Silverback Central

Big reform bet leads to ISAT improvement

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:00:00 GMT

Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the May 21, 2013 edition of IdahoEdNews and was written by Clark Corbin. It was reposted here with the permission of IdahoEdNews.

We are looking for creative and successful Solutions to education issues around the country. To submit your effective education solution for a blog post please email Alex at asundali@silverbacklearning.com.

Knowing test scores weren’t where they needed to be, Falls Valley Elementary School hired a coach and began to think of the school in terms of a team.

This year, the Bonneville Joint School District elementary school in Idaho Falls hired longtime educator Rodd Rapp to fill a new position as school achievement specialist.

Rapp, who taught first grade for 16 years and also worked as Title I director in neighboring Jefferson County, made it his mission to help students grow and improve their Idaho Standards Achievement Tests (ISAT) results.

Tom Gauchay

Under the leadership of superintendent Chuck Shackett and Falls Valley Principal Tom Gauchay, Rapp helped all 540 students in first through sixth grades develop their own academic plans.

Rapp became their academic coach by meeting with each student individually on a quarterly basis to monitor their progress and update their academic plans.

“Rodd became their best friend,” said Gauchay, noting that students believed in the idea and were able to recite their own personal goal from memory.

The school also bolstered its Professional Learning Communities team and refined its Response to Interventions program this year, building in a half-hour block four days a week to focus on student achievement.

Help is available for students who need remediation or just extra practice, as well as students who excel and wish to push ahead.

The idea is to help all students improve, not just those who struggle.

On the day when interventions weren’t offered, educators devoted time to tracking student performance.

The school sought a greater degree of parental buy-in by staging parent nights and sending home sample ISAT questions with the idea families would work on one question a night until test day.

With the state moving to Idaho Core Standards next year, and the high-stakes Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium tests following in 2014-15, students, parents and educators need to step up now, Gauchay said.

End of year ISAT results show growth in the following areas:

In third grade, there was a 10 percent increase in the number of students graded as proficient or advanced in language arts and math, along with a 4 percent increase in math.
In fourth grade, 17 percent more students earned proficient or advanced results in language arts, along with 6 percent more in math and 2 percent more in reading.
In fifth grade, the average reading score was 216, 12 points above the proficient threshold, while the average math score was 223 – just one point shy of the advanced threshold.
In sixth grade, there was a 9 percent increase in students graded as proficient or advanced in language arts, along with a 6 percent increase in both reading and math.

Rapp and educators were especially proud of the average sixth-grade math score of 237 – just one point shy of the advanced threshold for the seventh grade.

Standardized tests don’t normally lead to cartwheels, but Falls Valley made an exception this year.

To celebrate, the school staged pride assemblies quarterly. Now that final ISAT results are available, individual grade levels are spending the final week of the year celebrating.

Rodd Rapp

“I haven’t seen this level of excitement and energy before in an elementary school,” Rapp said. “The biggest change we saw was the fact students took so much ownership of their own learning this year.”

The reform was so successful that Bonneville plans to expand the academic coach program to each of its 14 elementary schools next year.

Each academic coach will work with two schools. Ten elementary schools plan to use Title I funding to pay for the positions, Rapp said, while the district plans to use some of the $21 million that the Legislature freed up for professional development and merit pay to fund positions at the other schools.

One way Rapp and Falls Valley educators monitored students’ performance throughout the year was through the Silverback Learning Solutions Mileposts software system. The program, which the Bonneville district bought for $55,000 this year, allowed educators to track and manipulate data for individual students, classrooms or grade levels to monitor student achievement and identify pupils who were falling behind.

Gauchay said it took a building-wide commitment to achieve growth. He credited teachers, parents and students with buying in.

Still, there was some initial resistance to using data and aiming for such a large-scale reform.

“Rodd has given teachers more confidence in their ability to mine data and look at intervention as well,” Gauchay said. “There was a little reluctance to do that, especially among more seasoned teachers. But he has shown them how to access the reports.”

Teachers Make a Difference Everyday

Wed, 22 May 2013 14:26:52 GMT

Teachers always making a difference, it's just what they do. We are so thankful for the educators who care for our children everyday. http://on.today.com/13I9pLs

It's here! Announcing a brand new Gooru experience for teachers

Wed, 22 May 2013 13:15:00 GMT

Check out the latest changes to Gooru. Find resources & make a collection in seconds!

22 May 2013

Over the past few months, we've been collecting your feedback to develop a new Gooru experience that saves you time while you're looking for and organizing learning resources for your students. Today we're excited to release an update that will allow you to use Common Core State Standard filters as you search, find English Language Arts resources and collections, and create quizzes! Check out the new experience and see how easy it is to create a collection! Help us spread the news by forwarding this email to a friend or colleague. Thank you for your feedback, ideas and support- we couldn't have done this without you!

In this issue, learn:

Collection-making made easy!

Features added from your feedback

Brand new design makes Gooru easier to navigate
Search filters help you refine your searches by academic standard, subject, resource type, and more
English Language Arts resources and collections aligned to Common Core Standards
Drag and drop to build collections from Search
Create quizzes by writing your own questions or copying questions or quizzes found in search

Discover, Organize and Teach with Gooru

Discover the best learning resources on the Web in seconds.
Organize learning resources to create collections or quizzes.
Teach* with Gooru by creating assignments for students.
Students Study* with games, videos, and questions hand-picked by you!

*Stay tuned! These capabilities will be released this summer for iPad.

How these changes will affect your existing content
Your Shelf collections will not be accessible in the new version immediately. To access your existing collections on Classic Gooru, simply click on the blue tab at the top left corner that reads "See Classic Gooru." Learn more in the Support Center or email us at support@goorulearning.org if you have any questions or concerns.

How you can continue helping us shape Gooru
Like what you see? Forward this email to a colleague! We also welcome you to fill out this form to let us know what you think of the new experience.

Happy learning,
The Gooru Team

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Bonneville middle school works to curb F’s

Mon, 20 May 2013 20:00:00 GMT

Editor's note: This article originally appeared in the May 19, 2013 edition of IdahoEdNews and was written by Clark Corbin. It was reposted here with the permission of IdahoEdNews.

