Group items tagged

"In a given subject, standards or benchmarks-and potentially state curriculum-there are skills and content students must master. Within a given curriculum map, the trick is to identify what skills and content students need to learn, and then identify where students will have the freedom to construct inquiry on their own. If the goal of an activity is acquisition of content knowledge, perhaps you can vary the presentation method. For example, students could have a checklist of information about a particular historical era and then choose a specific medium for sharing those facts with the general public-essay, slideshow, podcast, video, and exhibit being just a few of the options. Alternately, if the goal is skill mastery, students can apply the specified skill to problems and situations that they select on their own, such as applying the same mathematical formulas to analyze statistical data on a topic or field of their choice, be it professional sports or neighborhood crime. The most advanced students can be offered control over both content and methods-what's important to learn, and how to present it."

"One small change in the classroom can make a big difference. And the same is true when it comes to professional development. In the past year, the switch to visual note taking has impacted my thinking. Visual note taking, also known as sketch noting, is taking down notes and information using both words and pictures. When listening to a speaker or reading text, we naturally form mental images. In sketch noting, the note taker captures those images and creates sketches and doodles on paper or a digital device, such as a tablet."

"One of the most wonderful things about working with 5- and 6-year-olds is their ability to talk and communicate how they feel, their opinion, their ideas and what they understand. They have an amazing ability and willingness to communicate. The communication is spontaneous, contagious, fun and so important as we begin to learn together. Their language is encouraged, enriched and enhanced through authentic opportunities to engage"

"Education has to focus on learning how to learn - metacognition. School will still be important, but not to impart what happened during the Revolutionary War or to teach the quadratic formula. School, he said, should focus on teaching young people the intangibles, the things that make humans unique: relationships, flexibility, humanity, how to make discriminating decisions, resilience, innovation, adaptability, wisdom, ethics, curiosity, how to ask good questions, synthesizing and integrating information, and of course, creating. "

"Description: 8 and 9 year olds from a primary school in Sunderland, England organised, ran and spoke at TEDxKids@Sunderland "

"Sprinkled throughout the newly reauthorized version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act are references to an instructional strategy that supporters think has enormous potential for reaching learners with diverse needs. The next thing to do, those proponents say, is getting more educators to understand just what it means. Called universal design for learning, or UDL for short, the strategy encompasses a wide set of teaching techniques, allowing multiple ways for teachers to present information and for students to engage in lessons and demonstrate what they know.