Monday, May 16, 2016

A great list of grants and resources for you!

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The Big List of Educational Grants and Resources

Get a roundup of educational grants, contests, awards, free toolkits, and classroom guides aimed at helping students, classrooms, schools, and communities. Check this page weekly to get the latest updates!

Originally Published: December 13, 2013 | Updated: May 7, 2016

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Grants

NEW! Earthwatch Institute’s Teach Earth Teacher Fellowships

Deadline: Interest Forms Available Now The Teach Earth program is a travel and expeditionary learning program for U.S.-based educators. Each year, the Earthwatch Institute selects teachers in a variety of subject areas to "work side by side with world-class scientists on field research expeditions around the world." The program is open to all educators, even educators without scientific backgrounds.
Prize: Funding for travel and lodging are included.

Dollar General Youth Literacy Grants

Deadline: May 19, 2016 The Youth Literacy Grants are offered to schools, libraries, and non-profits to help struggling readers improve and attain proficiency. The grants supports a range of programs, including new literacy projects, as well as provide funding for new technology and literacy materials.
Prize: Grants are available up to $4,000.

NEA Learning and Leadership Grants

Deadline: June 1, 2016 The National Education Association's Learning and Leadership grants help support individuals and groups of educators in their pursuit of professional development. The grants can be used for high-quality professional development, i.e. summer institutes or conferences, or collegial study like mentoring or lesson plan development.
Prize: Grants are available for individuals up to $2,000; groups can apply for grants up to $5,000.

Teen Read Week Activities Grants

Deadline: June 1, 2016 Do you have an idea to promote reading among ESL teens? The Young Adult Library Services Association, in partnership with the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, have the perfect grant for you. This year, the association is providing grants to libraries for "innovative reading or literacies programs aimed at the "22 percent of the nation's young who speak a language other than English at home." Programs or activities should align with the theme of this year's October Teen Read Week, "Read for the fun of it!" Plus, the activities should incorporate YALSA's best practices for teaching literacy.
Prize: Ten $1,000 grants are available.

Middle School Science School Lab Makeover Challenge

Deadline: June 16, 2016 The Fab School Labs grant program, from the Northrop Grumman Foundation, is offering awards to help make over public middle school science labs. To participate, educators develop a plan for their makeover and create a video of their current lab spaces. Submissions should demonstrate need, what makes your school unique and why it should be chosen, as well as the impact a lab makeover would have.
Prize: Five awards of up to $100,000 are available.

Pets in the Classroom Grants

Deadline: Rolling Classroom pets make wonderful learning companions! Educators interested in funding a classroom pet should consider a Pets in the Classroom grant. They are available for K-8 teachers in public and private schools. Grants are "intended to support pets or aquariums in the classroom" and facilitate learning projects centered on caring for pets responsibly.
Prize: A variety of small one-time grants are available, including awards for supplies.
>> MORE: Get information on how to find grants.

Contests and Awards

NEW! The Education Youth Video Challenge

Deadline: May 31, 2016 The Education Commission was created last year to help the world develop a plan for achieving the Sustainable Development Goal on Education, which calls for inclusive, equitable and lifelong learning for all. The organization is encouraging young people to offer their ideas by submitting short, 30-second videos that answer one or both of the following questions: How can education best prepared you for the future? What would your ideal school of the future look like?
Prize: Six winners will receive $100,000 grants to fund their "education visions for their schools and communities."

NEW! $100,000 Dream Big Teacher Challenge

Deadline: June 30, 2016 Teachers, do you have an innovative idea for helping children and their families in your school community? Yes! The Big Dream Teacher Challenge, from the Farmers Insurance Thank America's Teachers program, is offering support to get your dreams off the ground. A wide range of projects won in 2015, including outdoor education programs, an accessible playground for child with special need, and much more. Submission guidelines and additional information about example projects is available online.
Prize: Six winners will receive $100,000 grants to fund their "education visions for their schools and communities."

