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"n florida, a coalition of parents known as "the recess moms" has been fighting to pass legislation guaranteeing the state's elementary-school students at least 20 minutes of daily free play. Similar legislation recently passed in New Jersey, only to be vetoed by the governor, who deemed it "stupid." When, you might ask, did recess become such a radical proposal? In a survey of school-district administrators, roughly a third said their districts had reduced outdoor play in the early 2000s. Likely culprits include concerns about bullying and the No Child Left Behind Act, whose time-consuming requirements resulted in cuts to play. [1] Disadvantaged kids have been the most likely to be shortchanged: According to a 2003 study, just 56 percent of children living at or below the poverty line had recess, compared with 83 percent of those above the poverty line; a similar disparity was noted between black children and their white peers. [2] FROM OUR DECEMBER 2016 ISSUE Try 2 FREE issues of The Atlantic SUBSCRIBE The benefits of recess might seem obvious-time to run around helps kids stay fit. But a large body of research suggests that it also boosts cognition. Many studies have found that regular exercise improves mental function and academic performance. [3] And an analysis of studies that focused specifically on recess found positive associations between physical activity and the ability to concentrate in class. [4]"

"Learning from failure has become a popular idea in education recently, partly because it feels like common sense to many people. In a general way, the idea of "picking yourself up after a fall" has long existed in American culture as in many other parts of the world. Teachers are hoping that if they can instill this idea in their students, the small, everyday setbacks inherent to learning new things won't feel so emotionally charged to students, who might instead see them as part of the path to greater understanding and ultimate success. But turning the difficult experience of failure into a positive isn't as easy as telling students to change their mindsets; it takes careful lesson design, a strong classroom culture and an instructor trained in getting results from small failures so his or her students succeed when it matters."

"Fake news, unreliable websites, viral posts-you would think students who have grown up with the internet would easily navigate it all, but according to a study done by Stanford researchers, that couldn't be further from the truth. Researchers describe the results of the study done on middle school, high school and college students across the country as "bleak." Students were asked to judge advertisements, social media, video and photographic evidence, news reports and websites. Though researchers thought they were giving students simple tasks, they say that "in every case and at every level, we were taken aback by students' lack of preparation." As if that weren't bad enough, researchers go on to say, "At present, we worry that democracy is threatened by the ease at which disinformation about civic issues is allowed to spread and flourish." So what can educators do about the spread of fake news and our students' inability to recognize when they have been fooled? Lesson plans that explicitly address the new media literacy and task students to be responsible consumers and disseminators of news are a good place to start. Here are eight things that students need to know about fake news and the new media literacy:"

""You don't need to teach us.  That's what Google is for." That was the message a student shared with a surprised audience of educators during a popular technology conference. The students went on to say, "If I can't figure something out I prefer to watch a YouTube video or text a friend rather than ask a teacher." The other students in the room nodded their heads in agreement. Many teachers understand this is how today's students prefer to learn, but what does that look like? As danah boyd recently shared on her site, "too many students I met were being told that Wikipedia was untrustworthy and were, instead, being encouraged to do research. As a result, the message that many had taken home was to turn to Google and use whatever came up first. They heard that Google was trustworthy and Wikipedia was not." Here's what happen when you do that."

The Makerspace initiative allows students and teachers access to resources to construct modern knowledge which enables them to build, explore, create and develop strong problem-solving skills. Most consider this as a purely "fun" activity, as a result guided by the teacher it naturally develops skills in many areas of STEAM. These resources are curated in "Pop-up Makerspace" units which can be flexibly used.

"Declining attention span as a result of increasing use of smartphones and social media are just a few challenges teachers deal with in the modern classroom. Children today deal with more stimuli around them than ever before. Mobile phones, tablets,and other technology have become so intertwined with our children's daily lives that it's hard to imagine keeping it out of the classroom. Even though some believe these can be distractions, embracing technology can make learning more fun and impactful. Smartphones, iPads and other devices have become so intuitive for kids, it only makes sense to harness these powerful learning tools to engage a classroom full of tech-savvy students. And the best part? You can use these ideas in one form or another for any student in any content area and grade level."

