kitchen table math, the sequel: foldables

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

foldables




Causes and Effects Graphic Organizers
Suitable for Middle and High School Students

from Glencoe (pdf file)
  • westward expansion
  • immigration
  • industrial revolution
  • Vietnam War
  • disease (could be a specific one such as malaria)
  • dominant traits
  • erosion
  • heat transfer or molecular movement and/or nuclear fusion
  • mechanical waves
  • literature based upon social issues, protests, or propaganda
  • patriotic writings

I wonder how Donna Goldberg is going to deal with these thingies?


visual learning

foldables
why lawyers burn out
Independent George re: foldables
your tax dollars at work part 2
my busy day
not your father's formative assessment
remembering key concepts in math with foldables
south of the border
Steve H and palisadesk on foldables
homeschooling convention: no foldables

you may have to hit refresh a couple of times to load these pages:

21st century skills in Singapore
the master plan
horselaughs are heard in Singapore
more horselaughs in Singapore

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, that is so cute. I think I'll do something like that with my first grader. She'll love it.

It's got that six or seven year old girl appeal to it.

Catherine Johnson said...

well, the horror is that I look at this and I think: FOLDING STUFF, YEAH!

There is so much folding going on in public schools that we have BIG NAMES in foldables.

We parents are helpless to stop this.

Catherine Johnson said...

My district, to its credit, has ignored all the Foldables lessons Glencoe sent with its h.s. math textbooks.

Anonymous said...

I think these things have yet to appear in UK schools - but will keep a sharp eye out

Independent George said...

Myrtle, when I saw this, I really thought they were intended for 1st graders.

Do high schools actually use these things? I mean, seriously? There are professional educators who look at this stuff, and not only don't burst out in laughter, but think, "Yes! This is exactly what I need to get my kids to understand the Berlin Airlift!"?

concernedCTparent said...

Testing.

concernedCTparent said...

The wavy thingie is working!

Anonymous said...

I bought a supplement on the American Revolution that was full of foldables, lapbook type stuff. I thought my 4th and 5th graders would love it.


Wrong. They begged to go back to Story of the World CDs and just answer questions and write narrations.

Go figure.

Linda Seebach said...

"Bioluminessence"?

Catherine Johnson said...

Linda, please.

Word solving is not just word spelling.

Cheryl van Tilburg said...

Re: Donna Goldberg -- binder explosions are going to be the least of students' worries if this "foldables" thing takes off. This is just another ed-school scheme to drive organizationally challenged boys out of their minds. My head hurts just thinking about it....

Cheryl vT

Catherine Johnson said...

So I guess tonight's not the night to post the article on using your middle school advisory to teach character ed...

Catherine Johnson said...

These things have taken off, it seems. DZ has her name above the title.

KDeRosa said...

well, it does beat macaroni art

SteveH said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dawn said...

Oh wati a sec. I posted elsewhere about how I'd gotten rid of a homeschooling curriculum, Great Science Adventures, because it was filled with foldables. But it was for elementary aged kids. I didn't realize the foldable stuff from Glencoe was meant for highschoolers!

Oh geez.

Anonymous said...

Why don't they just take notes like in the olden days?

SusanS

concernedCTparent said...

That wouldn't cost enough money or waste enough time. Way too efficient.

Catherine Johnson said...

We haven't heard from instructivist yet.

heh

Catherine Johnson said...

I predict that instructivist will ask why holding a pencil or a pen in your hand and moving it across a piece of paper is not "kinetic learning" while folding a piece of paper in half is.

Anonymous said...

This stuff has been around forever -- well since the early 90's, anyway. This Dinah person may have co-opted the term "foldables" but the activity was already out there in full bloom by 1992. That's the date on a resource book I have entitled Alternatives to Worksheets

I got it back in my former school where most of my seventh grade students read at a third grade level or lower (the top kids were at a fourth grade level).

I tried some of those activities, like the flip books and the lift-the-flap things and various shape books and whatnot in an effort to get the student to produce something -- anything -- related to the curriculum for the grade. Having them write essays or do research was clearly out of the question because their skills were so weak (their self-esteem, however, was sky-high -- interesting).

It was only partially successful. A few kids, mainly girls, liked doing these things, but most did not. AT my current school the emphasis with middle grade kids seems to be to get them to use a computer to produce something. At least the computer can read to them and they may learn something.

I think one major reason these things have taken off is because of "radical inclusion." If you have students who are 4-8 grades below grade level and can't read or write independently (and this is not unusual in many places), what are you going to get them to do to "show their learning?" You need a "product." This stuff takes tons of time, keeps kids busy and "engaged," the student may end up with something that "looks nice," and everyone is happy. Have they learned anything? Who knows. Does this go any distance towards boosting their weak skills? Not at all.

However, consultants and administrators oooooh and aaaaah over these things, I kid you not.

BTW, I posted that link about wakawaka but Blogger got ahead of me and posted it before I filled in my handle and clicked POST.

SteveH said...

I'm beginning to see the educational world as a hot market for add-on products, especially if you include seminars. All you have to do is come up with a unique angle or hook. It's good if you can somehow claim that less is really more; that lower expectations can produce more results; that their ed school ideas really can work. Talk in generalities and gloss over the details.

SteveH said...

"radical inclusion."

I think our town qualifies for this term, but they just call it full inclusion. It continues mostly through sixth grade, but it's still there in seventh and eighth.

Our town is known for this. People move to our town for its emphasis on the learning disabled. People write letters to the editor about how wonderful it is. I met another parent this past weekend who told me she moved to our town specifically for her autistic son. She loves the idea that he is fully integrated with the other kids and doing the same(?) work. LD kids and their families move in and more kids get sent to private school.

The school claims that with differentiated instruction they can make this work. They can't. My sixth grade son is doing very little writing and direct reading comprehension. Posters, cards, dioramas, artifacts, and anything that produces a "product" that isn't anything like a book report or test. In fact, outside of his seventh grade math, he doesn't get any tests.

I've talked in the past about how they want it both ways, but it doesn't work. Parents complain that they want more for their kids, but all they get is enrichment and not acceleration.

My son got low marks on one assignment because he didn't know quite what to do with a girl on his team who just wanted to cut up tiny pieces of construction paper and complain. They like the social idea of these kids working together, but they give them no instruction on how to do it.

This is a very touchy subject. Twenty to twenty-five percent of our kids go to other schools, but many think that the parents just want an elite education. I've seen both sides. Some in town feel very satisfied that my son is back in the public schools. One teacher's aide commented to me that my son's public school is so good!

The principal is very nice. We have talked about kids who go to or come from private schools. She understands why, but she still thinks that kids "can" get a good education in the public schools. Unfortunately, it's up to parents to make sure that their kids make the transition from very low expectaion K-8 schools to high expectation honors classes in high school.

Their idea of education is much fuzzier than mine. It's the only way they can make full inclusion work. They know there are limitations and they know why kids get sent to private schools, but they say that they have concerns that private schools don't have to deal with. They say that private school kids are "pre-selected". It's a tacit admission that they should, but can't do more.

Full inclusion is more important than academics, and they redefine education to cover this up.

Anonymous said...

I predict that instructivist will ask why holding a pencil or a pen in your hand and moving it across a piece of paper is not "kinetic learning" while folding a piece of paper in half is.

I'm dense.

Why is holding a pencil not kinetic learning but folding paper is?