Scott Sherman's Blog

Check out Scott Sherman's comments on Stanford's Social Innovation Blog at .

Mid-Semester Update on Social Innovation in Ed Projects at Banneker and Beyond

Carol Whelan and students at Banneker Elementary and Middle School in New Orleans are featured in Tulane University video at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yl4s3OmSZoM&feature=player_embedded

Mid-semester Reports on Social Innovation In Education Internship  Projects –

October 18^th, 2011

Joe Eichner

NO Limits Theatre

NO Limits Theater is an after school theater program, functioning as of now at Banneker Middle School.  The class contains 15 eighth grade girls, and will work to give them a creative, judgment free outlet wherein to express themselves.  I think that theater will help these students to have a more open mind, make them more culturally aware, advance their empathies for others, and give them confidence in their identities and who they are.  Also, it will transform their idea of what it means to be in the classroom, allowing them to express their voice and say exactly what’s on their minds.  The program will hopefully result in a performance of some sort to be performed for family and friends, and furthermore, will work with Tulane’s Theater Department to provide students with a more professional theatrical model.

NO Limits Theater is an after school theater program, functioning as of now at Banneker Middle School.  The class contains 15 eighth grade girls, and will work to give them a creative, judgment free outlet wherein to express themselves.  I think that theater will help these students to have a more open mind, make them more culturally aware, advance their empathies for others, and give them confidence in their identities and who they are.  Also, it will transform their idea of what it means to be in the classroom, allowing them to express their voice and say exactly what’s on their minds.  The program will hopefully result in a performance of some sort to be performed for family and friends, and furthermore, will work with Tulane’s Theater Department to provide students with a more professional theatrical model.

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Colette Bolton 

Inclusion Buddies

At this point I am very excited with the progress that Inclusion Buddies has had. All of my volunteers except for one have started working with special needs students on a regular and consistent basis.  I have heard from teachers at Banneker that they are pleased with my volunteers and thy work they are doing with the special needs students.  My biggest upcoming tasks will be finalizing the volunteer workshop date, planning the workshop, and obtaining test data about the students we are working with.  Some of my volunteers are struggling with what they should be doing and would like more guided direction, which I will talk about with Ms. Johnson. I am finding that the Tulane students who have worked at Banneker and with students before have been able to jump right in without much direction, but the volunteers that don’t have much experience need a little more guidance, at least in the beginning. An additional goal for this week will be to check-in with all of my volunteers to see how they are doing and to hear any comments/questions from them.

Atticus Bieff

Work in Tulane University’s President Cowen’s Office in supporting his work with the White House Council on Community Relations (WHCCR)

My last assignment was to research different organizations that help each of the WHCCR’s  four categories of at-risk youth. After completing this assignment, it turned out that the WHCCR’s  changed their agenda and were no longer seeking such a deliverable from President Cowen's office.  Instead, the Council wanted the President's Office to report on secondary-school education in general.

The direction for my internship is still up in the air because we are operating from one call with the WHCCS to the next because the WHCCS has not settled on what it wants from us. This week, my assignment was to research a potential keynote speaker for an event to be held in the Spring. However, it turned out that the speaker would not be needed so I will not have another assignment until I meet with my supervisors next week.

There is a meeting of the WHCCS on October 14th in Washington, D.C. that my supervisors will attend. Hopefully, after this meeting, we will have more direction and I can continue my work for the internship.

(More information about the WHCCR’s can be found at http://www.serve.gov/council_bio.asp.)

Hope Barnard

Ladder to the Sky

At this point in the process, working with Mr. Smith and with the help of George Martin has been much more effective than trying to work with the larger administration system at Banneker. I've developed the outlook that in this process, it's better to ask forgiveness than permission. I've learned that it's much more expedient to try to track down anyone I need to talk to during the school day than to email them. I've also learned how unavoidably time consuming this process is: identifying struggling readers, identifying their precise reading level to order workbooks for each, identifying each of their needs, coordinating with Special Education when appropriate, matching volunteers to students, and coordinating their meeting. If I were starting the process over, knowing what I need now in a way I didn't initially, I'd get as much of a head start over the summer as possible.

