21st Century Learning & Teaching

179 392 12 inShare 12 Print! 14 Free Resources for Primary Source Documents Primary sources are resources that were first-hand created in a given period of time and never undergone any kind of editing or distortion. These sources are multimodal and they come in different forms. They can be artifacts, documents, pictures, recordings, essays, photographs, maps...etc. Now with the globalization of knowledge and the pervasive use of digital media, primary sources become accessible to everybody with an internet connection. However, the search for these materials is akin to a scavenger hunt and hence the importance of having a handy list such as the one below to keep for rainy days.

"More and more people in education agree on the importance of learning stuff other than academics. But no one agrees on what to call that "stuff". There are least seven major overlapping terms in play. New ones are being coined all the time. This bagginess bugs me, as a member of the education media. It bugs researchers and policymakers too. "Basically we're trying to explain student success educationally or in the labor market with skills not directly measured by standardized tests," says Martin West, at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. "The problem is, you go to meetings and everyone spends the first two hours complaining and arguing about semantics." West studies what he calls "non-cognitive skills." Although he's not completely happy with that term. "

"So I make the following argument with a great deal of trepidation: What if watching videos is good for kids? What if it is so good that it should be part of the regular school day? I'm not talking about the latest Pixar movie (although Inside Out certainly could be a great resource for social and emotional learning). I'm talking about explicitly educational videos that teach content to kids in an engaging and memorable way."

"In response, we asked her if she was willing to send us her argument-writing unit so we could share it with other teachers. We're pleased to publish it below, including all of her handouts and recommended videos embedded. And, of course, all students age 13 to 19 can find this year's contest here."

"Augmented reality experiences are generally triggered by geographic location or image recognition. In the latter case, apps can be programmed to recognize specific images and then take a series of actions when those image are encountered. For example, when looking at a car engine an augmented reality app may identify where and how to top up fluid levels. Of course that trigger image can also be a printed image in a book or on a wall. Imagine walking around an art museum and pointing your device at a painting on the wall. A video pops up immediately displaying an interview with the artist and explaining the nuances of the painting. Tap on the screen and it shows you other works by the same artist. Another tap and you can order a print. The art becomes a digital doorway to an augmented experience that enables you to explore and learn more. Now consider a similar scenario with a printed image in a book."

'The CLEAR Curriculum model is a framework for designing high-quality, authentic curriculum appropriate for diverse learners, including students identified as gifted and those capable of advanced work."

"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.

"With the abundance of media messages in our society, it's important to ensure students are media literate. The Oscars provide a great opportunity to use the year's best films to teach students about media and film literacy. Not to mention, films can also be an engaging teaching tool for piquing interest in a variety of subjects and issues. In this compilation, you'll find classroom resources from around the web that cover many of this year's nominated films, as well as general resources for using film as a teaching tool."

"It seems a waste. Millions of educational apps, millions of lesson plans available online, millions of laptops in the hands of students. Yet only a small segment of teachers nationwide find ways to infuse technology into their lessons. "There's a real hunger out there, about how do I get better at my craft?" said Jeff Liberty, the senior director of teacher development initiatives at BetterLesson, which trains teachers to use technology in class. 'But there aren't clear mechanisms for that to occur in a dependable way.'"

"If you share those same goals, then you need to be using social media, particularly Twitter, probably more than you are now. I've got some advice - based on my own recent efforts to use Twitter to broaden my audience - for those who are either new to Twitter or who have only dipped a toe into that particular pool. But before I proceed, a few disclaimers are in order."

Voice of the Educator Guest Blogger 3 ways to infuse 21st-century skills into instruction By Sandy Merz on February 8th, 2016 | Comments (0) 10 inShare Pixabay SmartBlog on Education this month is exploring 21st-century teaching and learning. Join us for original content in which experts explore the trends and highlight best practices that can help prepare students for their future worlds of work and living. All teachers seek to prepare students for life after high school. These days that means equipping them with the skills it will take to survive in the 21st century workplace, while also covering other curriculum requirements. What concrete examples of 21st century workplace skills like communication, self-management, collaboration, motivation and inquiry do you focus on in your classroom? As an interesting parallel, how do your examples compare with these actual comments from employees and their supervisors who participated in the Arizona K12 Center's Lesson2Life professional development?

In the age of information, factual answers are easy to find. Want to know who signed the Declaration of Independence? Google it. Curious about the plot of Nathaniel Hawthorne's famous novel, "The Scarlet Letter"? A quick Internet search will easily jog your memory. But while computers are great at spitting out answers, they aren't very good at asking questions. But luckily, that's where humans can excel.

"Amazon.com is launching a national movement to eradicate the fear math imparts in many U.S. students. The initiative orbits around the slogan "With Math I Can" and an eponymous website. It was developed by an Amazon division devoted to providing tech-based resources for K-12 education. TenMarks, an online math instruction company that Amazon bought in late 2013, is getting top billing in the campaign's launch: Amazon says that teachers using that company's services helped inspire the initiative."

Having devices in your classroom for students to use, whether you have carts of computers, iPads, or Chromebooks; a 1:1 program; or a BYOD initiative, can be exciting and overwhelming at the same time. Using these devices to provide content support and differentiation for each student is not hard to do. You have long been supplying material for your students at all levels to both remediate and expand their knowledge base. But what about designing formative and summative assessments that use technology and target higher-order thinking skills? Teachers should ask themselves this question, as well as how to develop tasks that transform what goes on in the classroom.

Literacy Is Not Enough: 21st Century Fluency for the Digital Age by Ian Jukes

"This year, most of my classes are maxed out at 34. When there are this many students in each class, the idea of conducting classroom conferences can be onerous and may even feel daunting at best. But there are ways to ensure class time is indeed spent talking to students about their learning with minimal out of class commitments. Much of how it will work is about planning. As with most important learning experiences in school, the organization has a lot to do with the success of the project and if we treat a round of conferences like a project, we can set up a timeline to efficiently speak with every child about his/her learning."

With millions of pieces of open education resources flooding the Internet, educators face a "needle in the haystack" problem of epic proportions. Sure, they can find hundreds, if not thousands, of free pieces of content to accomplish their mission with students, but how to find the right one, aligned to the right standard, for the right student, at the right time? That challenge lies at the heart of personalized learning, whether conveyed through teachers, technology, or some combination of the two.

"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."

"All educators care deeply about their students' motivation. They want them to love learning, and to be resourceful and persistent in the face of learning challenges. They don't want their students to lose heart when they get stuck, make mistakes, or receive disappointing grades. In this context, the growth mindset entered the scene. A growth mindset is the belief that you can develop your talents and abilities through hard work, good strategies, and help from others. It stands in opposition to a fixed mindset, which is the belief that talents and abilities are unalterable traits, ones that can never be improved. Research has shown (and continues to show) that a growth mindset can have a profound effect on students' motivation, enabling them to focus on learning, persist more, learn more, and do better in school. Significantly, when students are taught a growth mindset, they begin to show more of these qualities."

"The four panelists in THE Journal's annual end-of-year survey hit full consensus on just two of 11 topics - giving the "hot" label unanimously to "blended learning" and "student data privacy concerns." Meanwhile, e-portfolios garnered the least amount of enthusiasm, with two panelists opting for "losing steam" and two for "lukewarm." Other topics formed a mixed bag, with the "lukewarm" rating suggesting that many technologies/techniques are holding steady, if not exactly lighting the education world on fire."