First-year principal Jason Lords and teachers at Rocky Mountain Middle School knew they needed to do something about the F’s. At this middle school in Idaho Falls’ Bonneville Joint School District, a student body of roughly 770 students had collectively earned 101 F’s at the end of first semester in 2011.
By Nov. 15, 2012, students were on track to amass 156 F’s at Rocky Mountain, which earned three stars in the state’s new five-star rating system.
Educators needed to keep students from blowing off assignments until the very end, falling a semester behind as high school loomed.
To tackle the problem, a small team attended a PLC Academy workshop to research new ideas and solutions.
They traveled to observe Lakeridge Junior High School in Utah. The school and its principal, Garrick Peterson, was recently named best in the state.
And they focused on professional learning communities and breaking into teams of teachers to emphasize collaboration and student achievement.
Based on their research, Rocky Mountain’s staff sought extended, regular contact with students who were falling behind.
They needed time outside of the traditional instructional hour. But lunches are always hectic, and before and after school, students are regularly rushing for a ride or darting to an extracurricular activity.
The decided to tweak the schedule, rework the daily advisory period and add a 30-minute intervention into the day. During that time, students in danger of failing break into teams to focus on math, language, social studies or science assignments, depending on where they are falling behind.
“Flex time still builds relationships with students who struggle,” Lords said. “But one thing we wanted to make sure we were doing is track it to see if it is a benefit to the students.”
The staff also surveys parents and students about the new policies.
With Idaho Core Standards, the state’s version of Common Core, on the horizon next school year, Lords and the staff are focused on students mastering content, and they wanted students more prepared this year.
But they also wanted to reward students who were doing fine.
Now, students with A’s, B’s and C’s participate in 30-minute activity of their choice during the interventions. They spike volleyballs in the gym, catch a movie in the auditorium or play in the computer lab.
Additionally, teachers print mini report cards four days a week, so students and educators know exactly where they stand.
The team is pleased with the early results. At the end of the first semester this year, students recorded only 39 F’s, about one fourth the number from mid-November.
Health and physical education teacher Lisa Jolley said the new strategy is working.
“Kids are motivated by it when they look at D’s and F’s,” Jolley said. “It’s the social time, what motivates this age group.”
Many students said they have benefitted from the flex time and zero tolerance F policies. And it isn’t just students who regularly struggle who have reaped rewards.
“Some days, when I’ve been absent, I go into flex time and finish up the stuff I’ve been gone for,” seventh-grader Torrey Becker said.
There’s also an incentive that motivates students.
“It rewards kids who keep their grades up,” Torrey said.

Rocky Mountain students who are maintaining their grades enjoy a game of volleyball during a recent flex time session.

Prasad Ram Keynotes at the Silverback Summit for Mileposts Users

Fri, 03 May 2013 20:00:00 GMT

Learn how to access a vast network of community-curated learning resources on Gooru through Silverback’s award-winning Mileposts instructional improvement system.

Mileposts’ integration of Gooru capabilities allows educators to customize and share their favorite open educational resources according to student needs via individualized learning plans and interventions. “The nation’s schools are all striving for personalized learning environments provided at the local level, combined with more access and participation from parents."states Dr. Jim Lewis, CEO, Silverback Learning. "The Gooru and Silverback partnership creates parent-friendly, personalized learning environments that are ready-made for schools anywhere and of any size.”

According to Dr. Prasad Ram, “The combination of Silverback Learning and Gooru immediately simplifies this entire process, which seamlessly aligns student learning materials with Common Core State Standards to best meet their educational needs, and build upon the learning that happens in class throughout the day."

Prasad will be our keynote speaker on June 20. In this presentation from Strata 2013, Prasad Ram takes a look at the big picture, exploring how big data technologies may help us, in his words, "honor the human right to education" by creating the learning resource catalog Gooru.

Register today for the Silverback Summit 2013, Silverback's annual user conference event and learn more about Gooru.

Click here to register

Silverback Learning Solutions Partners with Linkit! to Raise Student Achievement

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 20:15:00 GMT

SILVERBACK LEARNING SOLUTIONS PARTNERS WITH LINKIT! TO RAISE STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT

Seamlessly Integrated Combined Technology Solution Of Mileposts™, Gooru and LinkIt! Empowers Educators

BOISE, Idaho, April 24, 2013 – Silverback Learning Solutions (www.silverbacklearning.com), an educator-founded technology company and developer of Mileposts™, a results-driven instructional improvement system installed in schools K-12 nationwide, today announces a partnership with LinkIt! (www.linkit.com), the K-12 education technology, assessment and data-management company. The agreement follows Silverback Learning Solutions recent partnership with Ednovo, a non-profit education technology start-up that develops Gooru, a search engine for learning. This new partnership offers powerful longitudinal data reporting on all state and district summative and classroom formative testing through Mileposts, combined with an intuitive user experience to quickly and easily create assessments and manage capabilities linked to standards and deliverable to a wide variety of end-user interfaces through the LinkIt! assessment system. The combination of these tools (Silverback, Gooru, and LinkIt!) will work seamlessly together through single sign-on via the Silverback Mileposts interface, sparing busy educators the hassles of logging in and out of multiple solutions, while combining the best of breed capabilities into one user experience.
“We learned long ago that any solution meant to have meaningful impact on students requires the voice of educators at its core,” said Dr. Jim Lewis, CEO of Silverback Learning Solutions. We’re so excited that educators can see their feedback coming to life in a combined solution that represents the leading-edge in personalized education, content search, student and teacher assessment, and instructional management capabilities mapped to standards. It is so rewarding to collaborate with our partners to take these technologies and refine them into a user experience in support of a shared mission to improve educational outcomes for every student.”
Silverback Learning Solutions’ instructional improvement system, Mileposts, enables personalized learning environments for students currently in 13 states throughout the U.S. Mileposts is a cloud-based learning solution designed to erase the achievement gap and raise the level of success for all students, regardless of socio-economic status or learning ability by allowing teachers to easily create personalized learning plans at the point of instruction for all their students, based expressly on each student’s learning needs.
Mileposts combines Linkit!’s laser-focus of formative and summative assessment, which is easy and flexible for teachers to manage in a classroom while students are assimilating knowledge. Combined with Gooru’s education search engine and tools to organize resources into playlists for learning, teachers now have the new “triple play ” for student success. All three companies are cloud-based, built upon industry standards, whose systems and support processes integrate beautifully, offering unrivaled capability and performance without the overhead costs found in large publishing company point solutions.

