Curriculum

Software database reveals what kids are reading
Wed, May 07, 2008 Primary Topic Channel: Reading/language arts
Children have welcomed the Harry Potter books in recent years like free ice cream in the cafeteria, reports the Washington Post, but the largest survey ever of youthful reading in the United States has revealed that none of J.K. Rowling's phenomenally popular books has been able to dislodge the works of longtime favorites Dr. Seuss, E.B. White, Judy Blume, S.E. Hinton, and Harper Lee as the most read. [ Read More ]

Wanted: More Hispanics in STEM fields
Tue, May 06, 2008 Primary Topic Channel: Science
In what is becoming a national trend, leading businesses and education groups are launching new initiatives aimed at increasing the number of minorities--and Hispanics in particular--in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. [ Read More ]

Evolution's critics shift tactics with schools
Mon, May 05, 2008 Primary Topic Channel: Science
They have spent years working school boards, with only minimal success. Now, critics of evolution are turning to a higher authority, reports the Wall Street Journal: state legislators. [ Read More ]

Blogging helps encourage teen writing
Wed, Apr 30, 2008 Primary Topic Channel: Reading/language arts
For most media outlets that reported on an important new survey measuring the impact of technology on teens' writing skills, the big news from the survey was that emoticons and text-messaging abbreviations are creeping into students' formal writing assignments. :-( Buried beneath the alarm of writing "purists," however, was a promising finding with equally important implications for schools: Blogging is helping many teens become more prolific writers. [ Read More ]

Software gives writing skills a boost
Tue, Apr 29, 2008 Primary Topic Channel: Reading/language arts
After just two years using new writing software in her classes at Pleasant Grove Junior High School, Jenny Reuel noticed a remarkable improvement in her students' writing skills, the Salt Lake Tribune reports. [ Read More ]

Study suggests math teachers scrap balls and slices
Mon, Apr 28, 2008 Primary Topic Channel: Math
Many educators in recent years have incorporated more and more examples from the real world to teach abstract concepts. The idea is that making math more relevant makes it easier to learn. That idea may be wrong, if researchers at Ohio State University are correct, reports the New York Times. [ Read More ]

Experts see impact of museums in science-ed efforts
Mon, Apr 28, 2008 Primary Topic Channel: Science
Three or four times a day, a banana shows up at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J., and complains about a pain in its side, reports the Associated Press. [ Read More ]

Informal style of electronic messages is showing up in schoolwork, study finds
Fri, Apr 25, 2008 Primary Topic Channel: Reading/language arts
The New York Times reports that as eMail messages, text messages, and social network postings become nearly ubiquitous in the lives of teenagers, the informality of electronic communications is seeping into their schoolwork, a new study says. [ Read More ]

Movie: Science 'expels' Intelligent Design
Thu, Apr 24, 2008 Primary Topic Channel: Science
In Missouri, where the battle for control of the science curriculum has been raging, public officials have been afforded a special screening of a documentary-style film advocating on behalf of intelligent design, the term for a view that the universe is too complex not to have been fashioned by a higher power. [ Read More ]

Primary source documents from American history available online
Wed, Apr 23, 2008 Primary Topic Channel: History
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History is making primary source documents and educational resources from all eras of American history available for free online. The web site receives more than 1 million visits per year, and offers a variety of free online resources to improve the study of American history. Features available on the web site include podcasts of historians discussing their work, lesson plans on major topics in American history, a searchable database of more than 60,000 primary source documents from the Gilder Lehrman Collection, featured documents with printable images and transcripts for classroom use, and online exhibitions. [ Read More ]