"Why is it that sometimes we only see the extremes in our work? Picture your strongest lessons, activities, and projects juxtaposed against ones that just didn't work, and that's how it's been so far with our Digital Shop capstone projects. Some experiences make me want to high-five the entire class all at once. Others deserve an epic facepalm. As of this writing, we still have a month of school left. How will the remaining capstones go? What have we learned in the process? Can we "fail up" and finish strong, sending kids into summer vacation with school-year memories that will last forever? As I explained in my April post, I wanted the capstone projects to: Be genuine design thinking experiences. Allow kids to showcase the skills and dispositions they worked to acquire all year. Be based on and help people from the community and the world. The results have been mixed, as this post will illustrate."

In teaching it is often the little things we do on a daily basis that have the largest cumulative effect. While the events, festivals, camps and more spectacular lessons may stand out in our memories these moments have less overall impact across the time that our students spend in our company. Getting these little details right however is a complex business that demands we bring our best to every interaction, every lesson and every opportunity we have to shape the minds and dispositions of our learners. The result is that there are no easy lessons, no easy days.

"You've probably heard of the student-led "Genius Bar", which is generally a team of student leaders that provide technical support for the technology devices and programs in their schools. What a great way to utilize and develop student knowledge and skills, right? I couldn't agree more. Busch's student tech teams have four sub-committees: the "Newcast Directors," the "iPad Consultants," the "Makerspace Mentors," and the "Cyber Squad." But what if we took the opportunity to develop young, skilled learners a step further, and asked those student leaders to support, collaborate with, and mentor teachers and their peers with in-class technology projects? What if we asked those student learners to create informative, instructional digital content that is accessible to all? After all, many of us would agree that the students are the ones who are usually the most knowledgeable, up-to-date resources for what is the latest and greatest with technology, so why not tap into their large knowledge base and cultivate their leadership potential? Our school here in Wisconsin did just that, and the results have been astounding. Here's how it happened."

""How was skiing?" I asked my 14-year old daughter as she hauled her boot bag into the car. "Well, the ratio of snow to ground was definitely low," she replied, adding that she had tried to figure the ratio of snow-to-ground during practice but had received only mystified looks. "Stop the math!" demanded a coach. "You are confusing us!" Why do smart people enjoy saying that they are bad at math? Few people would consider proudly announcing that they are bad at writing or reading. Our country's communal math hatred may seem rather innocuous, but a more critical factor is at stake: we are passing on from generation to generation the phobia for mathematics and with that are priming our children for mathematical anxiety. As a result, too many of us have lost the ability to examine a real-world problem, translate it into numbers, solve the problem and interpret the solution."

"We typically teach students a growth mindset through online programs that demonstrate how the brain changes with learning (how the neurons grow stronger connections when students work on hard things and stick with them) and how to apply this to their schoolwork. These programs also contain testimonials from other students about how they've used a growth mindset to approach their schoolwork and to work toward meaningful goals in their lives. In the wake of the many exciting research results, educators became increasingly interested in promoting a growth mindset among their students. This was extremely gratifying. To see some of the great successes was even more gratifying. However, I slowly became aware that not all educators understood the concept fully."

"As I've mentioned in other posts, I come from a background in Experiential Education (yes, it is a specific professional discipline). I've also discussed reflecting on the activities to increase the chances of extracting learning as well as transferable skills and knowledge from the activities which is an integral part of experiential education - see my previous posts, Where is reflection in the learning process? and The Maker as a Reflective Practitioner. Another concept common to Experiential Education, that also increases the chances that transferable skills and knowledge result, is framing or frontloading the activities as part of introducing them."