Where we are now: I got an email this morning informing me that our Youth Venture check has finally been mailed! I'll be pulling Mr. Smith's students from their English classes tomorrow to work through older versions of the workbooks we'll be using to determine which level workbook to order for each student After the check comes in, I'll order the workbooks we need. I'm also getting Mr. Smith's class schedule today so that we can coordinate our volunteers' and students' schedules.

Ellye Birnbrey

Ladder to the Sky Mid-Semester Report

At this point in my project, things finally are starting to get off the ground. I organized a googledoc of all of the volunteer time slots and set a date for our training session within the next week. Soon, all of our volunteers will be in Banneker working with kids. I think a few things really slowed us down until now. We were waiting on the money from our grant and were waiting on an okay from Banneker. We were waiting for something to really give us a head start until we realized that it was up to us to make our own head start and get the ball rolling. We also decided to work with only Mr. Smith's class, which really helped us. Once we chose a small sample group we were able to stay more organized and have better communication. I think it is really important that we always assign goals and tasks with exact due dates. Hope and I are really trying to time manage, and I think we are becoming much more successful at that.

Ladder to the Sky Literacy is a program for the children of New Orleans who have unfortunately been sliding through each year without being given a real chance for success. These are students in 6th through 8th grade who are reading drastically behind their reading level, many at a 1st or 2nd grade level. Our volunteers work individually with these students twice a week to build confidence and increase morale about learning and reading. Our goal is not only to increase their reading levels by at least 2 grade levels, but also to change the way they think about reading and learning through positive reinforcement and support.

Loacal and National Level Education Blogs for Review and Discussion

The following list is a sampling of blogs that detail reform movements in education at both the local and national level. Please use this list as a starting point for your own examination of the national conversation about educational reform.

http://www.edutopia.org/spiralnotebook/milton-chen

edutopia blog on innovation in education

http://www.edutopia.org/spiralnotebook/anne-obrien

edutopia blog on school reform

http://gbitchspot.com/gbitchspot/

Post-Katrina New Orleans blog with a significant section devoted to public education

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/Bridging-Differences/

Diane Ravitch's Education Week Blog

http://wagner.nyu.edu/reynolds/

NYU social entrepreneurship blog

http://www.ssireview.org/opinion/

            Social Innovation blog from the Stanford Social Innvoation Review

http://www.nola.com/education/

            Education section of the Times-Picayune on-line edition

http://www.npr.org/sections/education/

            National Public Radio on-live coverage of education

http://katrinareader.org/

http://experientialcontinuum.wordpress.com/

           Former Tulane student Kirsten Hill's Blog from the U of Pennsylvania Graduate School

Tulane Student Involvement in Social Innovation in Education at Banneker Elementary and Middle School

Tulane students in EDLA 2000 “Education in A Diverse Society” class are grateful for another semester of service-learning with Banneker teachers and students! During the spring semester of 2011, we were able to accomplish a lot in partnership with the Banneker community. In addition to providing one-on-one tutoring and classroom assistance, three groups of students gained funding for ongoing projects at Banneker. These groups include a middle school literacy tutoring group, a special education “inclusion buddies” program, and a theater program. These students join the chorus support and disk golf projects started last semester. Also, EDLA professors Carol Whelan and Gary Scavo, Engaged Learning Fellow Laura White,  and Public Service Fellow Sam Tabory began meeting monthly with Ms. Branche, Sister Noel, Ms. Lemle, Ms. Gould, Ms. Eugene, and Ms. Nance. We are looking for teachers to join these collaborative meetings; please email cwhelan@tulane.edu if you are interested.

Below is a list of projects and the names and email addresses of the students leading them. Feel free to contact them if you are interested in supporting any of these projects.

Banneker-Tulane Projects:

Current Projects:

Threw Dat Disc Golf: Started by Zach Shraberg (zshraber@tulane.edu) and Banneker Coaches Smith and Foster, Threw Dat Disc Golf brings the sport of disc golf to Banneker students. Read about Threw Dat at: http://tulane.edu/news/newwave/042111_fitness.cfm

Banneker-Tulane Choir Collaboration: Started by Jason Winikoff (jwinikof@tulane.edu) and music teacher Ms. Holmes, the Choir Collaboration supports the Banneker choir’s efforts with Tulane student volunteer support.