“Educators working in a spectrum of school environments from states across the nation continue to help us immensely as they inform our path to develop educational assessment solutions. Our partnership with Silverback Learning Solutions succeeds by giving teachers a tightly integrated “ecosystem” of capabilities and resources to help them work as much more efficient and collaborative teams to increase student achievement,” Joshua Powe, Co-founder and President of LinkIt!. We are driven with singular focus in our specific area of expertise, but we work together seamlessly alongside partners like Silverback Learning Solutions with a shared mission of helping school districts develop personalized learning environments in each classroom.”

About Silverback Learning Solutions
Silverback Learning Solutions empowers educators to drive intentional instruction for greater achievement in all students. Built in the classroom, Silverback’s Mileposts provides quick and easy access for teachers to build and share customized learning plans for each student, including collaborative Response to Intervention (RtI) management. For more information visit www.silverbacklearning.com.

About LinkIt!
LinkIt! (www.linkit.com) is an emerging leader in the field of data-driven technology solutions. Our mission is simple: create the most effective, affordable solutions for K-12 schools looking to improve student performance through the use of real-time data. LinkIt! is focused on creating a simple yet comprehensive system for assessment creation, delivery, scoring, and reporting. The core platform consists of an assessment authoring system, a reporting and data warehouse featuring a dashboard-style interface, and sophisticated, intuitive analytical tools for tracking student and teacher performance. The platform offers integrated content modules including a standards-aligned item bank, a benchmark assessment series, and a library of intervention lessons available in both digital and print format. LinkIt! also creates custom reports for schools and districts, such as identifying students-at-risk by achievement level, teacher, grade, and subject, as well as progress-monitoring student performance and teacher growth. For more information on LinkIt! visit www.LinkIt.com.

Producing Technology That Works for Educators

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:45:00 GMT

Editor's Note: This article originally appeared in the EdWeek Marketplace K12 Blog on April 16, 2013 and was written by Sean Cavanagh. Our comments are below the article.

April 16, 2013 The topic of the panel was "Return on Education" (a play on return-on-investment) but at least part of the discussion dwelled more directly on bringing a return on technology for educators and schools.

The session at the ASU/GSV Education Innovation Summit on Tuesday was moderated by Deborah Quazzo, co-founder and managing partner of GSV Advisors.

Quazzo guided the panelists through a variety of topics, from debates about whether for-profit companies deserved more government and philanthropic support to how "return on education"—how the benefits of investments in education can be quantified, in terms of student achievement, access to education, and other payoffs—can be measured.

But the panelists also talked about why investments in technology haven't produced the same benefits for education as have occurred in other fields, such as medicine. Stacey Childress, a deputy director at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said comparisons between education and the medical field (which were heard a lot at the conference) are relevant—though not always in the way those making those analogies intend. (Disclosure: the Gates foundation funds portions of Education Week's coverage about the K-12 marketplace and new approaches to schooling.)

In the medical field, technology providers are typically highly attuned to the needs of doctors and hospitals, a level of understanding that is often lacking among tech developers seeking to work in K-12, Childress said.

In the medical field, tech providers "don't go off on their own and bang around and invent" products without understanding the users' needs, she said. "They work really closely with medical professionals....that's one thing we can get a lot better at in the education industry."

Too many ed-tech developers don't pay enough attention to what research says about what's likely to work in the classroom, Childress said. And they don't have an understanding of whether tech products can be adapted to meet the needs of a classroom teachers' "work flow."

What's more, when ed-tech products fail, some developers are inclined to blame teachers for not using new tools effectively, said Childress.

The complaint is often that "the teacher didn't use it right," observed Childress, who then asked, "Isn't that [disconnect] kind of on the creator?"

While myriad company officials have touted technology's potential to bring innovation and improvement to schools, Childress wasn't alone in raising her concern about the developer-to-school disconnect. The need for ed-tech developers to improve their understanding of teachers' needs, and how schools and districts actually function, was brought up by numerous speakers, who said that divide can undermine technology's potential in K-12.

"The need for ed-tech developers to improve their understanding of teachers' needs, and how schools and districts actually function, was brought up by numerous speakers, who said that divide can undermine technology's potential in K-12."

Stacey Childress points out that too many ed-tech developers don't pay enough attention to what research says about what is likely to work in the classroom. At Silverback Learning Solutions, we believe the educator must be at the genesis of great education technology and we learned long ago that any solution meant to have meaningful impact on students requires the voice of the educator at its core. Silverback Learning Solutions (Silverback) was founded by Dr. Jim Lewis, a 40-year educator with one simple mission: to maximize achievement for all students, while not letting any one student fall through the cracks. The combined project experience of Silverback's team (fortified by over 200 years of educator experience) has shown us that the best solutions must begin with the educator. As we support Mileposts users around the country we often hear from teachers and administrators who use our solution, like Dr. Joseph Wise, Chief Educator Officer of Distinctive Schools in Chicago who remarked, “During my career I have tried and used more data tools than I can recall. Mileposts is the best tool we could have implemented for our educators to use data to improve instruction and increase focus through individualized plans and supports.” We believe Mileposts , created with the educator at its core, is the catalyst to sparking collective brainstorms, conversations, and the sharing of best practices around analyzing/evaluating student growth in the classroom.

Meet Prasad Ram and attend Gooru sessions at the Silverback Summit

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 18:45:00 GMT

Join us for a conference that is rich in content and high on energy. Experience inspiring and thought-provoking keynotes as well as presentations from Mileposts users, Silverback Learning Solutions staff, and our partners, Gooru and Linkit!, on ways to use data to improve education and decision making.

