Friday, July 25, 2008

Getting graphic about organizers

We recently came across a very useful paper written by the good people at CAST, the Center for Applied Special Technology: www.cast.org/publications/ncac/ncac_go.html

The topic is graphic organizers, those ways of displaying information or data visually and creatively. Sometimes they're called "knowledge maps," sometimes they're referred to as diagrams, but however you name them, they're incredibly useful in working with a diverse group of students, especially those who learn visually. The paper is a great overview of some of the basic forms of graphic organizers, what distinguishes them from each other, and how they are applied.

Walch, of course, has a number of books focusing on graphic organizers within disciplines. Here, for instance, is our title on Graphic Organizers for Geometry.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Florida rule heralds more summer school

The Miami Herald from Tuesday, July 8th, has an intriguing story about a new law in Florida: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/miami_dade/story/596955.html.

The law, enacted two years back, requires middle school students in the Sunshine State to pass their core subjects before moving on to ninth grade, high school. That means that thousands and thousands of Florida middle schoolers who were previously "passed through" to high school will now be required to take summer school classes or in some other way raise their grades to an acceptable level.

It's clear that the trend towards tougher state standards is not going to rest at the high-school level. More and more, we're seeing states formalize their learning expectations in middle schools, too. That's a major reason why we've been developing targeted programs for that age group: http://www.walch.com/search.php?query=florida&per_page=