But somebody asking 75 cents for a word puzzle reduces the power of the learning community and is ultimately destructive to the profession.”

Teachers like Erica Bohrer, though, see the new demand for lessons as long-awaited recognition of their worth.

“Teaching can be a thankless job,” said Ms. Bohrer, 30, who has used the $650 she earned in the past year to add books to a reading nook in her first-grade classroom at Daniel Street Elementary School on Long Island and to help with mortgage payments. “I put my hard-earned time and effort into creating these things, and I just would like credit.”

The humble lesson plan has gained value as focus on testing and individualized instruction has increased. At the same time, the Internet has diminished the isolation of classroom teachers. Just about every imaginable lesson for preschool through college is now up for sale — on individual teachers’ blogs as well as commercial sites where buyers can review and grade the material.

Teachers Pay Teachers, one of the largest such sites, with more than 200,000 registered users, has recorded $600,000 in sales since it was started in 2006 — $450,000 of that in the past year, said its founder, Paul Edelman, a former New York City teacher. The top seller, a high school English teacher in California, has made $36,000 in sales.

Another site, We Are Teachers, went online last year with a “knowledge marketplace” that includes lesson plans and online tutoring.

Kelly Gionti, a teacher at the High School for Law, Advocacy and Community Justice in Manhattan, has sold $2,544 worth of unit plans for “The Catcher in the Rye” and “The Great Gatsby,” among others, helping finance trips to Rome and Ireland, as well as class supplies.

Margaret Whisnant, a retired teacher in North Carolina, earns an average of $750 a month from lessons based on her three decades of teaching middle school classics like “The Outsiders,” enough to pay for new kitchen counters and appliances.

“I have wanted to redo my kitchen for 20 years, and I just could not get the funds together,” she said. “Well, now I’m going to have to learn to cook.”

Lisa Michalek, 40, who taught for six years in Rochester and now works for Aventa Learning, a for-profit online education company, said she spent about five hours a week tweaking old lesson plans and creating new ones, like an earth science curriculum that sells for $59.95.

“I knew I had good lessons, so I thought, ‘Why not see what other people think of it?’ ” Ms. Michalek said.

After $31,000 in sales, she has her answer. Alice Coburn, 56, a vocational education teacher in Goshen, N.Y., said she saved two to three hours each time she downloaded Ms. Michalek’s PowerPoint presentations instead of starting from scratch. “I hate reinventing the wheel,” Ms. Coburn said.

Others find comfort in having a class-tested lesson by a more experienced teacher. Lauren Perreca, 24, used a $10 lesson on the Vietnam War novel “Fallen Angels” as a reference last year while creating her own lesson for her classes at Weston High School in Connecticut. She also revised her reading questions about “Lord of the Flies” after comparing them with two other lesson plans.

“At first I was self-conscious I had bought something, because what did that say about me?” she said. “But I realized I wasn’t just taking it and using it, I was adapting it to fill in the gaps of my knowledge.”

Now Ms. Perreca has started selling her own lesson plans, like a 54-page “Macbeth” unit with quizzes and homework assignments ($10) that she wrote in graduate school. She said she spent $140 of her $523 in earnings on cookies and books for her students, and used the rest to splurge on dinners out that she could not otherwise afford.

Her students are incredulous. “They’re like, ‘Who would want to buy those? They’re so boring,’ ” Ms. Perreca said. “I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m making money.’ ”

In Ms. Bohrer’s class the other day in Lindenhurst, N.Y., five children were counting M&Ms while she made sure they digested the lesson before the candy. The exercise, which comes with directions, sorting mats and work sheets, has sold 31 times for $3 a pop. A variation with Lucky Charms is popular around St. Patrick’s Day, she said.

“M&M sorting is not a new concept,” said Ms. Bohrer, who has been teaching since 2001. “I made it easier for teachers to do. They just have to click and print.”

Daniel Street’s principal, Frank Picozzi, said he supported Ms. Bohrer’s online business because his students reaped the benefits of her initiative and creativity.

Ms. Bohrer recalled that when she used to share her lesson plans at no charge, a poster of her reading strategies was passed around so many times that it ended up with a teacher in another school who had no idea where it came from.

“I’ll share with friends,” Ms. Bohrer said, “and if anyone else likes it, I’ll tell them where to buy it.”

Rigor and Relevance

The staff in my district is focusing on Rigor and Relevance, it’s our professional development task this year and the focus of curriculum committees. I like the creativity it gives me as a teacher to develop new lessons or add to one I use annually. I took a leap this semester in the name of Rigor and Relevance, with my 5th grade guided reading group. This particular group is made up of the highest achieving students in that classroom, many are also TAG students. I chose The Monument by Gary Paulsen as their first novel. I had read this novel but not previously used it with a group of students. If you have not read it, I highly recommend it.

