Instructor (1990) articles from January 2000

Instructor (1990) archives from January 2000

Checks and Balances.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... How Does Your Salary Rate? Would you like to know which states in the country rank highest and lowest in teacher salaries and where your state ranks? Could you tell Instructor in which areas your school excels--professional development,...

LETTERS FROM READERS.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... GOOD IDEAS, GOOD DEAL I've been teaching special education since 1969 and have found Instructor to be a highly useful tool. In fourth grade some learning disabled studentsl have not mastered the concept of odd/even. Color coding the...

ACCOUNTABILITY HITS NEW HEIGHTS.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... In a merit-pay pilot program without parallel in the United States, teachers in the mile-high city of Denver are having their compensation tied to student performance. The two-year experiment could enable the 450 participating teachers to earn...

HAVE TECH, WILL AVOID.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... More and more schools are coming on-line, but are educators still out of the loop? A 1999 survey of more than 1,500 elementary- and secondary-school teachers found that only 39 percent of the respondents felt "well prepared" to use technology...

SUPPORT FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
January 1, 2000... Brian Hanson-Harding is a writer and a teacher of English at Northern Valley Regional High School, in Old Tappan, NJ. Americans want better schools--and they're willing to put their money where their mouths are. A recent survey of 1,422...

REAL MS. FRIZZLES.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Scholastic will present the third annual Ms. Frizzle Award to honor an imaginative, inquiry-based science-education project for elementary-school students. The K-6 teacher who submits the winning proposal will receive a total of $6,000 in cash,...

INSTRUCTOR IN CYBERSPACE.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Scholastic.com, the most comprehensive learning destination on the Internet, is up and running--and Instructor is on-line with it. Free of charge, you'll find articles that have been printed in the magazine as well as new content. In January...

Millennium Mastery.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... How long is 2,000 years? Make the point with a high-impact time-line lesson A mid all the Y2K hype, many of my third and fourth graders have struggled to grasp the meaning of this thing called the millennium. Here's a new twist on an old...

It's Time!
January 1, 2000... Help students learn what "the space in between the numbers" is all about By the end of second grade most children have a pretty good grasp of telling time to the hour and the half hour. But when the minute hand ends up somewhere other than...

Slime!(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... Is it a solid? Is it a liquid? Have students experiment to find out Matter surrounds us--from the leaves on the trees to icicles melting in late winter to the air that we breathe. Everything that we can see, touch, and taste is made up of...

Millennium Travels.(Bibliography)
January 1, 2000... Engage students in nonfiction and historical fiction that take them back 1,000 years TURN OF THE CENTURY By Ellen Jackson, illustrated by Jan Davey Ellis; 32 pages; Charlesbridge, 1998; $17.95. Grades 2-5. Poised on the edge of the new...

Wanted: Two Million Teachers.(Statistical Data Included)
January 1, 2000... Faced with a dwindling supply of teachers, states are offering enticing recruitment incentives. Will they work? In the 1830s the Reverend Andrew Bell, an education reformer, started a free school for the poor citizens of London's East End....

Students Score!
January 1, 2000... Get students to answer to some tough critics-themselves Three years ago I was summoned to our principal's office at the Margaret S. Douglas School, in Brooklyn, New York, to receive a new tide: staff developer for the "New Standards."...

Old Tests in New Clothes.
January 1, 2000... Have the latest standardized tests achieved the promises of assessment reform? Definitely not. Do they help disempower teachers? Definitely yes. An advocate of true reform speaks out State assessments. They can determine whether a...

HALL TO THE CHIEFS.
January 1, 2000... The president of the United States is considered by many the most powerful elected official in the world, responsible for decisions that affect both current and future generations. With a view to history, guide students to understand that...

In Honor of Harriet Tubman.
January 1, 2000... One way we honor heroes is through poetry. In "Harriet Tubman" (see the poster on pages 43-44), poet Eloise Greenfield honors the African-American hero who escaped slavery, then risked her life repeatedly to help more than 300 slaves reach...

Focus on Autobiography.
January 1, 2000... How often have your students asked you, "Did this story really happen?" The beauty of introducing your classes to autobiography is that you can answer them with a resounding "Yes." Start your study by explaining that while biography is the...

