GothamSchools — daily independent reporting on NYC public schools

Before quizzing his middle school students on the features of the Neolithic Revolution, C. Ross Flatt had them play handmade board games about it. Acting as leaders of a budding civilization, the students managed a flash-card supply of food, settlements and other key resources, and built an army to protect their territory — marked on a laminated map — from invaders.

Then, rather than ask them what struggles they think Neolithic societies faced, Flatt had them describe the scenarios that tripped them up during the game.

“Did you ever get in trouble during the play of game and realize you didn’t have a stable food supply?” he asked. One student said he experienced a drought, while another said a cold snap not only depleted her resources but left her open to raids from other starving players.

For Flatt, one of a dozen teachers at Quest to Learn, a Chelsea middle school, these game-centered classroom exchanges are routine. But they are also the result of behind-the-scenes tinkering from a fleet of non-teaching, in-house curriculum specialists.

I visited Quest to Learn, which is in its third year of operation, after touring its sister school, ChicagoQuest, during a conference about digital learning earlier this fall. I wanted to see how the model developed by the Institute of Play, a nonprofit that works on game research and development, looked here in New York City. (more…)

A screenshot from Kelly Vaughan's Digital Teacher Corps submission. (Click to view.)

A member of GothamSchools’ founding team, Kelly Vaughan returned to the classroom in 2009 — but she never abandoned the digital frontier.

Now, to augment her full schedule as a middle school science teacher at Brooklyn Prospect Charter School, Vaughan has applied to join a new program being offered by the nonprofit New Visions for Public Schools. The Digital Teacher Corps connects educators who are interested in digital learning with mentors who can help them design and implement technology-based “hacks” to solve problems in their classrooms.

Applicants to the Digital Teachers Corps are uploading short videos to YouPD, a months-old New Visions project that aims to serve as a YouTube for teachers. Throughout the year, New Visions will use YouPD to share developments within the Digital Teachers Corps, said Hsing Wei, New Visions’ senior innovation officer.

“Our philosophy is to be transparent and try to share out as much to the community as possible,” Wei said.

Vaughan’s application proposes the “Global Weather Protection Agency,” a game to teach students about abstract weather concepts. Applications from other teachers suggest using graphic novels to teach English as a Second Language students andpreparing videos to differentiate test preparation review.

New Visions will select six teachers to receive training and mentorship throughout the year, along with a $3,000 stipend. Applications are due Monday.

It looks like Governor Paterson’s 7 p.m. extraordinary session failed to renew mayoral control. Mayor Bloomberg has already put out a statement (read it in full below) condemning lawmakers for “being held hostage to partisan politics.”

We’ve published a guide to the uncharted territory of a post-mayoral control world. Here’s a summary:

1. The borough presidents and the mayor convene a new city Board of Education.
2. The Board of Education members elect a president among themselves and begin receiving salaries.
3. The Board of Education selects a chancellor.
4. The Board figures out how to make money flow.
5. Community school boards form.
6. District superintendents are appointed.

Please note this all ideally occurs before the start of summer school tomorrow morning.

The mayor’s full statement: (more…)

In a speech that called for more charter schools, performance pay, and tougher state standards, President Obama this morning laid to rest some doubts that he had not yet made up his mind on several education policy questions currently dividing the Democratic Party.

At the same time, Obama called for a truce in education politics, which has lately been divided by those, including Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, who are pushing for aggressive changes in how schools are run and those who say that schools cannot be fully improved unless lawmakers address poverty and other roots of educational failure. He said his administration will invest heavily in initiatives that are proven to boost student achievement, such as early childhood education and home health care for young families, regardless of who supports them. And in proposing major changes to how teachers are hired, compensated, and fired, Obama never once mentioned teachers unions, regarded by some as obstacles to reform.

Thanks to the stimulus bill passed last month, the federal government is authorized to spend an unprecedented amount of money on education in the coming years. Obama said his administration would offer special funds to states that want to boost their preschool quality, develop more rigorous standards and assessments, and cut their high school dropout rates. During a visit to a Brooklyn charter school last month, Obama’s new education secretary, Arne Duncan, said he would support districts that want to build new data systems to track student achievement and pay teachers based on their students’ test scores, as New York City has done. Without mentioning New York, the president today said he supported the same initiatives.

On how some of the more controversial elements of his education plan would be put in place, Obama gave few specifics in the speech delivered in Washington, D.C., to the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. (more…)