Group items tagged

Researchers believe growth in the time kids spend on computers and watching TV, plus a trend in schools toward rote learning and standardized testing, are crowding out the less structured activities that foster creativity. Mark Runco, a professor of creative studies and gifted education at the University of Georgia, says students have as much creative potential as ever, but he would give U.S. elementary, middle and high schools "a 'D' at best" on encouraging them. "We're doing a very poor job, especially before college, with recognizing and supporting creativity," he says.

But, before the multiple choice, standardized testing crowd starts thumping their chests, it's important to note the kind of test the researchers administered. After reading the passage, students "wrote what they remembered in a free-form essay for 10 minutes. Then they reread the passage and took another retrieval practice test."

The face of computing in 2011 is a teacher on her netbook contacting a student on his iPhone connecting with a teacher on his iPad and so on and so on.

If the subject matter was a bit unusual for high school students, the amount of time they had to grapple with it was more so — 2 hours 10 minutes, in what is called a class block. Long blocks became standard this year at Calhoun, as part of a radical attempt to alter the structure of the school day and school year.

Since 2000, icouldbe.org has grown to meet the educational and career needs of more than 20,000 students, serving more than 2,300 students a year and pioneering programs around the world. We connect the energy and expertise of mentors from hundreds of professions with the most vulnerable students in our educational system – those that are most at-risk or most in need. The close relationships between mentors and mentees encourage students to stay in school and commit to working towards their career and educational goals. A pioneer in creating safe learning environments online, our curriculum points students in the direction they want to go, focusing on educational planning and career exploration, and includes modules in community service and financial literacy.

In many under-performing nations, I notice, three fallacies of teacher effectiveness prevail.

The first belief is that “the quality of an education system cannot exceed the quality of its teachers.”

The second fallacy is that “the most important single factor in improving quality of education is teachers.” 

The standard model for asynchronous conversations is discussion forum software like vBulletin.  I've talked before about the significant value that can be obtained as part of Discussion Forums for Knowledge Sharing at Capital City Bank and how that translates in a Success Formula for Discussion Forums in Financial Services.  I also looked at Making Intranet Discussion Groups Effective.

However, I've struggled with the problem of destinations vs. social networks and the spread of conversation (see Forums vs. Social Networks). 

Talkwheel  is made to handle real-time group conversations and asynchronous ones.  It can act as an instant messaging service a bit like Yammer, HipChat for companies and other groups, but the layout is designed to make these discussions easier to see, archive, and work asynchronously.

"Education," scholar and writer Ralph Ellison once said, "is a matter of building bridges." And perhaps, no bridge is more important than the bridge to the future. As educators, it's our responsibility to prepare students for the world of tomorrow. Yet tomorrow isn't what it used to be.

How do we prepare students for work that hasn't been invented yet? While it's difficult to predict what the social and economic climate will be like in the years to come, we can analyze trends and extrapolate future scenarios.

While these 21st century skills are essential, they aren't enough. There is a growing expectation for these abilities to be leveraged and expressed using digital tools.