Dear Dr. King.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... STANDARDS Time, Continuity, and Change * Individuals, Groups, and Institutions Language for Literary Response and Expression In celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, I read to my class of second and third graders the book Dear Dr....

Teaching History With a Time Line.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... STANDARD Time Continuity, and Change Language for Information and Understanding To help our sixth graders recognize their place in history, we create a time line that represents a 10,000-year time span and extends across three walls...

It's Not Easy Being The President!(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... STANDARDS Power, Authority, and Governance * Language For Literary Response and Expression In celebration of Presidents' Day (February 21 this year), my first graders explore the job of the president and create a class book entitled...

New House on the Block.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... STANDARDS Production, Distribution, and Consumption * Science, Technology, and Society My first graders and I take many field trips during the school year. One of their favorites is a once-a-week walk to a neighboring housing...

Secret-State Game.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... STANDARD People, Places, and Environments Here's a guessing game I use with my third, fourth, and fifth graders to sharpen their thinking skills and familiarize them with the United States map. I hang a large map on the wall and gather...

Ice Day.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... STANDARDS Science as Inquiry * Physical Science One day each winter my kindergartners experiment like "scientists" and learn about some attributes of ice (such as how it takes the shape of its container, thaws into water, and melts in...

Up and Down The Richter Scale.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... STANDARDS Earth and Space Science * Science and Technology * Measurement While teaching my third graders about earthquakes, I explain that a seismograph uses a pendulum to record the motions of the earth's surface on the Richter scale,...

Mystery "How To".(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... STANDARDS Language for Information and Understanding * Language for Social Interaction Try this guessing game to give your upper-elementary students practice in thinking skills, sequencing, and writing directions. Ask each student to...

Pipe Cleaner ABC's.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... STANDARDS Language for Response and Expression * Patterns and Relationships As a literacy specialist, I have found pipe cleaners to be an especially useful tool for helping primary-school children practice letter formation. First I...

Team Spelling.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... STANDARD Language for Literary Response and Expression Here's a cooperative spelling game that allows my sixth graders to have fun while practicing new spelling words and building word power. I choose two teams with equal numbers of...

3-D Geometry.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... STANDARDS Geometry * Mathematics as Problem Solving To culminate a unit on geometry, my fifth graders create large three-dimensional figures using rolled-up newspaper and masking tape. On the chalkboard I list several shapes, including...

House Count.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... STANDARDS Mathematical Connections * Computation and Estimation To get my fifth graders out of their math textbooks and into the real world of mathematics, I've created a homework assignment that takes advantage of everyday objects...

Taking a Bite Out of Fractions.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... STANDARDS Fractions and Decimals * Mathematics as Problem Solving * Language for Literary Response and Expression Two large (7-ounce or more) Hershey bars introduced my first graders to the concept of fractions. I broke one bar into...

10 Ways to Take Charge of the Web.
January 1, 2000... Easy strategies for Internet smarts Don't even get Mr. Harris started on the perils of teaching with the Internet. He's still recovering from what he considers the worst social studies class he's taught in his 18 years in the classroom. It...

Card Games.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... NCTE Standard: Use of Technological Resources to Gather and Synthesize Information I teach library and computing skills to fifth graders and developed this terrific activity to acquaint them with our new electronic card catalog. After...

Ready, Set, Go!(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... NCTM Standards: Number Sense and Numeration; Estimation; Spatial Sense; Mathematical Connections Teaching children to count and to recognize numerical sets is a basic part of our kindergarten math curriculum. I created the following...

Multimedia Reviews.
January 1, 2000... On-line reference tools for youngsters and a cybertrip to Africa THE WEB FOR BEGINNERS Even your K-2 students can be introduced to Web-based research with Little Explorers (www.littleexplorers.com), Enchanted Learning's free on-line...

Gung Hay Fat Choy.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2000... May You Prosper! Gung Hay Fat Choy is a traditional greeting during the 15-day celebration of the Chinese New Year. Translated as "May you prosper," the words perfectly capture the spirit of the holiday, when bad luck is symbolically swept...

Third-Grade Daze.
January 1, 2000... Become a teacher? No way! That was as appealing as brussels sprouts When I was in the third grade, back in 1966, I daydreamed all sorts of careers: professional football player, dogcatcher, train engineer, ambulance driver, steamroller...