Engineering for You Video Contest

Deadline: May 31, 2016 This contest, sponsored by the National Academy of Engineering, asks middle school and high school individuals and teams to develop 1- to 2-minute videos focused on mega-engineering, or projects that impact large populations of people. Entries are judged on creativity, the potential impact of the project, and how well participants explain the project's importance. For more details, as well as resources for creating videos, visit the Engineering for You contest page.
Prize: Creators of the "Best Overall Video" receive a $25,000 prize. Plus, the top videos in each category, as well as a People's Choice Award winner, receive prizes up to $5,000.

Social Justice Teaching Prize

Deadline: June 1, 2016 This prize -- sponsored by the Lola Stein Institute and THINK magazine -- honors educators who use heritage, culture, or religion "to inspire social responsibility and reach for social justice" with students. To apply, educators must submit an example of original curriculum, in-class projects, or a school-wide initiative that incorporates culture, religion, and heritage and inspires social responsibility in students.
Prize: The top prize is a $1,500 award; second place receives $750.

2016 Ocean Awareness Student Art Contest

Deadline: June 13, 2016 The 2016 Ocean Awareness Contest encourages students to create art projects related to this year's theme: Making Meaning out of Ocean Pollution. To participate, students must research and explore one type of ocean pollution, and then create an project that "says something meaningful" about our impact on the health of our oceans. All variety of mediums are welcome including art, film, prose, and poetry.
Prize: Awards range from $250 to $1,500.

National STEM Video Game Challenge

Deadline: August 15, 2016 Here's one for the aspiring video game designers in your classrooms. The STEM Video Game Challenge, which was inspired by the President's Educate to Innovate Campaign, encourages middle and high school students "to work as individuals or in teams to design and make original, playable games or written game design documents about any subject." Judges evaluate games based on three game design criteria, and individuals or participating teams can design and build games, or just submit design documents in the design category. A variety of resources, including lesson plans to help teach game design concepts, are available online.
Prize: Many prizes are available for students, including a cash award, mentoring opportunities, and lifetime access to Game Mechanic, among other prizes.
>> MORE: Get information about the latest contests and promotions for teachers in our Edutopia discussion group.

Classroom Resources

NEW! IWitness: Resources for Teaching Grit and Resilience

Finding Your Seat on the Bus is one of 57 resources, created by the USC Shoah Foundation, included in the IWitness collection. These resources explore a number of topics, including tolerance, justice, family and standing up for others, and they feature primary source materials like text, video, poems, photos and more. Each activity is built around a video clip of testimony, and they complement a number of subjects, including English, history, and social studies.

Exploratorium Science Snacks Hands-On Activities

Created by the Exploratorium, Science Snacks "are tabletop exhibits or explorations of natural phenomena that teachers or students can make using common, inexpensive, readily available materials." There are hundreds of hands-on activities in the collection, and they're created to be easily digested with a short photo/video intro, a materials list, helpful hints, and advice.

National History Day WWII Resource Collection

Produced by National History Day, Understanding Sacrifice is a "collection of videos, primary source, secondary sources, and lesson plans" that covers soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice in World War II.

Pixar in a Box on Khan Academy

How does math relate to Pixar animation? Khan Academy and Pixar recently released a fun, interactive lesson series called Pixar in a Box. Each lesson “demonstrates how a concept introduced in school is used for creative benefit at Pixar,” and there are lessons for all different grade levels. Teachers looking for more information should check out the Educator’s Guide, which provides examples and ideas for implementation.

Unlocking Life's Code Genome Sequencing Lessons

Unlocking Life's Code is a new tool, created by the National Human Genome Research Institute, that enables students to explore "ethical and social questions surrounding genomic sequencing." The resource includes an online exhibit covering genomic sequencing technology, as well as discussion starters and information about the "growing involvement of genetics" in many areas of our lives.

Comments (45) (all from the Edutopia article)

Conversations on Edutopia (45) Sign in or register to comment

Posted 1/20/2016 2:06am

Martin Diaz Alvarez

Martin Diaz Alvarez EDU Profile Page

That's a great list of educational grants and resources. Thanks for the share.

Posted 2/2/2016 9:43am

Eric Brown

Hi all, I'm interested in applying for a grant from the Charlie Lovett Fund for Elementary Drama, but the application on the website is dated 2014-2015. Does anyone know if this fund still exists? I also couldn't find any contact information on their website. Any info out there would be most appreciated!

