Good Teachers Lead to Better Pay For Students

Good teachers have an impact on the future earnings of students, according to a new Ivy League study.

Economists from Harvard and Columbia studied 2.5 million people for over 20 years and concluded that those who had good teachers in elementary and middle school earned more money as adults than peers who did not.

The New York Times reported that the study is the largest to address the controversial “value-added ratings,” which measure the impact individual teachers have on student test scores.

“That test scores help you get more education, and that more education has an earnings effect —that makes sense to a lot of people,” Robert H. Meyer, director of the Value-Added Research Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who was not involved in this study, told the Times. “This study skips the stages, and shows that differences in teachers mean differences in earnings.”

The study’s findings are less about the difference between good and average teachers, which is modest. Instead, it sheds new light on the difference between bad and average teachers. According to the Times, “replacing a poor teacher with an average one would raise a single classroom’s lifetime earnings by about $266,000, the economists estimate.”

The study has attracted equal parts praise and criticism. It examined a larger number of students over a longer period of time with more in-depth data than many earlier studies, allowing for a deeper look at how much the quality of individual teachers matters over the long term, the Times reported.

Unilag Produces First Class Graduate with Smashing 5.0 CGPA

Mr Dada, the record breaker

Mr. Ayodele Daniel Dada, has set a new record in the  University of Lagos as the first student of the university to graduate with a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 5.0.The graduate from the Department of Psychology in the University of Lagos, has produced a record smashing result. The result which will be announce during the 2014/2015 convocation ceremony slated to start on February 28.
Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Rahaman Ade-Bello, who briefed journalists on the perfect score, as a CGPA of 5.0 is the highest a student can attain in most Nigerian universities, said the institution was glad to break another record, adding that the student showed exceptional academic prowess.

According to the University Don “This means he scored As in all courses he took in the four-year programme. I congratulate Mr. Dada and the staff of the Department of Psychology for this feat.”

FUT Minna Produces 34 First Class Graduates

The Federal University of Technology (FUT) Minna is to graduate 34 first class students in the forthcoming convocation and investiture of the chancellor scheduled for this weekend at the Main Campus Gidan Kwano, Minna.

The vice chancellor of the university, Prof Musbau Akanji, who disclosed this yesterday in Minna at a news conference as part of the activities to mark the convocation ceremony, stated that the university will graduate 3, 505 students.

He explained that of the students 2,787 would be awarded first degree, 220 with postgraduate diplomas, 404 with masters degree and 34 doctorate degree, even as the university will be awarding 34 first class degree as against 32 awarded last year .

How to Celebrate World Book Day!

On Thursday 3 March, learners of all ages from schools up and down the country will come together to celebrate their favourite authors, illustrators, books and, of course, reading! So why not get your class or form group involved? Encourage them to explore the pleasures of reading with several text and also you can organise activities  for both primary and secondary students.

Book Week spelling bee 
Book week spelling bee
Crazy Hat parade
Book party
Mask parade
World book day quiz
Readers circle...

 

What does innovation in education look like to you?

 

Vicki Albritton, Georgia, USA
“Innovation in education must include the student voice. Innovation means that risk-taking is OK and that failure isn’t the end. Innovation is often messy — scary and beautiful and nerve-wracking and exhilarating, all at the same time.”

 Mahrukh Bashir, Depok, Lazuardi, INDONESIA
“When talking about creativity and innovation in education, the name of one of my favorite educators — Sir Ken Robinson — always crops up. He says that what we are doing now, or have done in the past, need not determine what we can do next, or in the future. Thus, to me, innovation in education means looking beyond past and current ideas to search for ideas that will work in the future. That is the world in which our learners will live.

Karen Goepen-Wee, Alberta, CANADA
“Innovation in education happens when educators ask, ‘How can I make this real, relevant, interesting, student-centric and personalized?’ When we design our learning experiences around these five components, I believe we will begin to create the change and learning we all want to see. If we keep this question in mind, then policies, decision-making, technology use and resource allocation will follow suit. However, I’m beginning to realize that it is actually not hard to make change in the small and safe confines of my classroom. The trick is to go out there into our possible spheres of influence and address the issues we care so deeply about. That will take grit, ingenuity, tenacity, patience and dialogue. We will have to know all the arguments against innovation and counter those arguments with facts and evidence.”