"Watch children, youth, and even adults when they are immersed in learning something of interest of them, and you will see often complete engagement and personal joy. When education is done "right", learners often feel and experience the following in their both formal and informal educational environments: Joy Engaged Excited Wonderment Intrinsically Motivated Creative Accomplishment and Pride (in themselves and in their work) Connected (to the content, to other learners, to experts) Purposeful Important Valued All of these feelings described above are often experienced as part of a FLOW state. The characteristics of "Flow" according to its originator and researcher, Czikszentmihalyi, are: Completely involved, focused, concentrating - with this either due to innate curiosity or as the result of training Sense of ecstasy - of being outside everyday reality Great inner clarity - knowing what needs to be done and how well it is going Knowing the activity is doable - that the skills are adequate, and neither anxious or bored Sense of serenity Timeliness - thoroughly focused on present, don't notice time passing Intrinsic motivation - whatever produces "flow" becomes its own reward."

"Few trends in K-12 ed tech are as hot-or as under-researched-as "Maker" education. The term generally refers to using a wide variety of hands-on activities (such as building, computer programming, and sewing) to support academic learning and the development of a mindset that values playfulness and experimentation, growth and iteration, and collaboration and community.  Typically, "Making" involves attempting to solve a particular problem, creating a physical or digital artifact, and sharing that product with a larger audience. Often, such work is guided by the notion that process is more important than results. The Maker Movement has its roots outside of school, in institutions such as science museums and in the informal activities that everyday people have taken part in for generations. It began exploding about a decade ago, thanks in large part to the enthusiastic audience of Make magazine and the popularity of public events such as Maker Faires (the most well-known of which was hosted by President Barack Obama at the White House in 2014.) The rise of cheap digital tools, including microcontroller platforms such as Arduino and rapid-prototyping tools such as 3-D printers, has in recent years lent the movement a decidedly techie flavor. Efforts to bring Making and "Maker spaces" into K-12 schools are still "nascent," said Erica Halverson, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a leading researcher into Maker education. But that's changing fast."

"I've led a couple of Twitter chats on makerspaces, and one of my favorite ways to get started is to ask the participants how they define makerspaces. One of my most popular posts on Renovated Learning focuses on how various publications define makerspaces, so it's always great to see what everyone's perspective is. The definitions of March's TLchat varied, but I noticed a lot of common threads throughout the conversation. I took the text of everyone's answers and put them into a word cloud generator, and the final results are pretty striking:"

"Whether it's Minecraft or duct tape wallets, the childhood passions that seem like fads, if not totally unproductive, can alternatively be seen as mediums for experiencing the virtuous cycle of curiosity: discovering, trying, failing and growing. At DIY, we've created a way for kids to explore hundreds of skills and to understand the ways in which they can be creative through them. Often, the skills are unconventional, and almost always the results are surprising. I don't think it's important that kids use the skills they learn on DIY for the rest of their lives. What's important is that kids develop the muscle to be fearless learners so that they are never stuck with the skills they have. Only this will prepare them for a world where change is accelerating and depending on a single skill to provide a lifetime career is becoming impossible."

"For those lucky enough to have an iPad in the art room, there are a number of creative apps just waiting to be enjoyed. We've done a round-up of just some of the fantastic ones out there. But before you dive in, remember to set up a free account on Creatubbles, so that you can store and share all of the great results!"

"If a school were to spend thousands of dollars on a class set of laptops, yet only use them for printing documents of random words or clipart designed by someone else, no one in their right mind would conclude that this technology was being used to its fullest extent. Yet, many schools are not prepared to hold their 3D printing programs to the same educational standards. At Brookwood School in Manchester-By-The-Sea, MA, when our first 3D printing project in 2013 resulted in a functional prosthetic for my son, it quickly became clear that these machines held the potential for some pretty transformative educational experiences, and set us on a path to getting the most out of this new technology. Below are some recommendations regarding how to "supercharge your 3D printing program":"

"A few days ago, we shared with you this handy infographic featuring 12 important tips to help you refine your Google searches and get precise search results. Today, we are introducing you to these equally important resources shared by Google Inside Search. These are free self-paced courses to help you develop and improve your Google search skills. You will get to learn 'tips and tricks to become a fast and effective fact-finder with Power Searching with Google, deepen your understanding of solving complex research problems using advanced Google search techniques with Advanced Power Searching with Google, and join  a growing global community of Power Searchers.'"