Posted 2/3/2016 9:57am

Samer Rabadi

Online Community Manager

Staff

Eric Brown, we checked with the foundation, and the grant IS still available. Just use the old form that is online.

Posted 2/3/2016 10:36am

Eric Brown

Thanks for looking into this for me. I really appreciate it!

Posted 3/16/2016 2:10am

Yanglish

Thanks for the updated information.

Posted 3/30/2016 9:20pm

Linda Mooring

Hi, I work with Amazing People Worldwide, I am also based in Australia, I am trying to find an efficient way to share our amazing musical education resources to the American teaching community? We have just released a new education musical "We the People" this can be used in classroom education as a way to understand history through songs and character education...I am open to any suggestions :) or referrals to a direct contact.

Posted 3/31/2016 11:14am

Samer Rabadi

Online Community Manager

Staff

Hi Linda. Edutopia sometimes shares OpenEd resources, but since it looks like your products cost money, there really isn't anywhere on the site for you to share them. (As doing so may cause your posts to be flagged as spam.)

Posted 3/31/2016 5:12pm

Linda Mooring

Hi Samer,
Thanks for the quick response. I will continue my journey to spread the news :)

Posted 4/4/2016 6:09pm

Patricia K

Hi, I'm not sure if there is anything available or not but figured it's worth a try. My daughter has been selected to go to Costa Rica next year with her school. She's one of only 11 student selected and she's so excited, however we need to pay $2600. I was wondering if there are any grants for these types of things ? Thanks in advance. Any guidance is appreciated.

Posted 4/5/2016 3:23pm

Samer Rabadi

Online Community Manager

Staff

Hi Patricia. I think you'll find that most student travel grants are for study abroad opportunities. To pay for something like your daughter's trip to Costa Rica, you're probably going to have to do some fundraising. Some schools will do things like car washes to build up a scholarship fund for a trip, or you could try one of the online crowdfunding sites, like www.gofundme.com.

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Thursday, May 12, 2016

Inspired by our last workshop on Social and Emotional Learning?

Inspired by our last workshop?

Here's more about Social and Emotional Learning!

The excerpt below is from the book “Mindfulness for Teachers: Simple Skills for Peace and Productivity in the Classroom,” by Patricia A. Jennings. This section is from the chapter entitled “Orchestrating Classroom Dynamics.”

It comes to us from MindShift | KQED News | KQED Public Media for Northern CA

ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/

A new tool lets educators and ed-tech developers easily find peer-reviewed research articles relevant to their work.Mindshift

Slowing Down to Learn: Mindful Pauses That Can Help Student Engagement

MindShift

The excerpt below is from the book “Mindfulness for Teachers: Simple Skills for Peace and Productivity in the Classroom,” by Patricia A. Jennings. This section is from the chapter entitled “Orchestrating Classroom Dynamics.”

Mindful Wait Time

One way to promote engagement and learning is to consciously create pauses throughout the day. We can create a sense of spaciousness in our classroom by slowing down the pace of our speech and punctuating our lessons with silence. Introduced well, this practice can improve classroom discourse.

The speed at which we can process information varies from person to person (Droit-Volet, Meck, & Penney, 2007). Some people process auditory information very quickly, while others tend to have more visual or sensorimotor strengths. In any case, when we have more time to process information, the quality of our thinking and learning improves. Younger children require more time to process than do older children, and adults often forget this as they zoom through content as if they were speaking to other adults. No matter what their ages, when we give our students just a little more time to process information, they learn better.

When I introduce this idea to teachers, I often hear concerns that they will be wasting valuable time doing nothing. It’s important to recognize that during the pauses, you and your students are not “doing nothing.” Your students may be considering several alternatives; they may be mulling a picture over in their mind; they may be making associations, comparisons, and contrasts. They may be trying to drudge up the right word from their vocabulary. When we give them this time, their processing becomes richer, deeper, and more abstract. When you rush through a lesson, you may deliver content more quickly and efficiently, but your students may not absorb the content very well, if at all.

The added bonus of these pause punctuations is that they give us as teachers a few moments to practice mindfulness. When this becomes an intentional part of our lessons, we can take the time to notice our body in space, the whole classroom, each student, and the small details that surrounds us, in the present moment. We give ourselves a short break—a micro-vacation from the constant activity of a busy classroom.