Sharon Hadar, Raanana, ISRAEL
“Innovation in education is about thinking ‘outside of the box’ and giving students and teachers the conditions to do so. It means to me that any question is a legitimate one. It means feeling safe enough to share an idea with colleagues and students, and to ask for their honest opinion. It’s ‘seeing’ the students and researching what they really want and need from us as teachers.”

Great Things about Teachers 101

A teacher has the opportunity to care for every sort of child-those who are healthy and those who are hungry,those who are esteemed and those who are abused,those who are quick and bright and those who struggle and stumble.All children are made in God's image.

Sultan Condemns Almajiri, Says it is ‘Not Islamic’

“Almajiri has nothing to do with Islam but an issue of poverty on the part of parents” were the words of the Sultan of Sokoto, His Eminence, Sa’ad Abubakar yesterday.

Speaking yesterday in Kaduna, the Sultan maintained that it is the abject state of poverty of most parents that makes it impossible for them to send their children to school, thus making them go begging on the streets.

While chairing a meeting geared towards the girl child education of the Sultan Foundation for Peace and Development, the UNICEF and education representatives from the 19 northern states, the royal father stressed that educated women are much of a better asset than uneducated women and most times educated men.

On girl child education, the Sultan queried, “why should our girls be turned to street hawkers? We must work hard to make sure that our girls are better than us. It is pathetic that in the northern region, we don’t pay attention to girls education, as far as I am concerned, a female doctor is of more value than a male doctor. This is why we are putting necessary measures in place to have an all-female university in Sokoto State in which government must play a leading role,” he stated.

Great Things about Teachers 101

A great teacher sets the temperature of the classroom,hot and exhausting,cold and discouraging,or mild and encouraging.A great teacher knows how to de-escalate a situation with a deep breath and a soft word.The greatest of all teachers starts her day on her knees in prayer.

Yabatech Students Protest Death Of Colleague

Following the death of a Final year student at the Yaba college of education,The students of the institution had staged a peaceful protest within the campus yesterday afternoon, to express their displeasure with the latest development, which many of them confessed had been a usual practice in the institution for quite some time now.The aggrieved students, whose campus in Akoka area of Yaba was shut during the period the protest lasted, said the institution’s management deliberately deprived them of students’ unionism, a situation which has led to high handedness and victimisation of those who dared to speak.According to sources the victim was in pains and had pleaded with the medics not to allow her die but her pleas fell on deaf ears as she gave up the ghost at about 4.00pm this morning.
A visit to the medical centre showed that the workers were either hiding for fear of being maimed, stoned or killed, or had quickly found their ways out of the institution before the arrival of the visibly angry students.In their bid to leave and enter the school premises during the protest, the students were forced to jump over the second gates as the main gates had been locked, reportedly on the orders of the students’ leaders.

see picures by

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5 Classroom Management Tips To Silence A Noisy Class

Dear all,

Every teacher has 'the class from hell' that just won't settle down. Please find a few samples of Noise Meter chart for your class to help you control the noise level.

I have also copied Rob Johanson’s 5 tips to help you get silence from the worst kids in school…

I would love to know if you have used any other method in controlling the noise level .

5 Classroom Management Tips To Silence A Noisy Class

A teacher must maintain control over a classroom to provide a suitable learning environment for all students. One noisy student can disrupt the entire group's concentration. Teachers should educate their students on acceptable behavior and demonstrate consistency when classroom rules are violated. Disruptive behavior can occur at any time during class, so teachers should keep a vigilant eye on their students to correct disruptive behavior.

1. The first thing to remember is that you are the boss.
Self belief is incredibly important in this job. You can’t expect pupils to respond positively to you unless you believe, really believe, that you fully deserve their respect and compliance. The thought that you are the leader in the classroom must be at the forefront of your mind.

If you give any sign at all that you are NOT in FULL CONTROL, children will sense this and exploit your weaknesses. You MUST project strength and the impression that you will not tolerate any disobedience.

All too often a teacher will enter a lesson filled with dread and give out the signal that they are beaten before the lesson even starts. Pupils sense this. If you’ve been having a hard time with a particular group they will come to expect that you will be a walk-over and get into the habit of talking freely with total disregard for your threats.

2. Have definite rules on noise
Once you’ve decided on your rules (preferably with input from the pupils) you need to ensure the pupils are totally clear what those rules are. There must be no ambiguity and therefore no room for argument.