Projects Beginning Fall 2011:

Inclusion Buddies: Started by Colette Bolton (cbolton@tulane.edu)  and Meredith Massey (mmassey@tulane.edu) , inclusion buddies pairs Tulane students with special education students in inclusion classrooms. 

Ladder to the Sky Literacy Program: Started by Hope Barnard (hbarnard@tulane.edu) , Ellye Birnbrey (ebirnbre@tulane.edu), and Yvonne Payne (ypayne@tulane.edu) ,  Ladder to the Sky Literacy Program provides literacy tutoring to middle school students.

NO Limits Community Theater: Started by Joe Eichner (jeichner@tulane.edu), NO Limits Community Theater connects Tulane’s Theater program and the school to provide opportunities for theater activities with middle school students interested in theater.

Learn more about Social Innovation at Tulane by going to Tulane's Social Entrepreneurship website.

Kirsten Hill - Former Tulane Student's Education Blog - From U Penn

Kirsten Hill is a former Tulane student and member of the EDLA 2000 Education in a Diverse Society. She worked at Banneker Elementary School with the same three students for three years, beginning with her first public service requirement for the class.

Read Kirsten's blog .

experiential continuum

thoughts and reconstructions of education

Jason Winikoff - Tulane Social Entrepreneur in Music Education

Jason Winikoff, the Tulane music major who received a grant from Youth Venture to work with Banneker Elementary School's Choir Program is now in Africa, studying for the semester. He will be sharing his experiences on his blog.  (http://jrwghana.blogspot.com/)

I'm Ghana Blog

A Theoretical Analysis of A Rhythmic Diaspora

Global Leadership Institute in Prague

Check out the Global Leadership Institute in Prague. I will be there learning more about social innovation strategies. Scott Sherman is teaching Social Entrepreneurship: Social Entrepreneurs, Innovators and Problem Solvers and Heather McDougal will be teaching Special Topics in Leadership: Greed, Power, Virtue and Selflessness. Check out Scott Sherman's new textbook World Change 2.0: Creating a Blueprint for Social Change.

Ashoka U Exchange News

Here is a link to the Ashoka U Exchange News. Learn about the upcoming conference with the theme: Disruptive Innovation in Higher Education. I participated in the last Ashoka U Conference at Duke U and it was very worthwhile, informative and inspirational.

Promoting Social Entrepreneurship Among Youth -- Why It is Important

This is a great podcast which gives you a better understanding of why promoting social entrepreneurship among youth is important. It is an interview with Bill Drayton, founder of Ashoka, conducted by Rick Aubrey. Listen to the podcast and feel free to share you thoughts on it.

Innovative Ideas for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)Education

This post will be for sharing innovative ideas for STEM education.

One that I just learned about was the New Media Consortium (NMCers). HP Catalyst Community has a new Facebook page, facilitated by the NMC, which will be your doorway to lots of useful information on future grant opportunities, exciting projects, and free events for professional development. View the short video with Adrian Oldknow.

Please share any other ideas that you might have for improving mathematics and science education, especially at the PK-8 levels!

New Orleans Students and Grow Dat Youth Farm

This is a good article about high school students learning about healthy foods, farming, and social innovation. Grow Dat Farm

Tulane Establishes Five Endowed Social Entrepreneurship Professorships

Tulane's new Social Entrepreneurship Professors are:

Nghana Lewis - The Louise and Leonard Riggio Professorship

Byron Mouton - The New Day Professorship

Laura Murphy - The Carnegie Corporation of New York Professorship

Aaron Schneider - The Jill H. and Avram A. Glazer Professorship

Carol Whelan - The Paul Tudor Jones II Professorship

To learn more about these professorships, visit the Tulane website at  http://tulane.edu/socialentrepreneurship/2011-professors-in-social-entrepreneurship.cfm.

Congratulations to the MSP NOLA SMILE TEACHERS!

NOLA SMILE (Science and Mathematics: Inquiry, Learning and Exploring)Teachers from the New Orleans area public and private schools just completed the third year of their interactive and exciting professional development project. Vincent Fouchi was recognized for perfect attendance, completing more than 360 hours of work to improve his teaching of math and science. Many other teachers completed from 120 to 340 hours. Go to the following link to see some pictures and videos of teachers and Tulane instructors teaching and learning together.


