Group items tagged

Calgary Science Academy

"Close reading is definitely a "survival skill" particularly in a world drowned in information. Close reading is all about reading differently, it is reading for deep understanding through paying attention to what others would normally oversight. Being a close reader entails focus and dedication to your reading material. It empowers readers to delve deeper into the latent meanings of text searching for cues that make the reading a totally different experience one that resembles the detective wok. Close reading is also about critical reading, reading that does not take things at face value but rather investigates for what is hidden between the lines."

"Yesterday was a Flex Day in our district, so my teaching partner and I had a very small group of first grade students to do some very focused instruction. It was a great day, but was made even better through a mid-morning surprise! Our kiddos discovered that both classroom's praying mantis egg sacs had hatched new baby praying mantises! We were so excited, and disappointed at the same time, because not everyone was there to see it! We needed to set them free quickly because they can actually eat each other if you don't get them a food source quickly enough. I suggested that we try out the Book Creator app, since it's on my "To Purchase" list for school iPads, to document our investigation and release."

"Schools in the Netherlands have shunned textbooks and only use Apple tablets for teaching and learning. A year in, journalist Sarah Marsh investigates how pupils and teachers are faring"

"DIY Lake Science is a free app (for iPhones and iPads) that allows families and educators to investigate lakes and other freshwater ecosystems at home, at school, or anywhere you go! Conduct twelve hands-on activities-indoors and outdoors-using everyday items, view fascinating videos, and explore how lakes change in the Under the Lake simulation. Each activity includes material lists, step-by-step instructions, and detailed explanations. The free app is available for iOS 7 and above."

"In recent years researchers have begun to build a science of interest, investigating what interest is, how interest develops, what makes things interesting, and how we can cultivate interest in ourselves and others. They are finding that interest can help us think more clearly, understand more deeply, and remember more accurately. Interest has the power to transform struggling performers, and to lift high achievers to a new plane."

"Making is not just about STEAM, reserved for science class, or even meant to be just an activity for after school.  Making across the curriculum can change the way students are thinking, interacting, collaborating, and engaged.  Gather some simple materials, offer students the chance to design, create, and dream up a new way to engage and connect with the world.  For example, integrating making into reflecting on a favorite book, creating to demonstrate a concept visually, investigating and interpreting the use of materials to show thinking?  It takes learning to a whole new level, allows students to drive, and best of all? It can be FUN!   It can be overwhelming to look at the products and projects floating around the internet and people often ask, "Where do I even begin?"  Here are a few simple ways to get started with making in your classroom - no matter what subject you teach!"

"There's no doubt that students find making to be a creative and engaging activity. But as they tinker, design and invent, are they actually learning anything? Making is too young a phenomenon to have generated a broad research base to answer this question. The literature that does exist comes from enthusiastic champions of making, rather than disinterested investigators. But there are two well-established lines of research within psychology and cognitive science that can inform how we understand making and help us ensure that making leads to learning. Taken together, these two strands of empirical evidence provide the best guide we presently have for maximizing the learning potential of maker activities."

"The Maker movement is a unique combination of artistry, circuitry, and old-fashioned craftsmanship. Certainly, learning by doing or "making" has been happening since our ancestors refined the wheel. Don't treat making as a sidebar to an already overtaxed curriculum. As you investigate the principles behind teaching STEAM via making, you'll see sound research from many educators throughout history, including Jean Piaget who, in 1973, wrote: [S]tudents who are thus reputedly poor in mathematics show an entirely different attitude when the problem comes from a concrete situation and is related to other interests."

