September 19, 2009 • 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. • Ivy Tech College • Bloomington, IN

A writer’s conference for authors in their teens and twenties? That’s right! Join authors, editors, publishers and literary agents, including best-selling authors Dana Carpender and Bob Hammel, for this day-long conference dedicated to young authors. The 16 workshops will include novel building, getting published, magazine journalism, playwriting, universalizing personal experience, online writing, memoir and more. An after-conference party will include an open mic, book signings and live music. The conference is open to all participants.

http://www.tntconference.com/

Perspectives of Teachers and Principals on the High School Dropout Problem

A Report by Civic Enterprises

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY      

Teachers and administrators in public high schools recognize there is a dropout problem, know they are confronted with daunting challenges in classrooms and in schools, and express strong support for reforms to address high dropout rates.

Yet, less than one-third of teachers believe that schools should expect all students to meet high academic standards, graduate with the skills to do college-level work, and provide extra support to struggling students to help them meet those standards. Although more than half of principals believe schools should hold these expectations for all students, significant majorities of both teachers and principals do not believe that students at risk for dropping out would respond to these high expectations and work harder. Our data, focus groups and colloquium indicate that the views of many teachers are shaped by what they see in the classroom, particularly among students who show low skill levels and weak motivation late into high school. Teachers, in large part, believe that they and their students are not receiving the necessary resources and supports. As a result, many teachers are skeptical about the possibility of educating every student for college.

Excerpt from an interview with David Ballard, recipient of the 2009 RAPSA Best Practices Teaching Award

The most important thing that you can do to teach mathematics is to provide ample opportunity for perfect practice. Students must practice Algebra, and they must practice it perfectly. To see that perfect practice is available to my students, I wrote and recorded an Algebra I and Geometry text. I have recorded the Algebra I and Mrs. Folse, our Geometry teacher, is recording the Geometry. These videos are available to our students via take home hard drives, take home DVD sets, in school networking, and now available via the internet to the whole world for free at  http://math.prairiland.net. I have been working hard to see that these videos become available and am presently converting them to MPEG-4 files to create faster downloads and to make them ready to dump into I-Pods, I-Phones, etc.  I am portable. The students can take me with them everywhere they go. All of the Algebra I and Geometry material on this sight is free for download and may be used by anyone. It is not for sale and is not to be sold. My number sense material will be for sale.

We mandate success. I call it mandatory opportunity. You can see my grade recovery policy on my teacher web-page.  www.prairiland.net/fm/dballard/files/2008-2009pare.doc.  We place our bottom 30% in an academic lab class as an Algebra I study hall. They do not stay the bottom 30% for very long. They use all 45 minutes positively. We require attendance to tutorials and detentions for academic shortfalls. Time on task is the answer.