Meet Keynote Speaker

Prasad Ram

Prasad will give the opening keynote address on Thursday, June 20, 2013

Prasad Ram (aka Pram) is the founder and CEO of Ednovo, a non-profit education technology start-up that develops Gooru, a search engine for learning. While working at Google, Pram devised a prototype to address his problem of finding age and topic appropriate educational resources on the web. What began as a "20% effort" evolved into a year-long pilot in India that included 1,000 students across 25 classrooms. Pram subsequently left Google to pursue a non-profit education technology start-up that would develop Gooru, a search engine for learning. Pram has previously worked at Xerox Research, Dynamx Technology (co-founder), Yahoo! and Google. Pram has a Ph.D. and M.S. in Computer Science from UCLA, and he obtained his B.Tech. in Computer Science from IIT-Bombay.

Gooru is a search engine for learning, allowing teachers to discover millions of education resources, organize them into collections or quizzes to be shared with students. Silverback and Gooru have created a unique partnership to benefit Mileposts educators and enriche the academic lives of Mileposts students by integrating CCSS and Gooru lessons in one click.

“Teachers are focused on maximizing student education in the classroom, and therefore are commonly time-challenged to search for and select the best matched educational materials for each and every student based on their individually assessed needs,” said Dr. Prasad Ram, CEO of Gooru. “The combination of Silverback Learning and Gooru immediately simplifies this entire process, which seamlessly aligns student learning materials with Common Core State Standards to best meet their educational needs, and build upon the learning that happens in class throughout the day. Teachers can more efficiently and confidently supplement their own strategies with the best available free content on the web, ranked by learning outcomes and usage by their peers around the world. At the same time, this technology also empowers parents to work more actively in partnership with teachers and take a more productive role in studying at home.”

Come immerse yourself in the Silverback Summit 2013, Silverback's annual user conference event and learn more about Gooru in 3 unique breakout sessions.
Silverback partners fuel the Summit conference by sharing ideas, experience and insights.

Click here to register

Computers Cannot Replace Real Teachers. An opinion by Wendy Kopp

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 18:00:00 GMT

APRIL 13, 2013 Editor's note: Wendy Kopp is CEO of Teach for All, a global network of independent organizations dedicated to expanding educational opportunity, and founder and board chairwoman of Teach for America, a national corps of recent college graduates who commit two years to teach in high-needs schools. This piece was first published on the Schools for Thought Blog on CNN.

(CNN) -- Tech visionary Steve Jobs understood better than anyone the impulse to believe that technology can solve our most complex societal problems. "Unfortunately it just ain't so," he said. "We need to attack these things at the root, which is people and how much freedom we give people. ... I wish it was as simple as giving it over to the computer."
That's certainly true when it comes to education, particularly in impoverished communities.
As a founder of two organizations that recruit top college graduates to expand educational opportunity, I've spent a lot of time examining what's at work in successful classrooms and schools over the past two decades. In every classroom where students are excelling against the odds, there's a teacher who's empowered her students to work hard to realize their potential. Whenever I ask the leaders of successful schools their secret, the answer is almost always the same: people, people, people. They are obsessed with recruiting and developing the best teams.

Research confirms that great teachers change lives. Students with one highly effective elementary school teacher are more likely to go to college, less likely to become pregnant as teens and earn tens of thousands more over their lifetimes. Faced with the choice between giving every child in a school his or her own laptop or putting 30 of them in a classroom with one exceptional teacher, there's no question which is the better investment.
So it's disappointing to see more and more people herald technology as an educational panacea while dismissing the indispensable role of people.
In a recent article on this site, Richard Galant asked whether we'd be better off ditching teachers, giving kids computers and leaving them to their own devices to teach themselves and each other. The idea is based on the work of Sugata Mitra, an education professor who set up an experiment in India where he gave children in the slums access to a "computer in the wall" and found that without guidance, they were soon using it to learn on their own.
Galant's piece could leave the impression that teachers are obsolete and that their main function is to enforce discipline and administer tests. (Instead of spending money on teachers, Mitra recruits cheerleading "grannies," older women from the UK who offer the kids words of praise and encouragement via Skype.)
The idea that computers can ever replace teachers and schools reveals a deep lack of understanding about the role leadership plays in student success.
When Anam Palla started teaching ninth and 10th grades at an all-girls school in Pakistan, her students were performing four years behind grade level and many considered themselves nalaiq (incapable). She set a mission that each of her girls would gain the skills and self-confidence to become contributing members of society.
"My first task was to build a sense of responsibility in the girls towards their own learning and success, which would be achieved by collaborating with other members of the class and the community at large," she says. Today, here students are not only thriving academically, they are empowered and independent young women.
Want to fix education? Ditch teachers How chess is saving these children
Now, I'm no Luddite. Technology has enormous potential to address educational needs more efficiently, help teachers improve their performance and enrich and individualize student learning. Indeed, in places such as India that face massive underserved populations and a shortage of qualified teachers, it's hard to imagine making a dent without leveraging technology in a big way.
But we must be wary of concluding that we should focus our energy on technology rather than people.
Computers cannot create a culture of excellence and push students to meet high expectations.
Computers cannot visit students' homes to get to know their families and engage them in their progress.
Computers cannot raise money and organize college visits to show students who have never left their communities what they're working toward.
Technology is a tool, not a silver bullet. And like all tools, it can be helpful or harmful depending on how we use them.
Rocketship Education, a high-performing charter network that serves low-income students in California, uses technology to enhance -- not replace -- the work that teachers are doing. Students spend up to two hours a day in a computer learning lab mastering basic math and reading skills through exercises and puzzles, freeing up teachers to spend their time on advanced skills and concepts. The schools invest the money they save through computer learning back into teacher salaries and coaching. At Rocketship, technology strengthens the personal ties between students, parents and teachers that are the key to its success.
Children growing up in poverty need all the support and nurturing from adults that they can get. If we want a real revolution in education, we should make an all-out effort to attract and keep our best people in our schools. Technology can be a powerful force in that effort when guided by leaders who understand what students and teachers need to do their best.
We can't outsource the human connections at the heart of the learning experience. Transforming the lives and learning of our children will take more than machines. It will take the best of our human resources.

Wendy Kopp
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Come One Come All to the Silverback Summit

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 21:34:05 GMT

The Power of Partnership

Come immerse yourself at the Silverback Summit 2013, Silverback's annual user conference event. Share your success and collaborate with educators at every level. Inspiration from peers, thought leaders, visionaries, researchers, kids.

