In the first half of this weeks episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, we had an inspiring conversation with Katherine Schulten editor of The Learning Network at the New York Times. Our theme for this week's Teachers Teaching Teachers was about increasing teacher voice in public debates. Katherine suggested how we might use The Learning Network for that.
In addition, we were joined by:
- Elyse Eidman-Aadahl, director of National Programs and Site Development at the National Writing Project, University of California, Berkeley
- and Andrea Zellner a leader at the Red Cedar Writing Project, Michigan State University's site of the NWP.
Andrea and many o
thers in the chat room during the webcast gave witness to why we want to maintain federal funding for the NWP to continue -- an example of a time wh
en we need to get our voices to be heard!
"It's been a heady week for teaching and learning discussion on the Times site," writes Katherine Schulten, our first guest on this podcast. One of Katherine's jobs as an editor of the New York Times Learning Network is to moderate the comments that come in on education-related articles.
A Student Opinion post from earlier this week, "Where Do You Stand on Unconcealed Handguns? "received many lively responses from "students 13 and older," who "are invited [to the Learning Network] to comment on questions about issues in the news."
If you just clicked on those links, your head is probably spinning: so many issues so little time! That's what it feels like to have a conversation with Katherine Schulten, who before she became an editor for the Learning Network was a NYC teacher and a consultant for the New York City Writing Project. Katherine was worried that she was talking too much, because she is so excited about managing the Learning Network.
We'll turned Katherine loose, then we interrupted her with a few questions. We think you'l learn a lot about the New York Times Learning Network on this podcast:
Currently, they are offering these features:
- Lesson Plans — Daily lesson plans based on New York Times content.
- Student Opinion — News-related questions that invite response from students age 13 and older.
- Word of the Day — Vocabulary words in the context of recent Times articles.
- 6 Q’s About the Newss — An activity in which students answer basic questions (Who, What, Where, When, Why and How) about an article.
- News Quiz — Interactive daily news quizzes on current top stories.
- Student Crossword — Topical puzzles geared toward teens.
The award-winning Learning Network was created in the fall of 1998. In October 2009, they re-launched it as a Times blog.
Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.