Group items tagged

"Pushing students to go beyond what they think they can do is at the core of good teaching. This Teaching Channel video follows students and educators at Springfield Renaissance School, part of the Expeditionary Learning network. Students at the school understand that struggling with a particular task is part of learning. Teachers have high expectations of students, expect a positive classroom culture and are willing to gently prod students to dig deeper and reveal more. Teachers embed Common Core standards like the ability to use textual evidence to back up arguments, into the culture of class. They also understand that the love of learning takes ownership and self-awareness."

"I received a couple of requests over the last few days to feature a post about tips for managing iPad classrooms. I know several of you, if not at the start of the school year then at least at some point during this school year will probably be drawing on iPad as a teaching resource to scaffold students learning. To this end, I went ahead and compiled this list hoping you will find it helpful. Enjoy "

"I stood and embraced Jack when he walked into the coffee shop where I was meeting with a young leader. Jack's in his 80's and an elder statesman in the community where I live. He looked at the young man, then back at me, and asked, "Is he a good student?" Jack's question made me a little uncomfortable. I wasn't sure why. I said, "Yes, he's a great student," and left it at that. On the way home, about an hour later,  it hit me. Josh wasn't the student. I was."

"Whole Child Learning is a thing; Whole Teaching should be a thing too, no? Here at TeachThought, Jackie Gerstein's usergeneratededucation is at the top of our reading list, in large part for her thinking about the human side of formal education. Much of our content-that is, the content here at TeachThought, and that on her site-overlaps because of our shared perspective on teaching and learning: self-directed learning, the role of play in learning, the idea of citizenship, student-centered learning (and student-centered teaching), and more."

"A day in the life of a teacher may rarely be the same two days in a row, but there are some common themes and occurrences. Take a look at the following two scenarios, and note which one seems more familiar to you. Scenario 1: Each school day, students have a lunch break built into their schedule. At the prescribed time, students put away their work and head outside, cafeteria, or other spot to hang out, play, eat, or relax. The teacher breathes a sigh of relief in the quiet classroom, and uses those moments to decompress, eat, and relax too. Scenario 2:  At the prescribed lunch time break, students head out of the classroom and the teacher rushes to complete all the things they haven't had time for yet: grading papers, last minute planning, offering extra help to students, meeting with administrators regarding student issues, replying to emails, checking all the personal emails, texts, and phone calls that they got earlier in the day, and if they're lucky and have time, eat something quickly before the next class period starts. WHY TEACHERS NEED RECESS Most teachers identify more closely with the second scenario."

"ome widely held ideas about the way children learn can lead educators and parents to adopt faulty teaching principles Jan 1, 2015 Credit: Kiyoshi Takahase segundo MYTH HUMANS USE ONLY 10 PERCENT OF THEIR BRAIN FACT The 10 percent myth (sometimes elevated to 20) is mere urban legend, one perpetrated by the plot of the 2011 movie Limitless, which pivoted around a wonder drug that endowed the protagonist with prodigious memory and analytical powers. In the classroom, teachers may entreat students to try harder, but doing so will not light up "unused" neural circuits; academic achievement does not improve by simply turning up a neural volume switch. MYTH "LEFT BRAIN" and "RIGHT BRAIN" PEOPLE DIFFER FACT The contention that we have a rational left brain and an intuitive, artistic right side is fable: humans use both hemispheres of the brain for all cognitive functions. The left brain/right brain notion originated from the realization that many (though not all) people process language more in the left hemisphere and spatial abilities and emotional expression more in the right. Psychologists have used the idea to explain distinctions between different personality types. In education, programs emerged that advocated less reliance on rational "left brain" activities. Brain-imaging studies show no evidence of the right hemisphere as a locus of creativity. And the brain recruits both left and right sides for both reading and math. MYTH YOU MUST SPEAK ONE LANGUAGE BEFORE LEARNING ANOTHER FACT Children who learn English at the same time as they learn French do not confuse one language with the other and so develop more slowly. This idea of interfering languages suggests that different areas of the brain compete for resources. In reality, young children who learn two languages, even at the same time, gain better generalized knowledge of language structure as a whole. MYTH BRAINS OF MALES AND FEMALES DIFFER IN WAYS THAT DICTATE LEARNING ABILITIES FACT Diffe

