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"For centuries, the majority of kids who attend school do so for one reason: it is mandatory. Think back to when you were in school, now envision you were offered the following choices: You master the material and receive a low grade You don't understand the material and receive a high-grade Which would you choose? Sure, some would rather master the material, but the majority would aim for the higher grade. In order to transform the learning process from standardization to personalization, we need to help students shift their view of school away from focusing on grades to focusing on their personal self-growth. We need to show them they are not just there because they have to be."

"There was a time when I would work myself to death. All day, every day. There was a time when I would come to school sick beyond belief because I did not want to disappoint anyone, and let's face it, because the hassle of leaving lesson plans for subs who never completed them drove me absolutely crazy. Late nights in the building, extra hours at home planning and grading, and various extracurricular activities required all of my attention and energy. I preached self-care to other people, but I did not practice self-care myself. There was a time when I put my job before my family, before my health, and before my sanity. That time ended just as the pandemic began."

"One of the things that I always do in my Google Apps workshops and webinars is teach people how to create self-grading quizzes through Google Forms and Spreadsheets. Depending upon the pace of the group we'll often look at creating image-based and multiple page quizzes too. I've recently put all of the screenshots of those processes into one PDF. You can view the PDF below. (If you are viewing this on an iPad, you might not be able to see the guide)."

"At Cindrich elementary school in Surrey, B.C., 10-year-old boys are putting themselves to bed earlier, an enthusiastic girl in Grade 6 takes herself for a run when she's feeling hyper, and a diminutive boy who is still learning English tells his teacher he will do better work if he sits on a special cushion. It is all part of self-regulation, a philosophy of education that is moving into public schools in British Columbia."

Using Google Docs to create and administer quizzes

"Part of learning in 2014 is NOT to just CONSUME information, but to also contribute and create information. If you enjoy reading the information and resources shared here on the Langwitches blog or via my Twitter feed, consider taking the time to contribute. There is no grade assigned to your contribution, there is no certificate attached and there is no one waving their finger at you, if you don't turn your homework in. This is about self-motivation and self-directed learning in professional development. This is about being part of learning through the power of the crowd versus alone. This is your chance to collaborate , contribute and pushing forward in education (and LEARN along the way)! Read on…"

"I work part-time with elementary learners - with gifted learners during the school year and teaching maker education camps during the summer. The one thing almost all of them have in common is yelling out, "I can't do this" when the tasks aren't completed upon first attempts or get a little too difficult for them. I partially blame this on the way most school curriculum is structured. Too much school curriculum is based on paper for quick and one shot learning experiences (or the comparable online worksheets). Students are asked to do worksheets on paper, answer end-of-chapter questions on paper, write essays on paper, do math problems on paper, fill in the blanks on paper, and pick the correct answer out of a multiple choice set of answers on paper. These tasks are then graded as to the percentage correct and then the teacher moves onto the next task. So it is no wonder that when learners are given hands-on tasks such as those common to maker education, STEM, and STEAM, they sometimes struggle with their completion. Struggles are good. Struggles with authentic tasks mimics real life so much more than completing those types of tasks and assessments done at most schools. Problems like yelling out, "I can't do this" arise when the tasks get a little too difficult, but ultimately are manageable. I used to work with delinquent kids within Outward Bound-type programs. Most at-risk kids have some self-defeating behaviors including those that result in personal failure. The model for these types of programs is that helping participants push past their self-perceived limitations results in the beginnings of a success rather than a failure orientation. This leads into a success building upon success behavioral cycle."

"This past year, fourth and fifth grade students at Independence Elementary School in Yukon, Oklahoma, have had the opportunity to participate in an after-school Scratch Club led by STEM teacher Chris Simon. Scratch is a free program from the MIT Media Lab, which permits learners of any age to create games, tell stories, make animations, and much more. In its new 2.0 version, Scratch is entirely web-based, so it can even run on a Chromebook! Yesterday was the final day of "Scratch Club" for students at Independence Elementary this year, and several students shared the reasons why they enjoy Scratch and have loved the Scratch Club. In this five minute video compilation of their ideas, pay attention to how several students mention the importance of "agency" and choice. Many report how they love the opportunity to be self-directed in their learning and to have opportunities to use their imaginations to create. Also notice the way one student references the "hard fun" of programming, which is something Gary Stager talks about often in the context of students learning to code. "

"Hello, I am Sam Patterson and this is Beyond The Hour of Code, a podcast dedicated to helping teachers use programming and creative self-expression in the learning experiences they design for their students. This episode is about . . . Chapter seven of my book exploring the instructional models most useful for robot-based learning in the primary grades. This is the last in a mini-series of "how to teach with robots" posts. Robot as Constant Robots used in a lesson should be used to their full potential. What does a robot do? Exactly what you tell it to do. Pedagogically, to capitalize on this, think about the robot serving the role of "constant" in an experiment. Ask a robot to roll forward at fifty percent power for two seconds and that is exactly what it will do. How far will it go? That depends on so many things outside of the robot and its programming. This space, just outside of the robot and its programming, is where teachers build the learning experience."

"Juan Carlos Galindo, a Wheaton High School ninth-grader with attention-deficit disorder, always had difficulty managing academic demands when he was younger. His mother, Virginia Munoz, a single mother of four, regularly found her son asleep with homework in his lap. She knew he was struggling, and she worried he would become a checked-out, rebellious teenager. In seventh grade, however, Juan Carlos was invited to participate in a maker learning partnership between Parkland Middle School in Rockville and the KID Museum in Bethesda. The maker philosophy emphasizes hands-on, self-guided projects to build kids' technical skills and confidence through tinkering, inventing and designing."

"My argument, here and in my book, OPEN: How We'll Work, Live and Learn in the Future, is that the discourse surrounding formal learning is becoming ever further detached from the lessons we see when learning happens outside formal boundaries. The grades that individual students receive for their school projects matter little compared to the comments found on their blogs, or their Vimeo accounts. Rising numbers of parents, frustrated by the worksheet culture of their child's classroom, are self-organizing and co-creating local home-learning networks. Learning which is "open" - outward-facing, highly collaborative, co-created and purpose-driven - offers the promise of addressing the two biggest, yet largely overlooked, challenges facing educators."

" "Even young kids have gotten very adept at Minecraft, so it can be quite intimidating for teachers," said Jason Schmidt, an instructional technologist for Bennington Public Schools who will teach the four-week MinecraftEdu MOOC, in a prepared statement. "If I can help get teachers over that hump, imagine how delighted students will be to have a learning environment tailored to their interests for a change." The other, Minecraft for Educators, "is a course for teachers who are wishing to gamify their learning experiences and deliver a unique pedagogy that will engage, enthuse and keep learners coming back for more," according to information released by the company. Both MOOCs are available through the Canvas Network. Minecraft for Educators will start January 26, 2015 and run through March 9. The company has also released a Minecraft app to allow students to submit assignments to the Canvas learning management system from within the game. Using the app, students can tag what they've made in the game for their teachers to visit, upload books they've written in game directly to the speed grader or use the game's circuitry tool to complete assignments that will be automatically graded. A video demonstration of the app is available at YouTube. Other MOOCs for teachers in the suite include: Digital Literacies 1; Digital Literacies 2; Five Habits of Highly Effective Teachers; Teachers without Borders: Educating Girls; and Tinker, