Group items tagged

"Life in an Inquiry Driven, Technology Embedded, Connected Classroom: English"

"Project-based learning is not 'doing projects'. PBL is student-driven and specifically open to interpretation to ensure students learn through carrying out a project and not doing a project pre-designed by the teacher. They are driven to answer a 'big' question and carry out their inquiry and design in teams. They are also under pressure to present their results to a third party of some kind. The students decide on how to achieve the goals and are not carrying out teacher-designed tasks."

"STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) is more than just an acronym or a collection of letters. Rather, it is an instructional movement that embodies cross-curricular concepts from four fundamental disciplines, as well as a research-based strategy that addresses the future needs of a technology-driven work force and sustaining a global economy. The importance of STEM is further validated by its prominence in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). One of the most effective instructional approaches toward the implementation of STEM in grade-level courses is through project-based learning (PBL). In this approach, instruction occurs through student-centered investigations focused on a specific topic driven by a set of objectives, culminating in a broadly-defined product or technique. Projects foster an environment of discussion, creativity, problem-solving, inquiry, modeling, and testing, and are applicable to students in all grade levels and subjects, but particularly within the STEM arena."

We are driven by curiosity. It is an innately human quality that has driven us to explore, ask questions, investigate, wonder why and search for a deeper understanding. In a very fundamental way curiosity is the driver of all self-directed learning. It is our desire to find out more, unlock new knowledge and answer our questions (big ones and little ones) that compels us to learn. Sir Ken Robinson famously and provocatively asked "Do Schools Kill Creativity?". The same question might be asked about curiosity.

"Your voice launches the immersive audio adventure that is one part Oregon Trail, one part Back to the Future, one part Choose Your Own Adventure, and one part classic radio theater. Guardians of History players become Time Travel Agents to explore historical civilizations and learn about the characters and institutions that influenced them. The free, choice-driven adventure is designed for all ages-both students and enthusiasts. A version is designed for players under 13. Time travel begins when you enable tell your smart speaker-Amazon Echo or Google Home, either "Alexa, open Guardians of History," or "OK Google, open Guardians of History." And, if you are using a screen-enabled device like Echo Show, Echo Spot or Google Home Hub, you will be able to see supporting illustrations to enrich the story."

"If the promise of mobile technology in classrooms has been to equalize opportunities for all students through access to the internet, that potential has yet to be realized. National surveys consistently show that students in low-income schools are getting short-changed when it comes to using technology in school. A 2013 Pew study revealed that only 35 percent of teachers at the lowest income schools allow their students to look up information on their mobile devices, as compared to 52 percent of teachers at wealthier schools. And while 70 percent of teachers working in high income areas say their schools do a good job providing resources and support to effectively integrate technology into the classroom, only 50 percent of teachers in low-income areas agree. The reality is that while some teachers have found powerful ways to use mobile devices - both those owned by students and those purchased by the school - teachers at schools in very low-income areas are often battling a persistent student culture of disengagement. Many students have learning gaps that make it hard for them to stay interested in grade level materials and little desire to be in school at all."

"Concern for 21st century learning has driven the adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) by more than 40 states. These new standards recognize that the premium in today's world is not merely on students' acquiring information, but on their being able to analyze, synthesize, and apply what they've learned to address new problems, design solutions, collaborate effectively, and communicate persuasively. Achieving these goals will require a transformation in teaching, learning, and assessment so that all students develop the deeper learning competencies that are necessary for post-secondary success."

"This article is adapted from Larry's new book, Self-Driven Learning: Teaching Strategies for Student Motivation. In the previous excerpt from this book, I shared some specific strategies for positive classroom management. Here are a few more. "

"Worldwide, just 14% of engineers are women. Stanford-educated engineer Debbie Sterling is on a mission to increase that percentage by encouraging girls as young as four years old to start tinkering with toys and building simple machines. Since 2012, her company GoldieBlox (No. 59 on the BI 100: The Creators) has sold more than 1 million sets of narrative-driven construction toys. Getting girls interested in engineering at an early age was an easy sell, Sterling told Business Insider in an interview. Changing attitudes about girls' capabilities in STEM, however, proved much harder."

There is a growing momentum in education driven by a desire to share our practice and learn from our colleagues. Increasingly teachers are finding ways to break free of their classrooms and share their ideas. Collaborations in the interests of unlocking the collective potential of the profession are spreading within and importantly between schools. For many these collaborative endeavours and desires are satisfied by online communities but for many the possibility for a face to face conversation is more alluring.