"Again this summer MAKE magazine and Google are hosting a virtual Maker Camp for teenagers (students under 13 can participate with adult supervision). The virtual camp starts on Monday, July 7th at 11am PST. Maker Camp is a series of Google+ Hangouts featuring new DIY projects that students can do at home or at school as individual projects or as group projects. A new project is posted each day. Daily Google+ Hangouts will offer tips for completing each project. Students can share their projects in the Maker Camp Google+ Community. Maker Camp runs for six weeks. Learn more in the video below or jump to the outline to read about the focus of each week of the camp. "

" have been looking at the future of play for about 5 years and have spoken about the topic at MIT and written about it in Fast Co. Design, Parents Magazine and The Atlantic. Recently, I summed up the research into a poster for parents and teachers to help them frame the value of play in education (see below attachment). I think this excerpt from my Atlantic article said it best, "Someday, rather than measuring memorization as an indicator of progress, we will measure our children's ability to manipulate (deconstruct and hack), morph (think flexibly and be tolerant of change), and move (think "with their hands" and play productively). Standardized aptitude tests will be replaced by our abilities to see (observe and imagine), sense (have empathy and intrinsic motivation), and stretch (think abstractly and systemically). We will advance our abilities to collaborate and create." The future favors the flexible. And that's another reason this poster has + signs at the top of each category - because the superpowers of play we will need for a constantly evolving world is always changing and it encourages everyone to add their own powers of play. "

You don't need to be a professional audio engineer to record narration. However, you do want to pay attention to what you're doing and do the best job possible. Last week, we looked at some basic tips to record high-quality audio. Those tips leaned more on the technology. Today we'll look at what you can do to get the best narration. I also added some tips from last week's comments section.

Adata is clearly making a fashion statement with the redesigned heatspreaders it slapped onto its new XPG V2 series of DRAM products designed for 3rd Generation Intel Core processors and the Z87 platform. While beauty might be in the eye of the beholder, performance is in the hands of the designer and Adata's binning process. The new modules will come in dual-channel kits of 8GB and 16GB ranging in frequency from 1600MHz to 2800MHz. The highest frequency kits (8GB and 16GB DDR3-2800) will run at CL12-14-14-36 with 1.65V, while the rest are rated slightly tighter at CL11-13-13-35 at either 1.65V or 1.5V, depending on the kit. By-The Xpert Crew @ http://techvedic.com https://www.facebook.com/techvedicinc https://twitter.com/techvedicinc http://pinterest.com/techvedic1 http://techvedicinc.tumblr.com/

Take our Franchise & get high commission. You can ean Rs.50000/-+ per month. Investment amount is Only of Rs. 30000/- & which is refundable. Free training provided by our company. No previous experience required . For more visit us at www.bristolindia.org or email us at info@bristolindia.org or contact us at this nos:- 0674-6410344,09338291208.

Take our Franchise & get high commission. You can ean Rs.50000/-+ per month. Investment amount is Only of Rs. 30000/- & which is refundable. Free training provided by our company. No previous experience required . For more visit us at www.bristolindia.org or email us at info@bristolindia.org or contact us at this nos:- 0674-6410344,09338291208.

"We're becoming a sedentary bunch. Even with increased flexible working practices, too many of us spend too long sitting at a desk working. Few of us seem to have physical work these days and while repetitious or hard physical work can create problems of its own, our lack of regular activity can lead to long-term health issues. So, while this infographic, from OfficeVibe, veers towards the alarmist - a few exercises at your desk may just possibly save your life, but is more likely to simply make you feel better and more energised - but it will help you make the most of your time sat at a desk and mean that you'll feel less hunched up and atrophied. Much of the same effect could be had by having a stand-up desk, but not everyone can afford or get one of these. "

"Allowing learners to struggle will actually help them learn better, according to research on "productive failure" conducted by Manu Kapur, a researcher at the Learning Sciences Lab at the National Institute of Education of Singapore. Kapur's investigations find that while the model adopted by many teachers and employers when introducing others to new knowledge-providing lots of structure and guidance early on, until the students or workers show that they can do it on their own-makes intuitive sense, it's not the best way to promote learning. Rather, it's better to let neophytes wrestle with the material on their own for a while, refraining from giving them any assistance at the start."

