Category Archives: Educational News

Invite Parents Into The Classroom!

October 11, 2013Advice, Common Core, Educational News, Educational ResourcesSandy Carl

September 21, 2013

Common-Core Messaging 101: Come See My Classroom

Jessica Cuthbertson

I used to believe that my workspace was a classroom. I used to believe that my job was to teach English/language arts. And I used to believe that my primary responsibility was to teach—period.

While on the surface all of these statements are technically true, I no longer hold these beliefs.

Instead, I believe I work in a learning laboratory, not a classroom. I believe I teach human beings, not English/language arts. I believe my primary responsibility isn’t to teach; it is to learn and facilitate the learning of others.

For some, this may seem like semantics. But for me, these beliefs drive everything I do. Experience, reflection, and implementing the Common Core State Standards have changed the landscape of teaching and learning for me.

When it comes to core beliefs, semantics matter.

And when it comes to the common core, what teachers say and believe matters to others as well. Do I believe we have a responsibility to inform parents about teaching and learning in the common core era? Absolutely. But beyond this, I believe we have a greater obligation to open our doors wider than ever and let them see for themselves. I believe we need fewer classrooms and more learning laboratories. I believe it is our role to be ambassadors for student learning, showcasing what the standards look like in action.

It’s fascinating to see what adolescent readers can do when supported with close-reading strategies. It’s far more interesting to read a writer’s argument, informed by research and critical analysis, than it is to read a formulaic or decontextualized piece of writing. And it’s hard to envision what “text complexity” looks like without listening in or participating in a discussion about a complex text.

When you confront the mythologies about the standards and strip away all of the political rhetoric, you are left with a document. A set of high, clear, vertically aligned expectations that outline what all students should know and be able to do to become college and career ready.

The standards are not a secret, so we shouldn’t keep them from parents. In fact, we should be clear about what they are and even clearer about what they are not. They are not a curriculum or a federal edict. They are not an invasion of privacy, a usurping of local control, or a corporate takeover of K-12 education.

While all of these claims may make for sensational headlines, the student learning results speak for themselves. But it is up to us to show, share, and speak about what the standards mean for students. The implementation of the common core has significantly improved the teaching and learning in Room 214 and in my colleagues’ classrooms across the nation.

But don’t take my word for it. Come see for yourself.

Jessica Cuthbertson, a Colorado educator with 10 years’ experience, teaches middle school literacy and has served as a literacy instructional coach for Aurora Public Schools.

Posted by Jessica Cuthbertson at 10:21 AM | Permalink | 11 Comments | 2 Recommendations

Collegeboard – SAT Changing toward Common Core

October 9, 2013Common Core, Educational NewsSandy Carl

VIEW MOBILE/WEB VERSION HERE | October 8, 2013

OCTOBER 8, 2013

Stagnant SAT Scores = Call to Action

The College Board has released the 2013 SAT scores, which show that only 43 percent of this year’s SAT-takers graduated from high school prepared for college-level course work, a statistic that has remained steady over the past five years. Underrepresented students showed increases in both test participation and average scores. Of all 2013 test-takers, 46 percent were minority students—the largest percentage ever. The percentage of African American SAT-takers that met the college- and career-ready benchmark rose from 14.8 percent in 2012 to 15.6 percent. For Hispanic students, that number rose from 22.8 percent to 23.5 percent.

The College Board deems test-takers who attain at least a score of 1550 out of 2400 as ready for college because they have a 65 percent probability or higher of receiving a B- grade or better during their first year in college. Students who meet the benchmark are also more likely to complete their degree. As part of its 2013 score report (PDF), the College Board contends that all students must have access to rigorous courses to help them succeed in college.

Currently, the College Board is in the process of redesigning the SAT to align with the Common Core State Standards to better reflect what students need to know for success after high school.

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Great Expectations is what Parents Should Hear!

