the biggest enemy of effective learning can’t be taken away by applying those strategies because it’s something that is fundamental and essentially more important than having a strategy: motivation or or in other words the lack of motivation many learners experience.
learning in school or college was based on tradition and lesson plans and undoubtedly some well-respected methods but without real scientific evidence that the way we learn is actually the best way we could learn. It’s just the way some people decided on and we have always done it ever since.
On Monday Jason posted three questions on his blog. My responses are below, but you may be interested to read the responses from others around the state. I must say that I am excited to know that our new director uses his blog and Twitter as communication tools!
Jason Glass was recently selected as the new director of the Iowa Department of Education. This change is occurring at a critical time in a very hostile political climate.
In 2010, legislation defined full implementation of the Iowa Core as "accomplished when the school or district is able to provide evidence that an ongoing process is in place to ensure that each and every student is learning the Iowa Core standards for ELA and Mathematics and the Essential Concepts and Skills of Science, Social Studies and 21st Century Skills.
"If district leaders (administrators, teachers, and the school board) and other educators monitor and increase the degree of alignment among the intended, enacted, and assessed curriculum, then the quality of instruction will improve and student learning and performance will increase."
What Works Clearinghouse - Recommendations from the research. Download the pdf after the recommendation to find a user friendly paper with charts to help teachers interpret implementation methods.
I am sharing this because I think it is important for teachers outside of special education to recognize. Sometimes kids need a little extra something to keep them busy. To often teachers see it as a toy and take it away, but these kids need something in their hands to keep them from getting so much built up energy.
This scenario database is to be used by educators
seeking to find or contributing new ideas to stimulate and offer a variety of Curricula
options while infusing 21st century skills within the Iowa Core Curriculum.
It is a collaborative project between the AEAs with the goal of providing
this database tool as a support for Iowa educators
Denise, as you know the SCEP program has been diligently trying to get Iowa Core and 21st Century infused in all our subjects. A big job, but I have learned so much!
Have you read Friedman? I have a little...there's also plenty of push-back on this guy's ideas.
(1) critical thinking and problem solving; (2) collaboration and leadership; (3) agility and adaptability; (4) initiative and entrepreneurialism; (5) effective oral and written communication; (6) accessing and analyzing information; and (7) curiosity and imagination.
I think these are all great...but think back to the '5 essential characteristics' and formative assessment, etc. How will we be able to "assess" these skills? It's tough to assess these soft skills, in my opinion.
I'm interested to see the opinions of those in the ICC group regarding this book. I have not read it, but I know Gladwell had one of the keynotes at NECC this year and Outliers is brought up fairly often by my colleagues. It's definitely a book I'd like to read at some point, if only for the sake of seeing what all the fuss is about.
good point, Russ. It's a big shift from "assessment to report learning" from "assessment to improve learning." I see this difference as one that will be tough for the masses to understand due to the tradition of summative assessments.
In turn, it allows the educator to amend their instruction and content before they administer the summative assessment.
I think this is key with students of today. As we (educators) realize that students are learning differently today b/c of the way they use technology, I think we will see that using MORE formative assessments and giving students MORE immediate feedback will be even MORE effective than we think. Students receive immediate feedback all the time from their peers; I think it should be the same with their teachers.