"Elementary school has always looked a little bit like training for a traditional office job: You show up at 8 or 9, sit at your desk, and fill out paperwork for most of the day. An average third grader might spend as much as six hours sitting in the classroom--only a little less time than the average office worker spends sitting at work. But as more offices realize that sitting all day long is actually pretty terrible for health and productivity, how long will it take schools to catch up? While some elementary schools no longer have recess, and people like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie argue that school days should be even longer, a few schools are already moving in a different direction. Some are testing out standing desks, and realizing that a little bit of activity can actually improve attention spans. Others, like Ward Elementary in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, are starting to fill classrooms with exercise bikes, so students can work out while they learn."

"Game-based learning, and the developers who identify with it today, have come a long way since then and gotten much closer to closing the gap. And there's still a need to communicate core content through games, a need that the consumer market just doesn't have incentive to fill. Yet at Common Sense Graphite, when we evaluate games for learning, what we find is that many of the highest scoring 'learning' games aren't aimed at the educational market. They're more at-home, consumer-oriented games. Because these games are free from the constraints of school standards and traditional curriculum, they flourish, featuring rich cross-disciplinary and truly 21st century learning experiences. Here are just a few favorites that reviewed well on Graphite this year:"

"Playing with a geometric puzzle or stress ball at your desk can seem like idle diversion. It may also spark clearer or more creative thinking. Certain kinds of hand movements have an impact on cognitive functioning, improving focus or sparking fresh thinking or faster learning, according to several recent studies. Researchers at New York University's Polytechnic School of Engineering are exploring how fiddling with desk gadgets might yield some of those benefits on the job. "

"There are lots of great learning opportunities when you use green screen effects in the classroom. I've written about some of those before, but almost all of them involved green screen movies. What about green screen photography? Is that possible on an iPad? It is, because there's an app for that. Recently I was reminded of the ability to do green screen photography when I read a blog post by Dr. Wesley Fryer. He did a green screen photo booth at the Fall Festival of the school he works at in Oklahoma. Great idea. So how do you do it? It all starts with the Green Screen app by DoInk. The rest is easy! Here's how it works."

"Humans are just so fascinating, which is why history just might be the most engrossing topic to learn about. Whether you're a student or just someone who wants to learn, here are five websites that look at different parts of history in unique ways. I outlined some history education resources earlier this year, and you all seemed to like it, so I'm back at it again today. These sites are all different, but they all offer ways to look at the past and learn something."

"Confession: I've been following the BreakoutEdu craze on social media.  Full Disclosure: I didn't get it. I was skeptical. Locks?  Huh? So I stuck with it.  I looked at challenges, I watched videos, and I joined the BreakoutEdu group on Facebook.  I saw someone write about using disappearing ink to reveal a clue.  That was it.  Something clicked and I became a huge fan. Teamwork? Critical thinking? Problem solving? Creativity?  Win, all the way around.  Give kids a chance to be a spy, or Inspector Gadget, or the problem solver you know they can be! And then I read about Michael Medvinsky using the game with first graders to unlock an extra recess.  And I may have hugged my BreakoutEdu kit, right there at my desk.   Once again, I had underestimated the power of a tool to be integrated at the youngest levels of learners… of course! Imagination, play, and collaboration?  That screams elementary!"

"The "maker movement" can play an important role in getting kids interested in innovation and design, and littleBits-which makes easy-to-use electronic building blocks-is finding itself at the center of this movement. Until now, the company has focused mostly on the consumer market, but during a March 8 keynote session, littleBits founder and CEO Ayah Bdeir announced a new kit made specifically for schools. "We want to unleash the inventor in everyone," Bdeir said. In a conversation with Education Week, Bdeir said schools need to find ways to make science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) education more fun, engaging, and accessible for students. "I studied engineering, and almost on a weekly basis I wanted to quit," she said. "We need to find ways of approaching STEAM education differently." Bdeir said her experience in learning engineering as an undergraduate was "completely hands-off; as a result, many other students and I were turned off to it." But when she arrived at the MIT Media Lab for her master's of science degree, "it was the exact opposite. Every week was a new project, a new learning challenge. It was very scary, but also exhilarating and engaging." That's the experience her company is trying to replicate for students at all levels with the new STEAM Student Set."