"During my early days of teaching coding to sixth graders, my immediate reaction was to feel apologetic for a lesson that was not going smoothly for students. I would rush over and show them exactly what they did wrong. They would fix it, the code would run and there would be satisfied smiles as they moved to the next part of the project. As you can guess, this is not a sustainable or a desirable approach to teach coding. A large part of learning to code is "debugging," fixing mistakes in the code written so that it runs as desired. Debugging is difficult. It requires patience, persistence and an almost scientific approach-skills that are not easy to teach in one class. Debugging is particularly challenging for young students who are driven by the end product, such as a game. They often do not perceive the intermediate debugging stage as a learning opportunity; they just want to fix the bug and move on! "

"Dumpster diving and dollar stores. Purse-shaped post-it's and animal lubricant. When you're building a makerspace on a budget, you learn that resources are everywhere-and they aren't always what you expect.  Dumpster diving and dollar stores. Purse-shaped post-it's and animal lubricant. For three years I and my fellow cofounders Kim Martin and Beth Compton, have created, developed, and run Canada's first mobile makerspace-the MakerBus. As an entirely community-driven (pun intended) makerspace, we have had to master doing a lot with very little. As we have learned, while money is extremely useful, no amount of it can replace the value of an engaged, creative community. Below I share some ideas for creating makerspaces at various price points, offering advice for building a $100 and a (nearly) $0 community makerspace."

"At its simplest, making is the act of creating. Making can spur creativity, curiosity, collaboration, and confidence. Consider what can happen when making becomes an integral part of learning. Maker education harnesses the power of making to create an engaging and motivating learning experience. It is an interactive, open-ended approach that is learner-driven and allows for the time and space needed to develop diverse skills, knowledge, and ways of thinking. At Maker Ed, we believe that the design of any learning opportunity must recognize and celebrate every learner's ability to experience and influence their world. Maker education can achieve this ideal because it embodies these core values and goals."

"When I wrote the lesson plans for Makey Makey, I really had to push my thinking about how I could take this invention kit and really make it educational. I'd seen enough lessons driven by technology and not by educational concepts and did not want my lessons to feel forced or feel like technology for technology's sake. I wanted the educational necessity to drive the lessons and not the other way around. My first step in creating lessons was to do a little crowdsourcing for research. I had to look at the ways other people were using Makey Makey as a way to get myself beyond the banana. But I think the reason I really like the term "invention literacy" is because after spending last summer pushing myself to create, make, and dream up projects with Makey Makey and make all those things- well it changed me."

Making is as old as learning itself. While the maker movement may only be about a decade old, the human desire to create dates back to the earliest forms of human activity, from making stone tools to drawing on cave walls (Halverson & Sheridan, 2014; Martinez & Stager, 2014). Thinkers such as Pestalozzi, Montessori, and Papert helped paved the way for the maker movement by stressing the importance of hands-on, student-centered, meaningful learning. Instead of viewing learning as the transmission of knowledge from teacher to student, these thinkers embraced the idea that children learn best when encouraged to discover, play, and experiment. More recently, maker education is being used as a way to connect do-it-yourself informal learning to classrooms. Driven by new technologies such as 3D printing, robotics, and kid-friendly coding, making is emerging as an effective way to introduce students to STEM, particularly women and minorities. By incorporating elements of making into the classroom, educators can bridge the gap between what students are passionate about and what they're learning in school.

"Motivation has a great impact on the learning process. While some people learn more by outside influences, others may achieve more by their personal aspirations. Whatever the situation, everyone involved in any learning process should know how motivation affects learning. The Continuum of Motivation graphic below is a snapshot of what moving from extrinsic motivation to intrinsic might look like as learners progress from teacher-centered to learner-driven environments."

"Five years ago when I started DIY Girls, I envisioned a community for girls driven by an interest in making. I was inspired by the maker movement. The movement was making equipment and resources that were formerly only available in engineering labs more accessible and I wanted to teach girls to use and create with them. I was excited. Then reality hit. I started in the Los Angeles community I grew up in and I quickly ran into what I thought were barriers of working in an under-resourced public school. The classroom space where I was going to run the program for girls didn't have wi-fi, there were no computers and I didn't have enough money to buy the equipment I thought would make this a real maker program. People also thought I would prepare the girls to compete in expensive engineering and robotics competitions. That couldn't happen."

"f you're reading this on the iPad or browsing through our iPad magazine, you're going to want to read this. A new study from Belkin, Harvard School of Public Health, and Microsoft has found that tablet users may be at high risk to develop neck discomfort based on behaviors driven by the limitations of tablet designs."