Year 3 - 2010-2011


Summer Institute Video Clips

• Summer 2010 Institute
•  http://www.flipshare.com/view.aspx?nRecipient=&nFrame=NTRlYjcwMjItZGM0OC00OWE4LThlZjMtYjM5NjNmN2EyZGUz&nMedia=MmEwZmMzOTUtM2IxYS00Mjg3LTgzMzgtMDEyNjA0OTliZDIw&emailThumbnail=single&nT=

 

Year 2 - 2009-2010

• http://nolasmile2009.shutterfly.com/

Year 1 - 2008-2009

•  http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.107982532587177.6455.100001262937311
• Year 1 Slideshow Video: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=783424726728627558
• Teacher Comment: Mary Berges Video Comments on Field Trip to Ligo http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2000039583583158321 
• NOLA SMILE IN THE NEWS: http://tulane.edu/news/newwave/073108_nola_smile.cfm

Many teachers shared how NOLA SMILE has helped them improve their teaching and learning with examples of their own and their students' work.

Martha Panzeka - Foldables in Math - Newman Elementary

Ben Legrand - TV News Broadcast at ARISE Academy - Using Flipcams

Christine Sozek - Lusher Charter School students connecting with students from England and sharing video Q&A using the flipcam

Barbara Burrell - Coghill Elementary: Video Book reports, math

journals with foldables, and graphing.

Link to Dr. Rosenheim's Presentation at http://www.tulane.edu/~brosenhe/Japan_Earthquake_Tsunami.pptx

NOLA SMILE teachers also have a facebook page for the group.

Please post your comments about any of the projects or share what you are doing.

Cowen Institute E-Newsletter - March 27th: RE Tulane Students Supporting Public Education

See the Cowen Institute Newsletter and read about what is going on in New Orleans schools at Cowen Institute's E-Newsletter - March 27, 2011.

Zachary Shraberg's Threw Dat Disc Golf Project at Banneker

Read about Zach's new project. He is a local hero at Banneker Elementary and Middle School in New Orleans! Tulane New Wave Article

More Tulane students receive notification of funding

Social Innovation in Education Ideas – Spring 2011 (Presented on March 7, 2011 and notified about the  funding on Thursday, April 14th, 2011)

Congratulations to the following students for receiving Youth Venture Awards!

---- Hope Barnard, Yvonne Payne, and Elly Birnbrey Project: Ladder to the Sky Literacy Program (Providing literacy program for middle school students)

----Meridith Massey and Colette Bolton: Inclusion Buddies (Pairing Tulane students with special education students in the inclusion classrooms)

----Joe Eichner, NO Limits Community Theatre (Connecting Tulane's Theatre Program and the school to provide opportunities for theatre activities with students interested in theatre in middle school)

Students, faculty, teachers, parents are welcome to post their ideas and comments about these projects and others that you have identified. Please share your thoughts....

Student Projects from the Education in a Diverse Society Class

Social Innovation Ideas  - Ed in a Diverse Society, Fall 2010

Students and their projects:

Jason Winnikoff -- Margaret Spacapan - Laura white  (Youth Venture)
        Banneker/Tulane Choir Connection—

Kelly McGuire Ann Quilio  - Healthy School Lunch and Exercise Promotion in Schools—

Megan O'Connell -- gifted prog for Sci-tech Charter School (Youth Venture)
--

Brandon Lee -- Bullying issues and APPLIKI 
--

Patrick Schreiber - Dev. of a podcast site for careers and post hs choices
for kids
---

Zachary Schraberg and Crystal Pennuto - "who threw dat - disk golf" (Youth Venture)

Heidi Zansler -Urban Studies and Your New Orleans (Urban Innovation Challenge)

Phoebe Ferguson -- Legacy Lessons - ( Plessey & Ferguson Foundation)

Megan Stanger - Swim for Success Video (Continuation and expansion of Laura White's Youth Venture Project)

I invite all of these students and others to comment on how your project ideas are going and what being involved in learning about social innovation in education has impacted your thinking and work. Please share!

Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Social Entrepreneurship Education - Benchmark 3.5 Conference in San Diego, 3/26/11

This is the second in a 2-part series of colloquia focusing on social entrepreneurship education: It will examine approaches to teaching social entrepreneurship from various disciplinary backgrounds, including design, anthropology and education. As Social Entrepreneurship education evolves, this necessitates developing new curricular initiatives to support students in multiple disciplines to understand how to approach social issues and problems through the lens of social entrepreneurship.

