Group items tagged

"Research around the way humans learn is booming these days. Consider viral brain-based teaching trends and explorations of how the act of teaching shapes kids' brains. Mariale Hardiman, vice dean of academic affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Education and and director of Johns Hopkins' Neuro-Education Initiative. But studying how the brain learns doesn't necessarily mean memorizing proteins and brain chemistry. Sometimes it's about empathy-or in the case of some of the latest research coming out of Johns Hopkins, it's about understanding how art plays a role in learning. One person who has closely watched, and even shaped, the coevolution of neurosciences with education is Mariale Hardiman, vice dean of academic affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Education. The education professor is also the co-founder and director of Johns Hopkins' Neuro-Education Initiative, a center that aims to bring together research on learning and neuroscience, teaching and education. EdSurge sat down with Hardiman recently to learn about the Initiative' recent findings around how injecting art into lessons across disciplines can boost memory and retention. (This conversation has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.)"

"What really works in education, schools and classrooms around the world? Every week Sarah Montague interviews the people whose ideas are challenging the future of education, like Sugata Mitra, Sir Ken Robinson and the headmaster of Eton College Tony Little. In August John Hattie, Professor of Education at the University of Melbourne, was her guest at BBC Radio 4. You can listen to the whole interview with John Hattie following this link (28 mins). Here are some quick takeaways:" Full Interview http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04dmxwl

"If you don't yet know, BBC Radio 4 have lined up a series of 8 interviews with the leading lights of the education world. In the second programme of the series, Sarah Montague interviews professor John Hattie on 'what works' in education. Here it is. Whatever your opinion of effect sizes and meta-analyses, Visible Learning has changed the way many of us think about teaching and Hattie has become one of the most respected and widely known academics in the field of education. For those too busy or too uninterested to invest 25 minutes of their lives actually listening to the broadcast, I'll summarise it below:"

"At about this time last year John Green launched Crash Course World History. That video series now contains 42 short video lessons on World History. Today, John Green launched a new Crash Course series. This one is all about U.S. History. The first video in the Crash Course U.S. History series is now up on YouTube. I've embedded it below. The series starts before Europeans arrived in North America."

""Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other," John Kennedy intended to say in Dallas on November 22, 1963. These words are as relevant to us today in Albemarle County as they were when John Kennedy asked America to relearn the world - through efforts such as the Peace Corps - and relearn the universe - through the then seemingly improbable "moon shot." If our students are to be successful in today's increasingly complex and demanding global environment, we must be constantly learning and we must be modeling learning. To do that we must help our educators develop the learning and leadership skills which help our children learn to become leaders."

"3 Reasons Why Faculty Meetings Are a Waste of Time By Peter DeWitt on April 10, 2015 6:50 AM Faculty Meeting.png Many school leaders walk into a faculty meeting with a single idea of how they want to move forward and walk out with the same idea. That's telling... John Hattie talks a great deal about the Politics of Distraction, which means we focus on adult issues, and not enough time...if ever...on learning. That is happening around the U.S. for sure. Recently the Assembly of NY State only furthered those distractions, which you can read about here, which means that school leaders and teachers have to work harder to maintain a focus on learning. Quite frankly, well before mandates and accountability, school leaders focused on the politics of distraction and not on learning. Compliance is not new in schools. Faculty meetings were seen as a venue to get through and something that teachers were contractually obligated to attend. During these days of endless measures of compliance, principals can do a great deal to make sure they don't model the same harmful messages to staff that politicians are sending to teachers. Jim Knight calls that "Freedom within form." In Talk Like Ted, Carmine Gallo quotes Marissa Mayer (CEO of Yahoo) when he writes, "Creativity is often misunderstood. People often think of it in terms of artistic work - unbridled, unguided effort that leads to beautiful effect. If you look deeper, however, you'll find that some of the most inspiring art forms - haikus, sonatas, religious paintings- are fraught with constraints. (p. 190)" Clearly, constraints have a wide definition. There is a clear difference between the constraints of compliance and the stupidity of the legislation just passed by the assembly in NY. As we move forward, principals still are charged...or at least should be...with the job of making sure they offer part...inspiration, part...teacher voice...and a great deal of focus on learning. There is never a more important tim

"Presentation: Visible Learning, Tomorrow's Schools, The Mindsets That Make The Difference In Education - John Hattie"

"We do not learn from experience... we learn from reflecting on experience." ― John Dewey These words by John Dewey point to a truth about learning that is often forgotten. Experience alone is not sufficient for true learning to occur; reflection is an essential part of the process and our failure to include time for this is why our learning often does not stick.

John Green explains why lateral reading is important so as to fact check information you read in your browser. A phenomenal video in true John Green style, that makes learning about validity of information a breeze.

"Please, No More Professional Development! By Peter DeWitt on April 17, 2015 8:10 AM Today's guest blog is written by Kristine Fox (Ed.D), Senior Field Specialist/Research Associate at Quaglia Institute for Student Aspirations (QISA). She is a former teacher and administrator who has passion for teacher learning and student voice. Kris works directly with teachers and leaders across the country to help all learners reach their fullest potential. Peter DeWitt recently outlined why "faculty meetings are a waste of time." Furthering on his idea, most professional development opportunities don't offer optimal learning experiences and the rare teacher is sitting in her classroom thinking "I can't wait until my district's next PD day." When I inform a fellow educator that I am a PD provider, I can read her thoughts - boring, painful, waste of time, useless, irrelevant - one would think my job is equal to going to the dentist (sorry to my dentist friends). According to the Quaglia Institute and Teacher Voice and Aspirations International Center's National Teacher Voice Report only 54% percent of teachers agree "Meaningful staff development exists in my school." I can't imagine any other profession being satisfied with that number when it comes to employee learning and growth. What sense does it make for the science teacher to spend a day learning about upcoming English assessments? Or, for the veteran teacher to learn for the hundredth time how to use conceptual conflict as a hook. Why does education insist everyone attend the same type of training regardless of specialization, experience, or need? As a nod to the upcoming political campaigns and the inevitable introduction of plans with lots of points, here is my 5 Point Plan for revamping professional development. 5 Point Plan Point I - Change the Term: Semantics Matter We cannot reclaim the term Professional Development for teachers. It has a long, baggage-laden history of conformity that does not

"In Visible Learning John Hattie basically says that almost everything we do in our efforts to help students in schools has a positive effect on students. However, much of what we do actually isn't terribly effective… despite our beliefs in these practices. (For example: Homework)"

"Teacher and musician John Hunter is the inventor of the World Peace Game (and the star of the new doc "World Peace and Other 4th-Grade Achievements")"

"Harry Walker is the principal of Sandy Plains Elementary School in Baltimore County, Maryland. Fourth and fifth graders at the school are piloting one-to-one computing with iPod touches. In addition, Harry is a doctoral student at John Hopkins University. He's investigating the impact of iPod touch on student achievement."

"Want to make like Elton John and Billy Joel, dueling across from each other on two pianos, playing the hits from both of your huge ouvre of pop tunes? Well, except for the whole you're-not-either-one-of-those-guys part, you can play two piano-like keyboards across from another friend on your iPad, with new free app, Duette."

"Samantha John didn't learn programming until she was nearly done with college. Her Hopscotch iPad app teaches the next generation of kids how to write code as soon as they can read."