Mentoring Minds - instructional materials to develop critical thinking skills

Mentoring Minds is an educational publishing company that develops K-12 instructional materials to help students develop critical thinking and problem solving skills. Experienced educators create the materials based on research and cover topics such as critical thinking, differentiated learning, instructional strategies, classroom management and more.

The company's main goal is to provide materials that help students increase their critical analysis and reasoning skills, along with problem solving skills. The curriculum does this through research based lessons and real-world connections.

Products include ELA, Math and Vocabulary curriculum programs, Professional Development tools, Critical Thinking programs, Assessments, RTI and more. The products combine print and online resources, as well as teacher editions and resources. You can take a guided tour of their products here: http://guidedtourdemo.mentoringminds.com/01/

Pricing is very reasonable and all of their resources qualify for Title I, III, and V Part D Funding. They will even help you find ways to fund your purchase.

Each state has a consultant that would work with you to provide the solution that best fits your needs.

Total Motivation Reading is one of their more popular products. It integrates critical thinking with ELA support and is aligned with the Common Core Standards. It unpacks each CCS so that teachers can find the gaps in student learning and fill them in.

Mentoring Minds bases all of their products on research to make sure that the resources will be effective in the classroom. You can read about their research here.

They also have a section call Thought Leadership, where they share free tips, research, articles and resources that help teachers improve teaching and learning.

These products can be very useful in helping struggling students, as well as helping all students learn critical thinking and problem solving - skills that all students need for the future.




Disclaimer - this article is a paid sponsored post by Mentoring Minds.


Related:

Important Skills Students Need for the Future

-

Using Google Drive as a Course Organizer

I am creating a curriculum for an Aircraft Design course for the high school level. Since it will be shared with many other people, I decided to do the organization in Google Drive, instead of Evernote like I usually do my course organization. I have not created official "lesson plans" yet, this is just the curricular materials and order of instruction.

I started by creating a top level folder for the course and then sub folders for each unit. Inside each folder are the materials - lecture slides, links, assignments and other resources and files.

The really cool thing I did was to create a single Google Doc that has the entire course outline on it and each section/item is a link to a folder/document/file in Google Drive. All the teacher has to do is bookmark that one Doc and everything links from there. To create the links, just go to the item (folder, doc/sheet/slides, or file) in Drive, right click on it and click "get link". Since there is a heirarchy in Drive, you only have to share the top level folder to someone else and they get access to everything in that folder and subfolder.

Here are some screenshots of the Drive layout and the main file. Try it out yourself.

Course Outline File:
(the links to files and folders will not work as they are private, but this is just for example use)



Related:

Google for Education Resources

Examples of using Evernote as: teacher, student, admin
Evernote for Education Resources




-

Report on State Science Standards - my thoughts on state curriculum

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute, a research group, just released a report on "State Science Standards in the US" where they evaluated the state level standards for science classes and curriculum. Only California received an "A" and DC, Mass, Virginia, South Carolina and Indiana received grades of "A-".  Ten states' science standards received "F's" - AK, ID, MT, NE, ND, OK, OR, SD, WI, WY). The site has links to each state's report card and you can also download the entire report. 

The standards were graded based on content and rigor, scientific inquiry and methodology, clarity and specificity and then each subject area: Physical Science, Physics, Chemistry, Earth & Space Science and Life Science.

My home state of Connecticut received a 6/10 or a "C". The report stated that the standards were well written but had some poorly phrased statements, a few scientific errors, and was missing important material. The standards are actually in three different documents for CT - The Core Science Curriculum Framework 2005, The PreK-8 Science Curriculum Standards 2009, and the Core Science Curriculum Framework K-10 2005. State standards don't change rapidly due to bureaucracy and other factors. The report does spell out where the errors and issues are and this will be useful when the state looks at redoing the standards. As you can see, the curriculum standards are really only up until grade 10. That is when students take the standardized state test, called CAPT. After that, there is little emphasis or effort put into curriculum and standards.

I was looking at the specific report card on Physics and had some thoughts about what this group said and what I think about it. There is very little in the state standards for physics. They are only two pages long and in chart form that lists a few topics and the main points to cover. The report did say that the coverage of heat and thermodynamics is "among the best they have seen." The only issue is that we don't have much for resources for teaching those concepts. I use PhET virtual labs to have students explore those topics. They did mention that there is almost nothing from modern physics in the standards. I cover some modern physics topics in my classes.

I've been working on the rewriting the physics curriculum for my district (it's over 12 years old) and I am trying to make sure that the curriculum meets the state standards while allowing teachers to have the freedom to teach it in the way that works best for their students. There are no required labs or projects, but there are a lot of ideas and links to resources and suggested labs and projects. This is what a curriculum and standards should be: a guide for teachers with resources to help them.

The standards should focus on the big ideas and topics, have resources and ideas for teachers, and also have resources on helping teachers not just teach content, but help them teach students the skills they will need to be successful in the future.

In a way, having less detailed standards is good for teachers. It gives us the flexibility to be able to cover topics that are relevant to our students (like the physics of sports) and to have time in the curriculum to do projects and inquiry labs. Standards that are too specific or detailed leave little room for the teacher to do things that are new or to cover other topics. Science does change rapidly with new discoveries and state level standards usually are very slow to change. I agree that certain topics should be listed in the state standards as mandatory, but there needs to be plenty of room and time in the curriculum and standards for teachers to be able to do projects, a variety of labs, address current events science, and work on topics that are more relevant to their specific students.

At the state level, a list of the minimum topics and skills required should be defined. But give teachers the ability to personalize their classes for their students. After all, teachers are the experts in education and their content area.




What do you think about state standards and curriculum?



Related:


Resources I use with my Physics classes instead of a textbook

Making School Relevant for Students

Experiments and Exploration are Vital to Science Education

STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Resources for Educators

Project Based Learning Resources

10 Important Skills Students Need for the Future

10 Tech Skills Every Student Should Have

If I were a curriculum or edtech administrator, I would...

Recently, Teach Paperless had a blog post asking readers to finish the statement, "If I were an administrator, I would...". 


I replied with "encourage teacher collaboration, support teachers in every way possible, encourage projects and team work, visit classrooms and talk to students, work WITH the faculty, parents and students to make the school the best it could be."


I wanted to expand on this idea and list what I would do if I were in charge of curriculum or educational technology for my district.


1. Implement Project Based Learning throughout the curriculum and in every grade. I would also want it to be interdisciplinary. 


2. Change the curriculum to be more in depth, and less breadth of topics (complaint of colleges). I would still have to make sure students are prepped for standardized testing (unfortunately), but I would look at better ways of having students learn and be able to do well on a test without resorting to teaching to the test.


3. Make sure the curriculum applies what students are learning to the real world. They won't remember a lot of facts and details, but if things apply to real life, it can make them better consumers and better citizens (by being knowledgeable). 


4. The curriculum should emphasize discovery, inquiry, teamwork, critical thinking, and problem solving, not remembering tons of facts. 


5. Ala Carte Professional Development for teachers - let them pick and decide what they need and want for training and support them throughout the year. 


6. Research, find, implement, and support new technologies that can improve teaching and learning. Find free (or cheaper) resources to replace paid or more expensive resources. (Ex. Google Apps for Education and Open Office instead of Microsoft).


7. Provide year-round support to teachers who are using and implementing technology resources. Make sure that they have both technical support and integration support. Ask teachers what they need or want for resources and help them find it. 


This is my short list of what I would want to do as an administrator. What would you do if you were in charge of curriculum or educational technology for your district? (and if you are in charge, what you do?)