Plan for a program that is rich in content and high on energy. Experience inspiring and thought-provoking keynotes as well as presentations from Mileposts users, Silverback Learning Solutions staff, and our partners, Gooru and Linkit!, on ways to use data to improve education and decision making.

Silverback partners fuel the Summit conference by sharing ideas, experience and insights.

Click here to register

Silverback is an EdTech Digest Finalist

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 19:00:00 GMT

April 8, 2013 Silverback is a finalist! Results are in for the third annual EdTech Digest Awards Recognition Program honoring tools, trendsetters and leaders in the education and technology sector. The distinguished awards program recognizes outstanding solutions—and the best and brightest minds—in education and technology. This year there was no shortage of either, as entries hit an all-time high. From dozens to hundreds of startups; from blips to billions in venture capital; and from millionaire kindergarten teachers sharing lesson plans to YouTube tutors on the cover of Forbes — the edtech world continues to raise the roof in terms of sheer numbers and activity. Past winners of the EdTech Digest Awards Program have included, among others: Pearson, Epson and McGraw-Hill, as well as emerging solutions providers Panarea Digital, StudySync and StudyBlue. This year’s program features some of the most robust entries ever. In all, more than 200 finalists were named in more than 40 categories, including Silverback Learning Solutions in the category of best new "Cool Tools".

How Society Grades Teachers

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 15:15:00 GMT

April 8, 2012

(This article was originally published on November 12, 2011.) When President Obama gave his annual "Back-to-School" address this year, he praised three extraordinary high school students for giving back to their communities. One was generationOn Youth Advisory Council member Jake Bernstein, age 17, who launched StLouisVolunteen.com, a website that connects young people with volunteer opportunities in St. Louis. The President urged students to become engaged in their communities, saying "America needs your passion, your ideas, and your energy."
What the President did not say should come as no surprise to educators. Teachers play a significant role in fostering the passion, ideas, and energy that motivates students to become engaged in society. This meaningful and important work happens every day in and outside of K-12 classrooms - work that can only be measured by the future strength of our democracy.

While policy makers focus on grading teachers by their abilities to teach subject content and raise test scores, there are many other measurements slipping through the cracks. Among them is a teacher's ability to change lives because of who they are as human beings -- how well they listen, encourage, and inspire children to be active participants in civil society. These vital abilities cannot be measured quantitatively yet they have immense capacity to change the world.

In a recent qualitative study, Civic Learning at the Edge: Transformative Stories of Highly Engaged Youth, college students recalled the powerful influence of educators in their lives. Memories included the elementary and middle school teachers who taught the importance of positive values like cooperation, compassion, teamwork, and getting along with classmates. They recalled simple service projects that made them aware of people in need. When students reached high school, the values they developed in younger years helped shape their civic identities.

In-depth interviews and surveys of students from diverse households noted three ways that teachers inspired young people toward service and active citizenship, outlined below. While the study focused on adolescence, findings pointed to the developmental nature of engaged citizenship and the systemic importance of families, schools, and communities throughout the K-12 years.

Service-Learning

Teachers who tied their curriculum to service activities in the real world helped students gain skills in critical thinking, planning, organizing, and problem-solving. Teens gained most when service projects pushed them out of their comfort zones to see the world differently. Face-to-face encounters with people who were suffering or were different from them were transformative, giving them the internal energy and passion to make their own mark on the world.
Through a homeless outreach project at his school, Giovanni walked around Philadelphia "finding people who were homeless...talking to them, saying this is where you can get a shower, clean clothes, or a permanent mailing address. This other world opens to you. You find they are really people just like you."

When Danielle participated in a geography class service-learning project through Heifer International, it ignited a passion for citizenship and environmental stewardship. She changed the way she saw service from "something you did on the side when you had time" to "a lifestyle."

Instilling Self-Efficacy

While teachers deliver curriculum, facilitate service-learning projects, and teach about the workings of democracy, this study discovered an often hidden and invaluable contribution they make to teenagers who go on to become engaged citizens. Over 90% of study participants mentioned their high school teachers as being instrumental to the committed young adults they became. Overwhelmingly, students admitted that teachers mentored them in ways that developed self-efficacy. Without belief in themselves, students said they would not have the belief that they could change the world.

What did teachers do that nurtured self-efficacy? Students said they 1) supported and encouraged, 2) listened, 3) set high expectations, 4) showed interest in them as individuals separate from academics or civic activities, 5) fostered self-decision-making, and 6) provided another perspective during problem-solving.

Following a service-learning project at the age of 15, Ashley turned her love of media into educating people about recycling. Speaking of two high school teachers, she said, "They were right alongside me....and I could go to them and talk about anything, any difficulties. I talked to them about everything. It was like my possibilities were endless for whatever I wanted to do in the world."

Civic Role Models

More than half of the civically-engaged youth in this study named a teacher as their civic role model, with the remainder, in order, divided between civic leaders, parents, everyday people, clergy, and peers. Civic role models were described quite differently from teachers who helped nurture self-efficacy, although occasionally they were the same.

Ranked in order of importance, students valued teacher civic role models for their 1) passion and ability to inspire, 2) clear set of values, 3) commitment to community, 4) selflessness, and 5) ability to overcome obstacles in life.

Now a volunteer in Boston's Chinatown, Ryan leads gambling addiction awareness seminars to Asian youth. Speaking of his teachers, he said, "the fact that they are so dedicated to teaching students and helping students and empowering students...that's such a meaningful gesture. They are always trying to give back to the next generation. That really inspires me."

Society Grades Teachers by the Quality of its Citizenry

It is no surprise that teachers change lives through actions that encourage service and learning in and outside the classroom. But they also change lives because of who they are as human beings -- how well they listen, encourage, and help children believe in themselves.

Society will grade teachers, not only by test scores, but by how our young people develop into caring, compassionate, respectful, and engaged members of our democracy. When political and corporate leaders figure this out, perhaps we will recommit ourselves to the civic mission of schools and further develop the capacity of teachers to foster social change and innovation.