October 3, 2013Advice, Educational NewsSandy Carl

September 23, 2013

Great Expectations: What I’ll Tell Parents About the Common Core

Ilana Garon

I first learned about Common Core State Standards at a professional-development seminar in the summer of 2010. At the time, the standards seemed relatively innocuous—yet another of the top-down mandates, I figured, that would be embraced momentarily as the “silver bullet” for myriad education problems before being thrown aside for the next big thing. I enjoyed the seminar, not because I thought the common core itself was so life-changing, but because I loved having the opportunity to collaborate meaningfully with my colleagues at other schools and share best practices.

Some three years later, the common standards factor into everything I do in the classroom—every single unit plan I create, and every single lesson therein, is designed to contain tasks that align with the standards. Do my assignments ask kids to cite strong and thorough textual evidence to support analysis (RL 9-10.1)? Sure they do. Will my students analyze a theme as presented by two different artistic mediums (RL 9-10.7)? You bet they will. Will they be analyzing how an author draws on source materials like the Bible in a later work (RL 9-10.9)? Yup—within the next three weeks. They’re reading Lord of the Flies, and we’ll be discussing how the island is like the Garden of Eden, how Simon is the Christ-figure, and how the titular Lord of the Flies is another name for . . . well, I’ll let you figure that one out.

In my experience, the parents of our students have limited familiarity with the standards, taking it as a given that the curricula we teach our students contain the things they need to know. They’re less concerned with the specifics than with graduation requirements being met. In truth, the few who do know about the common core may be laboring under the same misconception that I was during the summer seminar: That the common core was merely a framework by which I could design more rigorous lessons, rather than a set of expectations about what students would already know and would be able to do in a certain grade—expectations upon which subsequent standardized tests would be based.

At the high school level, this has taken a while to materialize; the past couple of years, my students have still been cowering in the face of the New York state Regents examinations. This year, in addition to Regents, a new set of “assessments” is materializing based on the common core. As is the typical M.O. of the common core (wherein apparently a one-week seminar is expected to be sufficient preparation for a complete overhaul of one’s entire teaching style and body of materials), teachers haven’t even seen the format of this exam. Hey, on the bright side, at least we won’t be teaching to the test!

The thing about the common standards is that they are optimistic at best. However capable my students may be of making those types of connections and intellectual leaps under the guidance of a teacher, they are—for the most part—unable to do so on their own without significant scaffolding. And the test, presumably, will require them to do just that. In a more general sense, the common core operate under the premise that the kids have background knowledge and literary experience that they simply don’t. While I do not dismiss the goals of the common standards, and am happy to continue working with the students towards deeper comprehension, a broader knowledge base, and more lucid writing, to take for granted that all students will possess these same skills is naïve.

In the public schools, particularly, we work with students who are often several grades behind where the standards prescribe them to be due to interrupted formal education or language barriers; we also work with special-needs students, whose strengths and weaknesses are diverse. One mainstay of good pedagogy is “differentiation,” the act of tailoring lessons to individual students, or groups of students, in ways that address their individual needs and offer them challenges at their respective levels. The implementation of the common core as a set of intellectual requirements for students, as opposed to an instructional lodestar for teachers (as I’d initially understood them), seems to fly in the face of that—and to the extent that they inform standardized testing, even more so.

So what will I tell the parents of our students, should they ask me about the common core at parent-teacher night in October? I’m unsure. I certainly cannot imagine our parents exerting overthostility towards the standards—I think confusion and concern about how this will affect their children’s chances of graduation are more likely. And if that is the case, I’ll tell them to continue monitoring their child, and keep in touch with me—the same as I always do.

Ilana Garon is an English teacher at a high school in the Bronx, N.Y. She recently published her first book, ‘Why Do Only White People Get Abducted by Aliens?’: Teaching Lessons From the Bronx.

Posted by Ilana Garon at 12:18 AM | Permalink | 6 Comments | 1 Recommendation

Give Parents a Clear Window for Common Core

October 2, 2013Educational NewsSandy Carl

September 26, 2013

Creating Greater Classroom Transparency Around the Common Core

Rod Powell

Mystical, dark, malevolent, ominous, pornographic. Glancing at my Twitter streams (#commoncore, #nced, #ncpol), I’ve seen each of these words applied to the new Common Core State Standards. But I’ve been teaching for 26 years, and guess what? I’ve embraced these standards in my classroom practice. What’s the big deal?