We all know how important consistency is in terms of classroom management but unless you have a clear set of rules to work to in the first place, you can’t consistently apply them.

So, what is your rule on noise?

Mine is simple: If I say there is to be no talking, then there is to be no talking. I will not tolerate being interrupted without taking action. I seldom enforce this rule for longer than a few minutes – just at those key times when I am either explaining something, starting a new task or taking a register etc. - but if I tell a group that I want total silence, then I mean it. And any pupil who ignores this is dealt with straight away.

For example, never let a pupil shout out without reminding them to put up their hand. Never, allow pupils to continue talking at the start of a lesson when you’ve started explaining the objective. Never, let pupils interrupt you without reminding them that it is unacceptable to do so.

If you let them get away with it once, you have effectively trained them to try and get away with it again.

3. Control entry to the classroom
The ideal place to establish control over your pupils is outside the door - before you even let them in the room. You must start the lesson under your terms. And the lesson starts before they enter the room with you having them line up outside the door in an orderly manner.

This is the perfect time to gauge the mood of the group and indeed the individuals in the group. You can easily spot potential problems (unhappy pupils, cases of bullying, arguments etc.) and deal with them rather than letting them go unnoticed and having them escalate into serious disruptions during your lesson.

If the group won’t stand still and quiet don’t let them in the room. They must do EXACTLY as you say before you let them through the door. If they run to a chair bring them back again and make them walk. If you let them get away with anything at this important stage, you will set the tone as being one where they can get away with things. You don’t want that.

4. Have ‘settling work’ ready for them when they enter the room
If you have a group who just won’t settle try presenting them with some of the following ‘settling work’ as soon as they enter the room. But… make sure you add this little twist to ensure the pupils get stuck into it straight away…

On your board have the following written up…

“Complete the work detailed below. You have ten minutes. If you don’t finish it, you will return at break to complete it.”

Obviously you need to adjust individual work targets for less able pupils to make it fair. Once they’ve started you can go round the slow workers very quietly, out of earshot of the others, and tell them where to stop. i.e. give them a work target which requires less writing than the others –

“James, you can stop when you get to the end of this sentence”. (And put a pencil mark where you want them to get up to.)

The great advantage of this strategy is that it gives you a few minutes to get your resources sorted out. I do use this if I want to show a video clip and haven’t had time to set the AV equipment up for example.

On each desk you could have a quick topic-related puzzle, a review quiz of last lesson’s work, a cloze exercise or some text copying work. Nothing too difficult – you don’t want to confuse them because they’ll spend ten minutes asking questions instead of settling down. Choose something simple (and preferably light-hearted or fun) that requires no explanation or fuss.

As well as having the instructions written on the board, greet them at the door and say…

“Get started on the simple task on your desk – you have ten minutes to finish it.”

Once they’re in the room you can then add…

“Anyone not finishing this little task will finish it at break – there should be no talking. If you talk you’ll come back at break and do it in silence then.”

If you want them to copy notes from the board (or a book) make sure there isn’t a huge amount of text otherwise you will provoke complaints. You can ‘hide’ extra work by having five or ten lines of text for them to copy and then a note at the end saying “Now answer question 2 on page 46” which could be another five or ten lines of notes.

Comments like…

“It is entirely your choice as to whether or not you get break. If you want break, do the work. If you don’t want break, sit and chat.”

…can be used if they don’t settle straight away.

5. The Right Way To Ask For Silence
You may have been told that an alternative to shouting for silence is to simply wait for rowdy pupils to calm down.

And wait… And wait… And wait…

Teachers have mixed views as to the effectiveness of waiting for silence before continuing with the lesson because in many cases it just doesn’t work.

Some classes will respond positively to this strategy almost straight away but a hard class will test your mettle and try to push you way beyond 5 or 10 minutes.

They’ll enjoy watching your expression turn to desperation and laugh at the fact that your plan isn’t working.

At a time like this you need to bring in sanctions and make them see that their continuous disobedience will not be tolerated.

If you have a strong, commanding voice you can shout for quiet and explain what the sanctions will be if they continue talking. If you can’t be sure that your voice will cut through the noise sufficiently, you can communicate via the board by writing your instructions.

Write up your instructions in bold, capital letters. You may need to give them slightly longer time to comply – allowing for the fact that they may not all read your instructions straight away.