The format of this colloquium will include short presentations of the approaches undertaken at three institutions: The New School, Tulane and Babson College. The New School teaches a course on social entrepreneurship linking a world-class design school (Parsons the New School for Design) with a renowned program in nonprofit management. Tulane has a course co-designed and co-taught by a student social entrepreneur where students learn through partnerships with local K-12 schools.  Babson teaches social entrepreneurship through field-based site visits to social entrepreneurs in Turkey.

 Panelists:

Anna Rabinowicz, Associate Professor, Product Design, Parsons The New School for Design

Lisa DiCarlo, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Babson College (*not yet confirmed)

Carol Whelan, Professor of Practice, Teacher Preparation and Certification Program, Tulane University

Jason Winikoff, Sophmore, Tulane University

For more information about this conference, go to The Nonprofit Academic Centers Council at  http://www.naccouncil.org/benchmark.asp.

For more information about Tulane's Collaborative Programs, go to
http://teacher.tulane.edu/index_files/Newsletter%205th%20yr%20edition.pdf

View the brief video of Ms. Branche discussion how the infusion of social innovation strategies is impacting her teachers, her students and the Tulane University students who are working at her school, Banneker Elementary and Middle School.

Jason Winikoff, a Tulane student teaching about New Orleans genres of music  to Banneker Elementary students:

The original collaborative team from Tulane and Banneker is pictured below.

Carol Whelan, Laura White, Cheryllyn Branche and Marie Gould



Social Entrepreneurs in Education: Students, Faculty Members and the Community Working Together to Improve Education in New Orleans

By Carol Whelan and Laura White

This semester students in Education in a Diverse Society (EDLA 2000) are having the unique opportunity to develop innovative ways to improve education. Working with a public service fellow, Laura White, students and professors are identifying educational problems and identifying innovative ways to address them. With her background in social innovation work with Ashoka and the TU Changemakers program, Laura is working with Professor Whelan and her students to bring an awareness and knowledge of how we can all become "social innovators". Laura White is a junior Political Economy major, as well as a Teacher Certification candidate. Prior to coming to Tulane, and in response to high drowning rates and few after-school opportunities for at-risk youth in her community, Laura started a nonprofit (now called Swim 4 Success) that provides free swimming lessons to low-income kids. The program has been expanded to Tulane. Now, Laura works with the TUchangemakers program to bring social innovation and social entrepreneurship programming to campus. Laura also co-initiatiated the Changemaker Education Collaborative, which aims to help catalyze each person's capacity for creating social change through unique learning methods and tools.

The Tulane teacher certification students, through their public service assignments in the local schools, are in a unique position to experience and become social entrepreneurs. A social entrepreneur recognizes a social problem, such as educational disparities, and identifies creative and innovative approaches to address the problem. One example of a student who demonstrated this was my public service fellow for the past three years, Kirsten Hill. Kirsten worked with the For the Children Program at Banneker Elementary School while taking the  Education in a Diverse Society class. The next semester, she expanded her work to develop a reading program at Lafayette Charter School. She is now a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. Her model, the Lafayette Reading Room has recently been adopted by the Roosevelt Institute as a national model and will be used by other universities to start similar programs.

In October Earl Phalen, a leading social innovator and one of the NewDay Social Entrepreneurship Distinguished Speakers Series met with the Education in a Diverse Society class. He is CEO of Reach Out and Read and Founder of Summer Advantage, USA. He shared his own experiences, challenges, insights, thoughts, and recommendations to students and the community.  The Office of Social Entrepreneurship at Tulane provides the speaker series. It is a great opportunity to meet and engage with some of the most remarkable people working in the area of social entrepreneurship today. Additional information about Tulane’s social entrepreneurship initiatives can be found on the Tulane website at http://tulane.edu/socialentrepreneurship/index.cfm.

We are all enjoying learning about social innovation in education through the collaborative partnerships with Ms Branche, the principal at Banneker Elementary, Marie Gould, Site Coordinator of the For the Children Program and Tulane students and faculty in Education in  a Diverse Society.