A simple question for me, I guess. I understand and work in the classroom of today. The value of these standards is crystal clear to me: They are simply things that a thinking student should be able to do.

Those lacking a ground-level view of the classroom seem to be the ones leveling complaints. Let me briefly run through them.

The common standrards are a overreaching imposition of federal authority into the classroom.(Nope. They are a set of complex skills that are used to supplement and inform local curriculum. And they were adopted by states.)

Controversial topics and texts are mandated. No texts are mandated. They are sometimes suggested as examples, but teachers are free to use whatever texts and topics they see fit.

Student privacy will be undermined. I’ll be honest, I don’t know a lot about this one. But I’m not sure those who raise it do, either.

The standards themselves are weak. They are as rigorous as a teacher needs them to be to challenge his or her students.

Again, all of this is easy enough for me to see. I work with the standards every day in the classroom with real, live, energetic 9th graders.

But why are common so misunderstood by parents and other stakeholders? They all have the best interests of students at heart. Is it that they’re too busy to delve into our complex classroom world? Too intimidated by our educational bureaucracy? So concerned about testing that they miss what is being taught?

As teachers, we need to be able to communicate the true value of the common standards: They speak to skills that students should have, things they should be able to do, as thoughtful individuals operating in an increasingly complex world.

An idea comes to mind:

Let’s increase the transparency of our classrooms. Give parents a clear window into what goes on in our common core world every day, our vision of a 21st-century classroom. The tools to help do this are there: Remind 101, Twitter, Facebook, class blogs (student and teacher), Google Docs. Why not a quick text sent to parents using Remind 101 giving a brief parent friendly description of a common-core-related activity that students took part in that day? How about a quick tweet to Twitter-hip parents with an essential question addressed with children? Couldn’t students rotate blogging about class activities on the teacher’s webpage?

And I like this question that we might pose to hostile parents (and there are a few): How would you teach your child if you were their teacher?

Would you go with the traditional “good-enough-for-me, good-enough-for-them” approach? In other words, would you use decades-old worksheets; push your child to memorize lists of dates, people, and formulas; test all this learning via multiple-choice tests; and throw in some jump-through-the-hoop projects that don’t actually teach anything?

OR…

Would you energize your child by presenting authentic scenarios to explore; finding and creating personalized and relevant learning materials and texts; developing activities that would challenge them as writers and oral communicators; all the while measuring their progress with thorough assessments?

Seems to me that would be a pretty good starting point for explaining the common core.

Rod Powell, a National Board-certified teacher (social studies), has been teaching for 26 years. ACTQ Collaboratory member, Rod loves the challenges of teaching in a 1:1 digital classroom environment at Mooresville High School in Mooresville, N.C.

Posted by Rod Powell at 7:44 AM | Permalink | 8 Comments | 1 Recommendation

Help Parents to Understand Common Core Standards

October 1, 2013Educational NewsSandy Carl

September 25, 2013

Parent-Teacher Collaboration Key for Common Core

Alison Wright

Fortunately, it has been my experience as a classroom teacher that parents in my community trust that teachers—as well as district and state administrators—are making the best decisions possible when it comes to student learning. Personally, I have not once been questioned about the math standards or curriculum that I am teaching. That being said, since Kentucky adopted the Common Core standards three years ago, I know that there have been more questions than ever regarding the new standards and what changes are in store in terms of assessments and curriculum.

When I asked a parent at my school what her thoughts are about the new standards, this is what she had to say:

“As a parent, I welcome any and all new information about what my children should know at school, and be able to do. I feel that in order for them to compete in tomorrow’s job market, I owe it to them to stay informed, and help in any way I’m able—and that includes knowing the expectations. From what I know of the common core thus far, I feel these standards provide more meaningful problem-solving skills, and that is a change I welcome.”

