Two hundred years from now, how many people in America will remember the name of Jerry Seinfeld? of Donald Rumsfeld? of Jonas Salk? of Joe Namath? Even today, what percentage of people in the “world” are familiar with the names of these few Americans? Of the buildings now bearing the name of Donald Trump, how many will be standing two hundred years from now – and if they are standing, how many will still bear his name?

How many great singers of the 18th century can you recall? or composers? or doctors? or plumbers?

On the other hand, thousands of years from now, a person’s life may be influenced by something you did, a value you passed along through your children, students, or others. This is immortality. Immortality is when something in you affects the person someone else becomes and that person, in turn, affects what someone else becomes, and so on.

Who is in any better position to affect the lives of others and, therefore, become immortal, than parents or professional educators? Someone, thousands of years from now, will reflect something you passed along.

“A Life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” - Jackie Robinson

As a parent, as an educator, or simply as a caring individual, you experience the frustrations of a society that, despite your best efforts, does too little for too many and leaves much to be desired. But we are making progress, together, and we are having an impact. Remember this as you celebrate the holiday season. You need to celebrate your successes in order to recharge yourself for the challenges that lie ahead.

You ARE having an impact and you don’t need a building named after you, or a monument to tell you about your successes. But you do need to remind yourself that the successes you are having with children are what life is all about – it is your IMPACT, it is your road to immortality.

Happy New Year!

The Institute is currently registering teams for the 2007 summer constructivist conference at Grand Island, New York, within sight of Niagara Falls. Don’t miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teachers are using increasingly in the classroom. Check out the website of The Institute for Learning Centered www.learnercentereded.org or, e-mail a request for information.

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.

Is it time for the end of the marking period review? Even if not, it is always appropriate to challenge students to reflect on what they have been learning. Research demonstrates, according to Terry Mazany, Director of the Education Initiative for the Chicago Community Trust, that reflection is as much a part of the learning process as content introduction or any other aspect of teaching.

Here’s a suggestion and two possible ways to go about it:

1. Put your students in small groups and ask each group to design a 10 or 15 minute review activity for a different aspect of course content (which you will assign). Or, at the very least, select three or four students, perhaps the ones you want to really challenge, and give them time or extra credit to design a review activity for the rest of the class.

2. If you assign just one group of three or four to do a review activity, don’t assign the topic. Ask them to design an activity that will cause the class to reflect on what they (the presenting group) thinks is important from what has been studied. Part of the value for you, the teacher, is seeing what the students think is important. Then you’ll have a better idea of what “stuck” from what you attempted to teach.

Obviously, the higher the grade level and more advanced the students, the less scaffolding you will need to provide. But even in kindergarten, children can be asked to find a way to challenge their peers to share what they have been learning.

That’s the key: I’m not suggesting that you simply ask students to share what they have learned; instead, ask them to design an activity to find out what their peers have learned.

In my university under-graduate course, I simply assign a group to create a review activity of anywhere from 10 to 45 minutes. My challenge to the three or four students I ask to design a review activity is: “Design an __ minute activity that will cause your classmates to demonstrate what they have learned since the start of the semester.” Then I sit back and learn as I see what the presenting team thinks is important enough to review. I also learn what my students have learned as I observe the responses they generate from their peers.

Over the years the most popular review activity designed by my students has been jeopardy. Last month, a group of students in my class once again chose jeopardy as the review activity. It was instructive to me just to see what they would select as the five categories for review. Then they knocked me off my feet using Power Point to list the five categories and their point values, and to eliminate grids as students made their selections.

When the 40 minute activity concluded I congratulated the group that had presented and I said: “I’ve had several groups, over the years, use Jeopardy as the vehicle for review, but you were the first group to use technology so effectively. It must have taken you a long time to prepare.”

“Not really,” responded the student who had controlled the Power Point. “We located a software that does it all for you.”

Often the teacher learns as much as the students. But you have to turn the students loose to demonstrate their capabilities, with appropriate scaffolding, of course.

The Institute is currently offering a fifteen percent discount for teams that register prior to December 1 for the 2007 summer conference. Don’t miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teachers are using increasingly in the classroom. Check out the website of The Institute for Learning Centered Education: www.learnercentereded.org or, e-mail a request for information.

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

Copyright (c) 2007, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.

If there is an educational lesson to be learned from what follows, I'm not sure what it is. But I thought you might enjoy this:

Marli, our daughter said that her French teacher had once told the class that the word "Avocat" often caused confusion because it can mean avocado or it can mean lawyer when translated into English.

Marli is in France for seven months as a classroom assistant teaching English to French middle school students and we were visiting her last month. As we dined in one Parisian Restaurant after another, Marli told us that she was tempted to offer her services to restaurants editing their menus - "I find so many errors in their English translations," she complained. "Maybe I could make some money as a menu editor; the only problem is they probably wouldn't have need for my services more than once."

One evening we were searching for a place to dine. Slowed by my advancing age, I had no problem letting our daughters race ahead to scout menus that were usually posted outside of each restaurant. Suddenly I looked up the block to see Marli, standing outside a restaurant with her sister, and both of them were laughing hysterically as they stared at the menu posted outside the front door. "Look at this," Marli exclaimed, "and you'll know what I mean."

Here is the literal excerpt from the menu outside an upscale restaurant in Paris:

Avocat aux crevettes (lawyer with shrimps)

The Institute is currently offering a fifteen percent discount for teams that register prior to December 1 for the 2007 summer conference. Don’t miss the opportunity for this unique conference that models the constructivist behaviors that teachers are using increasingly in the classroom. Check out the website of The Institute for Learning Centered Education: www.learnercentereded.org or, e-mail a request for information.

The author welcomes comments, feedback, reactions of any kind to the thoughts expressed (above).

Please feel free to forward this message to a friend or colleague. If you know someone who would like to be put on the list, please send a message to Don Mesibov at dmesibov@twcny.rr.com.

Copyright (c) 2006, Institute for Learning Centered Education. All
rights reserved.