As we are reading, the students are creating a “Novel Guide”. We discuss the book, and the students choose what they feel needs to be addressed and how they think other students would enjoy completing the activities. Upon completion, I have spoken to two other classroom teachers who are willing to use the guide with their students and provide feedback. My students are SO into this assignment.

They are pretty creative, and have used illustrating, describing, and real-life connections by finding websites that add to the understanding of the novel. We have had some very interesting discussions as well. When the main character meets the artist the town has hired, she uses the word “pervert” to initially describe him. Every one of them had made a note to use pervert as a vocabulary word, so this meant we needed a working definition. They struggled and finally we looked it up in the dictionary. I don’t recall the entire definition but “deviant behavior, often sexual in nature” was part of it. This brought giggles, of course. They decided their working definition would be “child molester, creep, all around person to avoid”. As we were wrapping the discussion up, with a very straight face, “Trevor” says, “Well, some people have called me a pervert, and I guess today, I learned I really am NOT one!”

A couple of days later, we are discussing a line from the novel, “Well, there’s seeing and then there’s seeing.” This remark was made in connection with art. It didn’t take them long to figure out it the character was talking about emotion. I pulled up a few “masterpieces” on the computer for them to look at, and then to try to see. One of these was an abstract by Picasso. Again it’s Trevor who says, “Wow, that one makes my eye’s hurt. I can’t “see” that one!”

We go on to talk about other mediums that have emotional effects on us, movies, books, and music. Music was a raucous discussion, as they all had strong opinions. I asked if any of them enjoyed “classical” music, since none had mentioned it. Once more, Trevor pipes up, “Is that like “The Beatles”?”

Yup, I can get a handle on the Rigor……Relevance….that’s going to take some time I think.
(By the way, I LOVE this guided reading group! They are so open to new ideas, so willing to try and to learn…..I think their Novel Guide is going to be super.)

Planning Time….What’s That?

It has to be the most elusive, rare and coveted item in the teaching world, planning time. There is never enough of it, no matter how much you have. It also never falls in a chunk of time when you could actually start and finish a minor project; instead it seems to be rationed out in 15 minutes dabs. No matter how your district allots it, I am sure it is a bone of contention and every minute you have was hard fought to obtain. I have seen teachers reschedule guest speaker times between one another to make sure none will lose one minute of their planning time. Rest assured if one in a grade level had to lose some planning time, the next time scheduling issues come up, they won’t be the one to lose it again.

I am amazed at what I can accomplish in a 15 minute “speed planning” session. Just today I used the restroom, chose guided reading books for my second graders, made copies for my writing lesson, and got a bottle of water out of the lounge before I picked up my first grade title I reading group. If I plan ahead on a particularly organized day, I might get in some quick laminating too. Of course I have to take it home to cut it, no time for that as I fly down the hallways so I am not late for the next group. To add to the degree of difficulty for accomplishing these little victories, the reading teachers at my school are currently housed in a “modular” – outside the main building, so Cross Country or marathon training is an advantage. I have neither of those, this is my personal handicap. My colleague is a marathon runner and I envy her speed in the halls.

Of, course hallways are the enemy. Why? They are full of land mines known as students, administrators, guests and fellow teachers. Any of these can potentially throw you a curve that can cost you those precious golden minutes. Encounters like this: your colleagues see you and stop you “for just a second” to tell you something they feel you NEED to know. Coming clear from the suburbs, otherwise known as modularland, this is definitely a danger zone, as we have many miles of hallway to traverse. “Mrs. R. do you have a minute?” (Yes, I have 15 but NONE of them are for you-continue repeating list in my head)

“Sure.”

“Just wanted to let you know that I have gotten a warning call from a mother of one of your Title I students from my room. She said she was fine with her daughter getting help, but she is not going to tell the dad because he would make it very hard on the girl, yell at her and call her stupid. So if you have any correspondence, please just email mom direct.” (Email…there’s an idea….use it….now I won’t get the copies made)

“Thanks, I’ll make a note…or could you just email the mom’s email address to me…it’ll be easier that way.”

“Yes, sure, I can do that.”

“Great, gotta go, only 10 minutes left.”

Fifteen feet further down the hall, and I hear…..”Mrs. R. do you have a minute?” (insert internal primal scream) I don’t blame them. Really I don’t, not only do we never have enough planning time, we also don’t get enough collaboration time, so if we don’t have these “walk-by” meetings, things get lost and forgotten. Today, Friday, as the inhabitants of the Reading Resort were getting ready to head home for the weekend, one of us says, “I guess I’ll be here this weekend, again” and the other four mumble we will probably do the same. It’s funny, we rarely run into one another there on the weekend, yet we all have been there to prepare for the marathon we have coming up….the one called “next week”.