Her statement solidifies to me the importance of parent-teacher collaboration when it comes to improving student learning, and implementing the common standards well will require a team effort.

Here’s what teachers can (and should) do to communicate standards with parents:

1) Post the standards, or at the very least make sure that they are readily accessible to students and parents. Students should know everyday what they are learning, and what we expect of them. In this Teaching Channel video, Katie Novak explains the power of communicating with students about the common standards. In addition, she asks her students to grade her on the how well she teaches the standards every week. If the students are well-versed on the standards, then the parents will be also.

2) Use available resources (and there are many!). Just last week, Kentucky Education Commissioner Terry Holliday sent an email to all state teachers that contained a great resource for communicating the common standards to parents. Other resources like these from the New York State Department of Education are also useful when beginning conversations, or responding to questions or concerns.

3) Collaborate with education groups that specialize in parent communication—such as your local Parent Teacher Association. In Kentucky, the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence works to engage parents and to empower them as education leaders. They offer a variety of trainings through the Commonwealth Institute for Parent Leadership to help parents become better-informed education partners. As one past attendee noted, “We know that when parents are well informed, the effects on school success are magnified.”

4) Speak out! As Commissioner Holliday is quoted as saying in this Time magazine article, “Teachers are your best voice in the community.” Sometimes we forget this. Teachers are second only to firefighters as the most trusted profession in the country, and it is crucial that teachers use this platform to communicate with stakeholders. Tweet about those awesome “aha!” that happen everyday in your classroom, or email a newsletter home to parents, highlighting the standards that students are learning- and what they are achieving.

What else can teachers do to help parents understand the new standards and become classroom partners?

Ali Wright teaches Algebra 2 and AP Calculus at Lafayette High School in Lexington, Ky. A National Board-certified teacher with 11 years of experience, she is also a member of the Center for Teaching Quality‘s Implementing Common Core Standards team.

Posted by Alison Wright at 9:20 AM | Permalink | 6 Comments | 1 Recommendation

September 30th Education News!

September 30, 2013Educational NewsSandy Carl

Answers to Your Top Six Shutdown Questions

The federal government is less than 12 hours away from a shutdown because Congress has been unable to pass a bill to fund federal programs as the new fiscal year begins. This week’s Capitol Connection cuts through the politics and brinkmanship to outline what a shutdown would mean for the nation’s students, educators, and schools.

1. What’s the bottom line for schools and districts? How would a government shutdown affect daily operations?

Most schools and districts are unlikely to feel immediate effects of a shutdown because the advanced funding nature of federal education spending means that states and districts have already received much of their federal funding for the school year. In addition, the vast majority of school funding (about 90 percent) comes from state and local sources. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Education has awarded dozens of competitive grants in the past several days so that it is not held up by a shutdown.

2. Will any education programs be affected in the short-term?

Head Start (which provides early childhood education to low-income families) and Impact Aid (which helps fund school districts that cannot fully rely on local tax revenue, such as those on military bases or tribal lands) depend heavily on federal dollars that are not necessarily distributed at the beginning of the school year. Thus, these programs could experience more acute and immediate shutdown consequences. This is especially concerning because Head Start and Impact Aid have already deeply felt the effects of sequestration. More than 50,000 children have lost access to Head Start and many Impact Aid districts have been forced to eliminate positions and programming because of sequestration.

3. But I’ve heard about furloughs at the U.S. Department of Education. What effect could those have on local schools and districts?

Ninety percent of the department’s more than 4,000 employees will be furloughed during a government shutdown, leaving just a skeleton crew to address schools’ and districts’ questions and concerns. Grant processing will lapse, and questions will probably go unresolved for the duration of the shutdown. In addition, contract approvals will likely be delayed. See the department’s shutdown plan, which outlines its strategies for minimizing the effect of a shutdown.