Resources

GenerationOn: Youth division of Points of Light Institute encourages teachers, after-school program leaders, and parents to inspire, equip, and mobilize youth to take action that changes the world and themselves through service. Resources are available for kids and teens that focus on issues including the environment, animals, homelessness, hunger, literacy, and seniors.

CIRCLE: The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement provides the latest research on the civic and political engagement of young Americans and the civic mission of schools.

Dr. Marilyn Price-Mitchell is a developmental psychologist, educator, researcher, and writer who studies how today’s youth grow into healthy, successful, and engaged adults. She synthesizes multidisciplinary research in psychology, education, sociology, child & adolescent development, social psychology, and neurobiology to bring trusted, evidence-based research to parents, teachers, mentors, coaches, and all those who support kids. Visit her blog at Roots of Action; Twitter; Facebook.

Brainy Approached to Learning

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 16:00:00 GMT

BRAINY APPROACHES TO LEARNING

We know that each student is unique, but what about each student's brain? This new Students at the Center infographic draws on the research from Mind, Brain, and Education to depict the brain science behind student-centered approaches to learning.

File:

BrainyApproachesToLearning_Infographic-PDF_032713.pdf

Author:

Christina Hinton and JFF

Associated with Paper:

Mind, Brain, and Education

Resource Type:

Multimedia

Austin Redux

Tue, 26 Mar 2013 00:15:00 GMT

Rudi Lewis, COO of Silverback Learning Solutions is heading back to Austin to speak at the EdTech Austin Meetup on Wednesday, March 27. Along with Bringup, FastFig and DevJumpstart, Silverback will follow up on conversations begun at SxSWEdu, discuss why the "Ed" in edtech is so important and delve into the messages created around funding opportunities.
The EdTech Austin Meetup is a hub for the amazing keynotes, panel discussions, edtech mixers, member spotlights, and hands-on learning experiences that inspire teachers, entrepreneurs, technologists, education reformers, and ed-tech enthusiasts to connect, collaborate, and innovate. Austin Meetup members consist of people whose careers and interests lie somewhere at the intersection of education and technology. They meet to explore this confluence, to learn about the latest technologies that are supporting teachers, and to hear from teachers about the problems in education that must be fixed now.
At the Austin meetups, the community is challenged to think through ways in which technology can enhance and promote real learning to positively transform education, and we know there are amazing education advocates all around the world with a similar mission. The aim is to share and engage with advocates around the world to realize positive systemic (or disruptive) change. You can join The EdTech Meetup virtually by following them on Twitter at @edtechaustin and join in ongoing conversations by using #edtechaustin.
Read more about EdTech Austin here

What Students And Parents Think About Mobile Technology

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 20:15:00 GMT

Via Edudemic

Look around at any restaurant or mall and it’s easy to see: adults are always connected to their mobile devices. But as this technology becomes even more ingrained in our lives, what can we expect for our children? Studies show that – used wisely – technology can be an important part of their everyday lives as well.

Check out the infographic below to see how mobile technology is integrated into the lives of even the youngest kids.

A Few Takeaways

Over 1/2 of children under 12 who use iPads use them for educational purposes.
10% of children under 1 use mobile technology, 39% of kids age 2-4, and by age 5-8, 54% of kids are using mobile technology.
The majority of parents now agree that technology can be used for educational purposes, and they’re no longer as opposed to its use as they once were!
While 46% of apps that are used by kids 12 and under, a whopping 42% of apps used are for learning math skills!

LinkIt! Issues "Step Back, Leap Forward: A 2012-2013 Data-Driven Instruction Survey"

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 15:00:00 GMT

New York, NY (PRWEB) March 21, 2013

LinkIt! (http://www.linkit.com), the K-12 education technology, assessment and data-management company, announced today the results from their “Step Back, Leap Forward Report: A 2012-2013 Data-Driven Instruction Survey.” This nationwide survey of over 500 K-12 school principals and district administrators was designed to capture the collective voice of actual practitioners as they contemplate and prepare for a confluence of modernization initiatives including accountability, assessment, technology, student performance, teacher efficacy and other critical issues spanning the K-12 education sector. The results offer valuable insight as many school districts prepare for Common Core State Standards as well as PARCC and Smarter Balanced, the multi-state consortia working together to develop next-generation K-12 assessments in reading, language arts, and mathematics. The survey was completed with participation from Silverback Learning Solutions (http://www.silverbacklearning.com), a K-12 educator-founded technology and data-management company specializing in data-driven instructional supports for teachers.
“The K-12 industry is at a major inflection point around the use of data; a practical, cost-effective and timely migration towards personalized learning is on the way,” says Ryan Winter, senior vice president of corporate development. “The last few years can be characterized by budgetary challenges and accountability reform around principal & teacher evaluation and the adoption of national Common Core State Standards (CCSS) that have precluded data from being front and center,” he adds.
Additional insight and conclusions from this survey include:
●    Importance of data: 90% of respondents believe that data will be the primary driver of what teachers teach, how they teach, and to whom they teach within the next 4 years (67% in the next 2 years).
●    District-level support: 60% of the respondents believe that district-level support is “not enough” in all areas of data use. Compared to 2 years ago, perception of district-level support has dropped in all areas.
●    Low teacher utilization: only 36% of respondents believe that over 60% of their teachers are actively using data to drive instruction. In our previous survey two years ago, this percentage was 6 points higher (42%).
●    Low teacher proficiency: District level administrators and principals believe that only 16% of teachers are proficient in the use of data and that administrators are approximately 3 times more proficient.
●    Textbook assessments perceived to be lowest utility but highest cost: Only 5% of administrators find program-based tests provided with textbooks to be “very useful.”
●    Great concern for PARCC and Smarter Balanced: Over 30% of respondents expressed “great concern” with respect to taking these new high stakes tests in four categories: computer infrastructure, network and connectivity, analysis of assessments, practice assessment items.
●    Hardware preferences: 65% of the respondents perceive computers, laptops, and netbooks to have a great ROI. Interactive whiteboards (49%), tablets (46%), and clicker response systems (35%) are also perceived as very good investments. Smart/mobile phones and eReaders like Nook and Kindle were voted the least at 12%.
Joshua Powe, co-founder and president of LinkIt!, says, “While many headwinds still exist, we believe that technology and educator momentum is now at our backs and significant changes in public education are underway. We are very optimistic and anticipate significant growth in assessment-driven student performance and teacher productivity over the next five years that will dramatically surpass the accountability outcomes of the last 10 to 15 years since the No Child Left Behind legislation was enacted.”
“We are collaborating together from a holistic consideration of student, parent, teacher and administrative perspectives in order to spur conversation and gain insights that meaningfully contribute to the development of assessment tools and resources combined,” says Dr. Jim Lewis, CEO, Silverback Learning Solutions. “We have a collective mission to modernize and measure every aspect of K-12 education, which in order to succeed will require the very best of everyone’s innovation and collaboration,” he adds.
Sources: The results of this survey are based on a nationwide online questionnaire conducted by LinkIt! between July 2012 and September 2012. The online survey was sent to 11,975 administrators, with a 4.2% response rate or 511 respondents, 51% whom were principals and 49% whom were district administrators, to gain insight into educators’ perception of student performance data. No state represented more than 10% participation in the sampling.