A Teacher for All Seasons

A teacher is like Spring,
Who nurtures new green sprouts,
Encourages and leads them,
Whenever they have doubts.

A teacher is like Summer,
Whose sunny temperament
Makes studying a pleasure,
Preventing discontent.

A teacher is like Fall,
With methods crisp and clear,
Lessons of bright colors
And a happy atmosphere.

A teacher is like Winter,
While it’s snowing hard outside,
Keeping students comfortable,
As a warm and helpful guide.

Teacher, you do all these things,
With a pleasant attitude;
You’re a teacher for all seasons,
And you have my gratitude!

By Joanna Fuchs

With Thanksgiving only a few days away and the holidays fast approaching I was trying to think of a different but fun experiment to demonstrate how the food we ingest actually assists in repairing and maintaining the health of the human body.

 Where else does one go for fun experiments but to the science wizard?  The prof., who wishes to remain anonymous, sent me this amazing list of healthy hints to the world of dietary needs and challenged myself and our afternoon tutoring group to give it a try and see what we thought.  We conducted this experiment in two days.  I informed the group that each item on the list correlated with a part of the human body and that their job was to match each food item with a part of the human anatomy and then show the group why they felt this way.  The first day we collected all of the food items listed below and discussed what body part each food item might represent.  The second afternoon we verified our hunches, wrote up our, “scientific findings”, and then made a huge salad with our left over materials from out little experiment.  It was a great way to finish off the project and celebrate a different but healthy Thanksgiving feast.

Nature is so amazing!  Too often the clues to our lives and bodies are before our very eyes and somehow we miss them.  Here is a little reminder…..

These are best & more powerful when eaten raw.
Here are some great clues as to what foods help which part of our body!

The Earth’s Pharmacy! Amazing!

A sliced Carrot looks like the human eye.  The pupil, iris and radiating lines look just like the human eye… and YES, science now shows carrots greatly enhance blood flow to and function of the eyes.

A Tomato has four chambers and is red. The heart has four chambers and is red. All of the research shows tomatoes are loaded with lycopine and are indeed pure heart and blood food.

Grapes hang in a cluster that has the shape of the heart.  Each grape looks like a blood cell and all of the research today shows grapes are also profound heart and blood vitalizing food.

A Walnut looks like a little brain, a left and right hemisphere, upper cerebrums and lower cerebellums.  Even the wrinkles or folds on the nut are just like the neo-cortex. We now know walnuts help develop more than three (3) dozen neuron-transmitters for brain function.

Kidney Beans actually heal and help maintain kidney function and yes, they look exactly like the human kidneys.

Celery, Bok Choy, Rhubarb and many more look just like bones. These foods specifically target bone strength. Bones are 23% sodium and these foods are 23% sodium. If you don’t have enough sodium in your diet, the body pulls it from the bones, thus making them weak.  These foods replenish the skeletal needs of the body.

Avocadoes, Eggplant and Pears target the health and function of the womb and cervix of the female - they look just like these organs. Today’s research shows that when a woman eats one avocado a week, it balances hormones, sheds unwanted birth weight, and prevents cervical cancers. And how profound is this?   It takes exactly nine (9) months to grow an avocado from blossom to ripened fruit. There are over 14,000 photolytic chemical constituents of nutrition in each one of these foods (modern science has only studied and named about 141 of them).

Figs are full of seeds and hang in twos when they grow.  Figs increase the mobility of male sperm and increase the numbers of Sperm as well to overcome male sterility.  

Sweet Potatoes look like the pancreas and actually balance the glycemic index of diabetics.

Olives assist in the health and function of the ovaries

Oranges, Grapefruits, and other Citrus fruits look just like the mammary glands of the female and actually assist the health of the breasts and the movement of lymph in and out of the breasts.

Onions look like the body’s cells. Today’s research shows onions help clear waste materials from all of the body cells. They even produce tears which wash the epithelial layers of the eyes.

A working companion, Garlic, also helps eliminate waste materials and dangerous free radicals from the body.

Not only was this experiment educational, it was fun, full of laughs, and after adding some salad dressing and a few crackers to it…..we even got a great meal out of it.  On the experimental scale, our group gave it a very high rating and recommended it as a must do in understanding the correlation between foods and the human anatomy.

Thanks were given to our marvelous science professor and Thanksgiving was shared this afternoon.  May you all have a wonderful and blessed holiday with your family, friends, and remember we are what we eat.