"The flipped classroom model is here to stay. This model, although not a golden bullet, puts the student firmly into the educational process. Think back over the last few years that you have been teaching or learning about teaching. What did you do when you came across a new idea? Did you investigate on your own? Did you seek others who had experiences they could share? This is what the flipped classroom is all about: Putting students in charge of their learning process and allowing them to wrestle with ideas and topics before coming back to class with their own specific questions and seek guidance from the teacher. Often (but not always) there is some sort of online activity outside of the school day that students are responsible for. This could be a video lesson, a video about a lab set up, a discussion board inside of a learning management system (LMS), or any other vehicle that communicates the topic of the lesson outside of the normal class time instruction. "

"It was the summer of my disconnect… I've decided to try for a different focus this summer.  I want to spend a LOT less time online and tinker with technology that doesn't revolve around a 2D computer screen. Last year at this time, I was wrapping up my look at teaching computer programming to primary students.  I had just finished submitting in my Coetail Final Project and this was the subject-matter that I had chosen for my final project.  My investigation was done mainly through the 2D environment of the computer screen.    My own children and I spent last summer participating in two online "kids camp" programs that were an extension of my Coetail Final Project.  They were Scratch Programming and Minecraft.  We worked through several weeks of challenges, earned digital badges, and posted our creations online.  Some of them were featured in a weekly Show and Tell that was streamed over the internet by Pursuitery (has some connection with Connected Learning Alliance  and Mimi Ito of "Hanging Out, Messing Around, Geeking Out"). That was a huge amount of fun but it was all pixels."

"s a professional artist, deepening the ways in which seemingly disparate objects and processes are interconnected through locating, and mapping their intersections has been one of the main elements of my studio practice. The Fab Lab tools and working processes create an environment that is well suited to investigating those types of intersections. In an effort to integrate Fab Lab tools centered on craft, and studio-based processes into the classroom, I have been working to implement a Mobile MakerCart at a project-based K-8 charter school. In addition to introducing craft-based physical computing projects to the children, a guiding principle behind the MakerCart is to give teachers the opportunity to develop familiarity with the MakerCart's tools and processes in order to be able to envision the ways in which they might be able to develop their own curriculum for use in the classroom."

"Join us in our next ThingLink Creative Challenge to investigate, create and share interactive images that explore the hidden side of the things we use everyday by deconstructing products and analysing them. We are pleased to announce the Product Deconstruction Challenge, a creative challenge designed by Ed Charlwood. Ed is the Head of Design and Director of Digital Learning at an Independent school in West London. About Product Deconstruction This challenge is designed for individual students or small groups of students, but we encourage teachers to sign up to receive communication. The goal of Product Deconstruction is to learn about the hidden world of products by taking them apart to understand how they are designed, made and used. We will be deconstructing products by taking them apart and finding out what they are made of and why they are the way they are. We encourage teachers to sign up and submit entries on behalf of their students."

"Over the next four or five posts in this series, I'm going to share with you details about each week's activity and the work involved, components needed, and more. It's my hope that there are others out there who might find this useful for creating their own camp, so I'll do my best to share where I've deviated or modified the project (and why). I'll also include some details about costs and where I ordered stuff as well as give you some ideas for what science-y topics work best for each project. (You don't have to order a book for each student, but a few extra copies might be useful for those who are interested in reading the story or investigating the various projects. The books are around $12 each.)"

From the website: "Shot at the BMW Mini assembly plant in Oxford and out on the road, these ten short sequences all feature a different aspect of mathematics for pupils to explore and investigate."

This paper investigates literature concerning integration of interactive whiteboards (IWBs) in educational scenarios. In light of Educations Queensland Smart Schools emphasis on ICT integration, as well as Windera State Schools initiative to procure IWBs it examines various rsearch in order to compare and contrast common themes and serve as precursor to issues associated with implementation at our school.

The paper presents and questions the main claims made about digital natives and analyses the nature of the debate itself. We argue that rather than being empirically and theoretically informed, the debate can be likened to an academic form of a 'moral panic'. We propose that a more measured and disinterested approach is now required to investigate 'digital natives' and their implications for education.

The project is designed to investigate how social networking services can and are being used to support personalised formal and informal learning by young people in schools and colleges