We can use the time to tune in to ourselves and our students. We can ask ourselves, “How am I feeling right now? How are the students feeling? What’s happening right now? What do my students need? How can I explain this better?” By taking mindful pauses, we are modeling mindful behavior for our students and letting us all have some time to process the information we are exploring together.

Typically we pause after we ask a question and before we call on someone to answer. Most of the time, this pause is only about one second long. Students who process information quickly are at an advantage under these conditions. They tend to be the ones who always raise their hands immediately. While the speedy students are answering the question, the slower students are still trying to process the question, so they may not hear and comprehend the answer or be able to assimilate it into their existing knowledge. If the quick pace of the session continues, some students may feel left behind.

However, educational researchers have discovered that if the pause between the teacher’s question and the student’s answer lasts between three and five seconds, significant changes occur in student behavior (Rowe, 1987). Students are more likely to respond appropriately to the questions, answer the questions correctly, and offer longer and more complex answers. There are fewer “I don’t know” or non-answer responses. Over time, many more students show higher levels of engagement (Honea, 1982; Swift & Gooding, 1983) and achievement test scores and school retention levels increase (Tobin & Capie, 1982).

Wait time has a positive effect on teachers as well. With conscious use of wait time, teachers’ questioning strategies become more varied and flexible, and they ask follow-up questions that require more complex information processing and higher-order thinking (Casteel & Stahl, 1973; Rowe, 1972; Stahl, 1990; Tobin, 1987).

Robert Stahl (1990) identified eight categories of wait time. When we formally introduce wait time, these periods of silence are trans- formed from periods of awkwardness into valuable moments of silence. The first category is the type of wait time we’ve already discussed: the time between a teacher’s question and the student’s answer.

The other seven are as follows:

Within-student’s-response pause time. This is a three-second or longer pause that occurs when a student pauses or hesitates during the process of delivering a response to a teacher’s question. Teachers tend to interrupt students when they are thinking through their answers and take time to pause. However, when given the time, students often follow these periods of silence by successfully completing their responses.

Post-student’s-response wait time. This is a pause after a student has finished a response and other students are considering adding comments or reactions. This gives the other students time to think about what was said and to decide if they have anything to add.

Student pause time. This is a pause after a student has initiated a question, statement, or comment but doesn’t complete the thought. It may seem strange to formalize this type of pause, but this situation arises more often than we might realize because the tendency is to ignore the question rather than allow for a pause. This happens to me a lot. I have a thought, idea, or question. I’m getting ready to tell someone, and my mind goes blank. I can’t remember what I was going to say. When this happens to one of our students, we can give ourselves and the student a little time to recover, rather than just letting it drop.

Teacher pause time. This is a pause that the teacher intentionally initiates to consider what is happening, appraise the situation, and consider the best course of action. A particularly beneficial time for a teacher to pause is when a student has asked a question and the answer requires a complex answer. Taking time to consider how to frame the answer can improve student learning.

Within-teacher-presentation pause time. This is a pause that the teacher intentionally initiates during lecture presentations or other extended periods of content output. The teacher intentionally stops the flow of information to give students three to five seconds of silence to absorb the information and to consolidate their thinking. This type of pause requires no response from the students; it’s simply processing time. Using silence this way, teachers can chunk their content into bite-sized pieces to help students absorb and process the information better.

Student task completion work time. This is pause time intended to allow students to complete an academic task that demands undivided attention. The length of the pause should be related to the time it takes to complete a task. The challenge involved in this type of pause is how to handle the variation in completion time among students. If students learn the value of pausing and some of them finish early, they can use the time to extend their thinking about the subject in some way.

Impact pause time. This is the use of pause time to create impact or drama. When we pause, we can create a mood of anticipation. A dramatic pause can generate feelings of suspense and expectation.

Wait time can be challenging. Many of us get so excited about sharing our own thoughts and ideas that we tend to interrupt students, leaving no space in the discussion for students to process information and respond thoughtfully. In the skill-building practices at the end of this chapter, you will learn more about how to apply wait time in your classroom.

Patricia A. Jennings is an associate professor at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.