This is what to say…

(You may think that these sanctions won’t work with your toughest class but they are phrased in a very specific manner as you’ll soon see. If you rigorously and consistently apply them you will win. Your class will settle. I’ve never known it fail).

“If you wish to continue talking during my lesson I will have to take time off you at break. By the time I‘ve written the title on the board you need to be sitting in silence. Anyone who is still talking after that will be kept behind for 5 minutes.”

Phrasing your instructions in this way when you want a class to be quiet is very powerful and almost always guarantees success.

Let’s examine why:

Firstly, you are being very fair and giving the pupils a warning…

“If you wish to continue talking during my lesson I will have to take time off you at break.”

When teachers try to issue a punishment without a warning…

“Right you’ve just lost your break!”
…they are often met with a torrent of abuse…

“No way, that’s not fair – we weren’t doing anything!!!”
I always find that giving pupils a fair warning about an impending sanction takes the sting out of a confrontational situation.

Secondly, you are telling them exactly what they are doing wrong, and exactly how to put it right…

“…you need to be sitting in silence.”

Thirdly, you are giving them a clear time by which you expect full compliance…

“By the time I‘ve written the title on the board you need to be sitting in silence.”

Fourthly, and very importantly, you are telling them exactly what will happen to them if they don’t do as you ask…

“Anyone who is still talking after that will be kept behind for 5 minutes.”

These key features are important if you want pupils to follow your instructions because they leave no room for questions, debates, arguments or confusion. The pupils know exactly what they’re doing wrong, what will happen if they continue and how to correct their behavior so as to evade a sanction.

N.B. I’m fully aware that timetable constraints do not allow teachers to keep pupils back after each and every lesson. For that reason you need to think about the sanctions you will issue.

You could for example hit the class hard and tell them that any pupils still talking will receive a letter home but it may be better to start off with a small sanction (such as staying behind during break for 5 minutes) because you can then add to it if and when the behavior continues.

Rob Johnson is the author of Magic Classroom Management – How to get the most from the worst kids in school. He is Deputy Head Teacher at a special school in the UK and has been working with challenging young people for 15 years.

Ndukwe kingsley,

Educational consultant/Head

 of Assement and school Plant Planning.

www.vickyweck.org

Hidden 10 Billion in Education budget

Its no longer news that the Senate committee on education uncovered N9,982,258,479 hidden in the budget of parastatals by the Federal Ministry of Education.

The committee, which discovered the amount at the commencement of its 2016 budget defence, said the amount was hidden in the ministry’s parastatals.

The parastatals allocation for the year, according to the Senate Committee, increased at geometric progression by almost N10 billion while the entire personnel cost for the ministry and all its subsidiaries including schools and colleges declined drastically when compared to that of last year.

To this end, the committee chairman, Senator Aliyu Wamakko, ruled that the permanent secretary and the ministry should go back to the drawing board and come up with a more sensible overhead cost, saying its discovery was that the huge sum was deliberately hidden under parastatals’ personnel cost.

13 GREAT WAYS TO DESTROY YOUR REPUTATION

The way you are perceived by your colleagues, clients and peers is crucial to your career development.

WANT TO MAKE SURE YOU NEVER PROGRESS?

Follow these simple steps to bring your career to a grinding halt!

1. Pretend you know more than you do

Whatever the topic, behave like an expert. Offer your ill-considered opinions as fact, whenever possible.  This is especially effective if talking to experts on the subject.

2. Exaggerate

Make a bigger deal of everything! Whether it is how long you were in a meeting or how late you had to work, be sure nobody takes your stories seriously.

3. Underdress

Whatever the expected dress code, make sure you are step below it. Formal atmosphere? Go smart casual. Smart casual the norm? Dig out an old t-shirt and shorts. Just make sure you stand out for all the wrong reasons.

4. Do sloppy work

Make sure your work is as disorganised as you are. Try to leave out important details or misspell a few words, for example. Even better if you can create more work for someone to fix your sloppiness.

5. Hide your mistakes

When you make a mistake-and you will! – don’t tell anyone. Cover it up and hope nobody discovers. Definitely don’t do anything to fix it

6. Make excuses

If someone else finds your mistake, make excuses for why it’s not your fault. Your workload is too heavy; your software is too old – anything to avoid taking responsibility yourself! Nothing should ever be your fault.