Victims of the Education Sequester are Poor Children and Special-Needs Students

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 17:15:00 GMT

Submitted by Alex Sundali

Tuesday, March 19, 2013 The Atlantic The sequester's guillotine has little regard for good or bad programs as it unselectively slices spending across the country, but perhaps nowhere does its indiscriminate blade fall more harshly than within education. The students who will lose out will be the ones we should be most careful to protect: children from poor families and special needs kids.

Federal funding for education will be slashed by 5.1 percent, until Congress can agree on a new budget. Though the federal government only makes up about 10 percent of the total education spending, this share is significant in every town budget. Schools need Washington's money to provide basic services for its students, as states and localities have faced their own budget crises in recent years.

To understand the severe unfairness of these cuts, let's start with a brief primer on federal education funding. The majority of federal funding for education is targeted for two groups of school kids -- the poor and the disabled. Title 1 (federal support for low-income school districts) and Head Start (the pre-school program for disadvantaged children) serve the disadvantaged kids. The Department of Education support for special education amounts to between a sixth and a quarter of education spending in any given year.

LEARNING TO LOVE "LEARNING"

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 14:00:00 GMT

New study gives insights to help foster students’ love of learning

February 26, 2013 Editor’s Note: Here on Silverback Central, we enjoy posting what we feel are compelling issues facing educators today and as they prepare to educate in the future (with our two cents thrown in, of course.) As always, we appreciate your discussion and comments, so please feel free to voice your opinion in the comments section below.

Our focus today is on teaching students to love the opportunity to learn, not only in school, but in all aspects throughout their lifetime. Some students don't natively understand how to discover their passions, so creating curriculums that get students excited about learning can be as foundational as teaching them to read and write. Children need to discover and develop a passion for learning as early as possible, so that the “yearning for learning” carries on throughout the paths they create over a lifetime, whether it’s a course of study, a new job, a new hobby, or even a new relationship that sparks their interest and requires their focused attention. Learning is continuous, and loving to learn can become a child’s special strength or “super power” when positively linked to motivation and emotion.

Katrina Schwartz wrote an excellent article, “7 Essential Principles of Innovative Learning”, on KQED's brilliant Mind/Shift site earlier this month. In the article, Katrina and her contributor Jennifer Groff of the Center for Curriculum Redesign turned us on to an interesting book, The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice, by researchers at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD.) The book outlines seven important principles for innovative learning that we believe are spot on, so if you get the chance, please check out the article and the book. We really liked OECD’s inclusion of “Principle #3: Emotions are an integral part of learning.” Often when creating learning plans for students, emotion gets overlooked, but many successful teachers are finding keys to motivating students by learning more about the emotions that make each student “tick.” A team sponsored by Stanford School of Education built a professional development session called “Feelings Count: Emotions and Learning”, in which they teach: “Emotions are important in the classroom in two major ways. First, emotions have an impact on learning. They influence our ability to process information and to accurately understand what we encounter. For these reasons, it is important for teachers to create a positive, emotionally safe classroom environment to provide for the optimal learning of students. Second, learning how to manage feelings and relationships constitutes a kind of ‘emotional intelligence’ that enables people to be successful.” (The full PD session is available as part of The Learning Classroom: Theory Into Practice course on Learner.org.) Daniel Goleman, psychologist and author of the best-selling book Emotional Intelligence, echoes those sentiments, as quoted in the Stanford session: “The elements of emotional intelligence—being aware of our feelings and handling disruptive emotions well, empathizing with how others feel, and being skillful in handling our relationships—are crucial abilities for effective living. We should be teaching the basics of emotional intelligence in schools.” Where and how have you found ways to successfully work emotional intelligence into your practice?

We also liked what the OECD book had to say about “Principle #6: Assessment should be for learning, not of learning.” As Silverback CEO Dr. Jim Lewis is oft to say, “Too often we get caught up in autopsies of student data instead of wellness exams that can help students gain confidence and encouragement in their learning process.” Silverback’s entire focus is on educational technology that helps teachers quickly and easily grasp relevant student data from the massive piles of data that exist in schools today, and then use that data to influence instruction for that child at that moment. This helps teachers massively personalize the learning process, and improves student engagement because learning becomes more personal and more relatable to the student, which in turn makes the student more emotionally invested in the outcome, bringing us full circle to Principle #3 above. As the Schwartz article echoes from the OECD book: "Assessment should be for learning, not of learning. Assessments are important, but only to gauge how to structure the next lesson for maximum effectiveness. It should be meaningful, substantial, and shape the learning environment itself.” Groff sums it up nicely in the Schwartz article: “Good teachers do this informally most of the time, but when it’s done well and more formally it’s a whole structure and methodology where you collect feedback on the learning pathway and it drives the next step that you take.”

Take a moment to think of how you gain feedback and course-correction on each student’s learning pathway, and how that has added to the emotional engagement of your students. We’d love to hear your thoughts!