4. How will the shutdown affect the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) reauthorization?

With few congressional staff at work during the shutdown, no progress on ESEA reauthorization will be made. Moreover, all discussions and negotiations among members of Congress will focus on fiscal issues instead of education. Meanwhile, the minimal staff at the Department of Education will delay decisions on pending ESEA waivers.

5. How will the shutdown end?

The shutdown will end once Congress passes a bill funding the government and the president signs it. The bill could extend funding for as long as a year or it could provide funding for a much shorter amount of time. If Congress passes a short-term solution, it will create a similar situation to the one we are currently in and will require passage of additional deadline-driven solutions to keep the government running.

6. What does it mean for schools when the government reopens?

Department of Education staff will face a backlog of work once the shutdown ends, so schools should expect delays in responses to their questions or requests for information. Any short-term spending bill approved by Congress is likely to fund education programs at current FY13 levels, which already reflect a 5 percent cut because of sequestration. Schools and districts should prepare for another round of across-the-board sequestration cuts, which are slated to take effect in January if Congress doesn’t intervene. A mid-October congressional showdown over the federal debt ceiling only adds to the uncertainty.

Capitol Connection will continue to follow all the action and provide you with the most relevant information.

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Common Core Institutes throughout the US!

September 25, 2013Educational News, Educational Resources, Teacher SupportSandy Carl

How to Implement Common Core
State Standards in Your School

REGISTER TODAY!

Seating is limited.

ASCD, the leader in Common Core State Standards implementation, presents over 20 one-day and two-day institutes to help you align learning, teaching, and leading to the new standards.Two-Day Common Core Institutes

Common Core and the Understanding by Design^®Framework: Planning Units with the End in Mind

Little Rock, Ark., November 18–19, 2013
Atlanta, Ga., December 9–10, 2013
New Orleans, La., January 14–15, 2014
Honolulu, Hawaii, February 3–4, 2014

Lead the Change to Common Core State Standards: Get Essential Tools for School and District Leaders

Little Rock, Ark., November 20–21, 2013
Denver, Colo., December 2–3, 2013
Long Beach, Calif., December 2–3, 2013
Los Angeles, Calif., December 4–5, 2013
Atlanta, Ga., December 11–12, 2013
New Orleans, La., January 16–17, 2014
Nashville, Tenn., January 27–28, 2014
Las Vegas, Nev., February 3–4, 2014
Honolulu, Hawaii, February 5–6, 2014

One-Day Common Core Institutes

Using Formative Assessment to Meet the Demands of the Common Core

Denver, Colo., December 4, 2013
Nashville, Tenn., January 28, 2014

Implementing the Common Core State Standards: English Language Arts and Literacy Focus

Los Angeles, Calif., December 5, 2013
Atlanta, Ga., December 9, 2013
Honolulu, Hawaii, February 3, 2014
Las Vegas, Nev., February 5, 2014

Implementing the Common Core State Standards: Mathematics Focus

Los Angeles, Calif., December 6, 2013
Atlanta, Ga., December 11, 2013
Honolulu, Hawaii, February 5, 2014
Las Vegas, Nev., February 6, 2014

REGISTER for an ASCD Common Core Institute in a city near you, and explore what matters to you most!

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YEA! Young Entrepreneurs Academy via Visalia Chamber of Commerce

September 12, 2013Educational NewsSandy Carl

WE NEED YOUR HELP!!

We have just finalized our student roster for the 2013-2014 YEA! class. Beginning September 17th local high school students will begin their journey to start and run their own REAL business.

Throughout this program students will brainstorm, create a business plan, pitch their ideas to an Investor Panel (think shark tank), participate in a trade show, listen to guest speakers, go on field trips to local businesses, register their company with the County Clerk, and work closely with mentors to make their dream a reality.

_________________________________

WHAT WE NEED:

* Graphic Designers

* Web Developers

* Business Plan Reviewers

* Mentors

* Individuals Willing to Listen to Elevator Pitches

If you are intersted in volunteering to help the YEA! class please contact

Nicola Wissler, YEA! Program Manager:

559-734-5876 or nicola@visaliachamber.org

____________________________________

We want to thank the businesses and individuals who have already stepped up and volunteered to participate in the YEA! program this year. Your support is greatly appreciated!