7. Point the fingers at others

If possible, blame someone else. If it really was their fault, this will still make you look bad in everyone’s eyes for apportioning blame. If it wasn’t, then you’re a liar too. Double score!

8. Run down other people

Go out of your way to point out your colleagues’ flaws to others. This will make sure people distrust you, and when it gets back to the person you’ve been insulting, they’ll have a great reason to resent you.

9. Gossip

While you’re at it, make sure to spread every rumour you can – or even make a few up! Whatever you do, never keep a secret. Eventually, everyone will know they can’t trust you as far as they can throw you.

10. Show up late

Always keep people waiting. Try to arrive late for work at least once a week, and always be the last person into meetings. When you do get there, try to be unprepared. Waste as much of other people’s time as you can.

11. Don’t keep promises

Happily say yes to anything asked of you, and commit to work on unrealistic timescales. When you don’t or can’t meet then, make more excuses. This is great time to point out that you always thought the timescale was unrealistic.

12. Don’t answer emails

As a rule, avoid answering emails. If you really must answer them, try to wait a few days, at least. By the time you get around to them, you may have avoided whatever the other person needed you to do anyway.

13. Be unreliable

In general, just don’t let anyone rely on you. The less you come through for others, the less they’ll expect of you,  until eventually, everyone will realise you’re really very little use at all.

Follow these top tips to the letter

And you too can make sure your career never goes anywhere!

(Taken from GoodPractice for Leaders)

Welcome to VickyWeck An Educational Consult: Parents' view: make homework voluntary

Welcome to VickyWeck An Educational Consult: Parents' view: make homework voluntary: According to an international online media,there have been great agitation for making home work voluntary. There’s no doubt that homework...

Parents' view: make homework voluntary

According to an international online media,there have been great agitation for making home work voluntary.
There’s no doubt that homework is a bit of a blue touchpaper issue with parents. But what’s clear is that there’s little consensus about it. Some parents want more, harder homework; others less, easier homework. That said, parents and indeed educators would probably all agree that homework stands or falls by its quality (in terms of planning, execution and marking).
And there is a deal of evidence from the Mumsnet talkboards suggesting that the whole business of homework, irrespective of how much or how hard it is, could be done better. Some schools haven’t caught up with the realities of 21st-century life; specifically, that most households need two incomes to get by.
For parents who don’t get home from work until gone 6pm and plunge into the dinner-bath-bed whirlwind, the homework folder can feel like a reproach.
Having a vastly ambitious holiday projects that require the production of a working volcano surely, in many cases, measure nothing more than parents’ proficiency in ordering parts off Amazon and ladling papier mâché while their children stay still and try not to glue their body parts together. Most mum feels that homework are rarely, casually or belatedly marked. It is a disincentive to children and makes parental intervention all the more necessary.
As with so many things, there must be a sensible middle course to be steered. Most parents want their children to achieve to the best of their ability and to get into good habits of independent working. A good homework policy can help.
Perhaps we could start by agreeing that homework for infants should, as a rule, be explicitly voluntary. There’s a clear case to be made that children in secondary school, approaching important exams and life choices, need to learn about prioritising their time and the value of extra effort; it’s less clear that this is the case for 6-year-olds.

Many conversations by mumsrevolve around sobbing children falling asleep in their dinner while spelling sheets remain incomplete; surely this is not a sensible use of anyone’s time or energy?
To be fair, many report that teachers are more than happy to be flexible when approached by parents of distressed or unwilling children. Other parents are blessed with children who genuinely enjoy homework.
Making it abundantly clear that homework for younger pupils is to be done entirely at their parents’ discretion would be a hugely welcome step forwards.

Black workers 'earning less than white colleagues'

Black workers earn much less than similarly qualified white workers, at all levels of education, research suggests.

Analysis of pay data by the Trades Union Congress (TUC) suggests that the difference in average pay rates amounts to a gap of 23%.
Black graduates earn on average £14.33 an hour, compared with £18.63 earned by white graduates, the TUC says.
The average pay gap between black and white workers with A-levels is 14%.
And at GCSE level the gap is 11%, the TUC says.Race still plays a huge role in determining pay.
"The harsh reality is that at any level of education, black and Asian workers are getting paid less than their white counterparts.
"The government cannot afford to ignore these figures and must now take genuine action to tackle pay discrimination."