U.S. schools brace for federal funding cuts

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 18:00:00 GMT

The Washington Post reports that "...schools across the country are sending out pink slips as they brace for the possibility of deep federal budget cuts that could take effect next week, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Thursday." Read the whole story here http://wapo.st/Wfmrgr

The worst eighth-grade math teacher in New York City

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 18:00:00 GMT

Is this how we should be evaluating teachers and students? We don't think so. What do you think? Let us know. This article was originally published by EducationViews.org on May 16, 2012 and was written by Aaron Pallas.

For 10 months, Carolyn Abbott waited for the other shoe to drop. In April 2011, Abbott, who teaches mathematics to seventh- and eighth-graders at the Anderson School, a citywide gifted-and-talented school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, received some startling news. Her score on the Teacher Data Report, the New York City Department of Education’s effort to isolate a teacher’s contribution to her students’ performance on New York State’s math and English Language Arts (ELA) tests in grades four through eight, said that 32 percent of seventh-grade math teachers and 0 percent of eighth-grade math teachers scored below her.

She was, according to this report, the worst eighth-grade math teacher in New York City, where she has taught since 2007.

“I was angry, upset, offended,” she said. Abbott sought out her principal, who reassured her that she was an excellent teacher and that the Teacher Data Reports bore no relation to her performance. But, the principal confided, she was worried; although she would enthusiastically recommend Abbott for tenure, the Teacher Data Report could count against her in the tenure process. With a new district superintendent reviewing the tenure recommendation, anything could happen.

Using a statistical technique called value-added modeling, the Teacher Data Reports compare how students are predicted to perform on the state ELA and math tests, based on their prior year’s performance, with their actual performance. Teachers whose students do better than predicted are said to have “added value”; those whose students do worse than predicted are “subtracting value.” By definition, about half of all teachers will add value, and the other half will not.

Carolyn Abbott was, in one respect, a victim of her own success. After a year in her classroom, her seventh-grade students scored at the 98th percentile of New York City students on the 2009 state test. As eighth-graders, they were predicted to score at the 97th percentile on the 2010 state test. However, their actual performance was at the 89th percentile of students across the city. That shortfall—the difference between the 97th percentile and the 89th percentile—placed Abbott near the very bottom of the 1,300 eighth-grade mathematics teachers in New York City.

How could this happen? Anderson is an unusual school, as the students are often several years ahead of their nominal grade level. The material covered on the state eighth-grade math exam is taught in the fifth or sixth grade at Anderson. “I don’t teach the curriculum they’re being tested on,” Abbott explained. “It feels like I’m being graded on somebody else’s work.”

The math that she teaches is more advanced, culminating in high-school level algebra and a different and more challenging test, New York State’s Regents exam in Integrated Algebra. To receive a high school diploma in the state of New York, students must demonstrate mastery of the New York State learning standards in mathematics by receiving a score of 65 or higher on the Regents exam. In 2010-11, nearly 300,000 students across the state of New York took the Integrated Algebra Regents exam; most of the 73 percent who passed the exam with a score of 65 or higher were tenth-graders.

Because student performance on the state ELA and math tests is used to calculate scores on the Teacher Data Reports, the tests are high-stakes for teachers; and because New York City uses a similar statistical strategy to rank schools, they are high-stakes for schools as well. But the tests are not high-stakes for the eighth-graders at Anderson.

By the time they take the eighth-grade tests in the spring of the year, they already know which high school they will be attending, and their scores on the test have no consequences. “The eighth-graders don’t care; they rush through the exam, and they don’t check their work,” Abbott said. “The test has no effect on them. I can’t make an argument that it counts for kids. The seventh-graders, they care a bit more.”

The state tests, she believes, are poorly equipped to assess real mathematical knowledge, especially for high-performing students. “They’re so basic; they ask you to explain things that are obvious if you’re three years ahead,” she says. The Anderson students “understand it at a different level. They want to explain with equations, not words.” But the scoring of the free-response items on the tests emphasizes a formulaic response, with the scoring instructions often looking for a single keyword in a response to garner credit.

“They’re not accepting answers that are mathematically correct,” Abbott notes, “and accepting answers that aren’t mathematically correct.” And the multiple-choice questions? “Multiple-choice questions don’t test thinking,” she declares. Knowing how to answer them is “just an art.”

When she taught PSAT prep classes while on the faculty at the Bronx High School of Science, she realized that she was “teaching how to eliminate the wrong answer, not how to get to the right answer.” She didn’t mind doing that outside the classroom—but in her classroom, “mathematics is about deep understanding, and enjoying the process.”

How do her students perform on the content that she actually does teach? This year, the 64 eighth-graders at Anderson she teaches are divided into two groups, an honors section and a regular section. All but one of the students in the honors section took the Regents Integrated Algebra exam in January; the other student and most of the regular-section students will take the exam in June. All of the January test-takers passed with flying colors, and more than one-third achieved a perfect score of 100 on the exam.

“They did phenomenally,” Abbott said. “If they did so well, I don’t see how they can say I added no value whatsoever.”

In mid-February, the courts authorized the public release of the Teacher Data Reports, and they were published in print and online by major media outlets in New York City. “It was humiliating,” Abbott said. “To be published online, and stay there forever—it felt like an invasion of privacy.” She was terrified about the possible backlash from parents.

But of the parents of the 128 seventh- and eighth-graders she is teaching this year, only one wrote to her school principal—to express appreciation for a number of things she had done in her classroom. Anderson parents are a notorious bunch; they’re like helicopter parents on steroids. “I’d be more worried about the parents whose students haven’t had me—their preconceived notions that I must be a bad teacher,” Abbott said. “They have this idea that I’m the worst eighth-grade math teacher in the city.”

This summer, New York State will release the new iteration of the Teacher Data Reports, ranking English and math teachers in grades four through eight all across the state on their contributions to their students’ scores on the state tests. For Carolyn Abbott, the numbers will be little more than a curiosity. She has decided to leave the classroom, and is entering the Ph.D. program in mathematics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison this fall.

“I love to teach,” she says. And she loves mathematics. Ultimately, she decided, the mathematics was more important than the teaching, although she envisions teaching mathematics at the college level in the future. “It’s too hard to be a teacher in New York City,” she says. “Everything is stacked against you. You can’t just measure what teachers do and slap a number on it.”