Lastly we would like to thank the local Chamber Members who are helping to sponsor the YEA! program. If you would like become a sponsor please call

the Chamber 559-734-5876

Become a sponsor CLICK HERE

California State Adopts Next Generation Science Standard

September 5, 2013Educational NewsSandy Carl

REL#13-82	CONTACT: Tina Jung
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE	PHONE: 916-319-0818
September 4, 2013	EMAIL communications@cde.ca.gov

State Schools Chief Tom Torlakson Announces State Adopts Next Generation Science Standards

SACRAMENTO—New science standards designed to prepare students to thrive in a changing economy were approved today by the State Board of Education, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson announced.

“The adoption of the Next Generation Science Standards in California mark a crucial step in making sure our students are prepared to succeed after they leave our classrooms,” Torlakson said. “Scientific information and technology have changed remarkably since the last time California updated its science standards, and how and what we teach have to change with them.”

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) will bring science instruction up to date. NGSS emphasizes a deeper focus on understanding the cross-cutting concepts within and across scientific disciplines. These new standards integrate engineering practices with science practices to help students understand the workings of science and the natural world. They also provide a coherent progression of learning from kindergarten through grade 12, so students learn step by step the knowledge and skills they need for college and careers.

“The Next Generation Science Standards represent a huge leap forward for California’s students and our schools,” said Mike Kirst, president of the State Board of Education. “Scientific innovation remains at the core of the California economy, and schools play a huge role in equipping the workforce of tomorrow.”

Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) related industries are major components of California’s economy. A 2011 U.S. Department of Commerce study, “STEM: Good Jobs Now and For the Future,” found that over the past 10 years, growth in jobs involving STEM fields was three times greater than that of non-STEM occupations. The report also forecast that STEM jobs are expected to continue to grow at a faster rate than others in the coming decade.

California was among the lead states that developed the standards, in a voluntary process conducted in an open and collaborative way over the last 18 months. California teachers, scientists, college professors, business and industry leaders, and educational experts all took part in an 80-member California NGSS review team that thoroughly examined the standards five times.

Next, a Strategic Leadership Team will be appointed by Torlakson to develop a plan to implement the NGSS. This includes a timeline for implementation, adopting a science framework, developing student assessments, and strategies for school districts. Once the team completes its work, their strategic action plan will be presented to the State Board of Education for approval at a future meeting.

In the meantime, California is preparing to host its first annual STEM Symposium, set for November 18-19, 2013, at the Sacramento Convention Center. This symposium will highlight how quality STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) programs align with Common Core State Standards and the Next Generation Science Standards and provide strategies and resources for program implementation.

For more information, visit the California Department of Education’s Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics Web page.

# # # #

The California Department of Education (CDE) is a state agency led by State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson. For more information, please visit http://www.cde.ca.gov or by mobile device at http://m.cde.ca.gov/. You may also follow Superintendent Torlakson on Twitter at https://twitter.com/cadepted and Facebook athttp://www.facebook.com/CAEducation.

The State Board of Education is the governing and policy-making body for public K-12 education in California. The President of the Board is Michael W. Kirst and the Executive Director is Susan K. Burr. Board members are appointed for four-year terms by the Governor of California and are confirmed by the State Senate. For more information, please visithttp://www.cde.ca.gov/be.

California Department of Education, Communications Division

1430 N Street, Suite 5602, Sacramento, CA 95814

Main: 916-319-0818; Fax: 916-319-0100

E-Mail: communications@cde.ca.gov; URL: www.cde.ca.gov/nr/

Students Use Zombie Science to Learn About Disease

August 27, 2013Educational News, Educational Resources, TechnologySandy Carl

Exclusive: Zombie apocalypse? Students use ‘zombie science’ to learn about disease spread

By Amanda Woerner

Published August 08, 2013

FoxNews.com

A zombie apocalypse: Is it medically possible? Scenarios depicting large-scale attacks of the undead have been playing out on the big screen for years.

And this fall, they’ll hit classrooms too.

Students around the country can now immerse themselves in “zombie pandemics” in order to learn about how diseases spread and affect the body. It’s all part of the new STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Behind Hollywood Program, which teachers and students can download for free online to use at home or in the classroom.

The series was created by Texas Instruments (TI) and The Science & Entertainment Exchange, a program of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and seeks to inspire student’s interest in math and science careers. The STEM program will include installments on everything from forensics to zombies and superheroes.

“STEM jobs are now the fastest growing opportunities for young people,” Melendy Lovett, president of Texas Instruments Education Technology told FoxNews.com. “So it’s really important to (us) to be part of building a strong pipeline of STEM capable students, and that’s what drives our focus, getting more students interested and excited about STEM and achieving at high levels in science and math.”

While zombies are not a real life concern, the elements explored in the program closely echo real life scenarios of disease spread, thanks to the expert advice of Dr. Steven Schlozman, a professor at Harvard Medical School and author of the book The Zombie Autopsies.

“If you…get rid of (the) rising from the dead, (zombies) will map more comfortably than most folks would like onto real neurobiological explanations and phenomenon,” Schlozman told FoxNews.com. “Then you can play that tongue-in-cheek morbid game of how would that happen.”

So how exactly would a zombie apocalypse begin? First, mankind would need to be hit by a virus capable of simultaneously attacking multiple regions of the brain, Schlozman said.

Students will learn that zombies – with their awkward, unbalanced gaits, lack of problem-solving skills, insatiable hunger and high levels of aggression – would likely have contracted a virus attacking the cerebellum, basal ganglia, amygdala, hypothalamus and frontal lobe regions of the brain.

Through this hypothetical scenario, students will learn various facts about the brain – for example, that the hypothalamus is the region of the brain affecting satiety and that zombie-like aggression could be triggered by a virus attacking the amygdala, which controls our fight-or-flight mechanism, according to Schlozman.

Figuring out how a zombie disease would attack the body isn’t all that students will be tasked with doing. They’ll also join the “Zombie Virus Inoculation Task Force” to figure out how they could control and contain the outbreak – just as if they were employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

“The graphs of a zombie outbreak would look like those of H1N1 or any other disease making its way from outbreak to pandemic,” Schlozman said. “In this country, the CDC, or internationally, the World Health Organization (WHO), would sit down the epidemiologists, scientists, public health experts and physicians and say, ‘What are the distinguishing characteristics of this disease? What’s happening? What else does this look like?’”

Students are required to calculate the rate of disease spread and assess how to control the disease – such as by creating a vaccine. As part of this activity, teachers are encouraged to educate students about real diseases that have been controlled through inoculations.

“It’s easier (for students) to contemplate a zombie disease spread than (the spread) of some horrific (disease) like Ebola,” Schlozman said. “So one of the reasons they’ve used zombies is it’s less scary than the real thing, and now we have this curriculum where we learn about disease spread, spread through biting, airborne (toxins), imagining what if the city is this big, or that big. Then we combine that with the biology.”

In the case of a zombie outbreak, Schlozman says the CDC would come up with appropriate triage measures and decontamination procedures. Then, scientists around the world would quickly begin developing a vaccine to treat the rapidly spreading virus.

“These are lessons we learned with SARS, H1N1 and security measures we’ve learned through the threat of bioterrorism,” Schlozman noted.

By the end of the program, Schlozman and Lovett hope that students will emerge with a better understanding of how math and science can help contain the spread of diseases – and that some students will start to contemplate careers in which they could join the real-life fight to contain contagious diseases.

“In this, it’s like they were working in the CDC, exploring, problem solving like a…scientist in the real world,” Lovett said.

The program will be available to students and teachers online starting today at www.stemhollywood.com. The program is primarily aimed towards middle school and high school students.

Passion In Education

At the Heart of Teaching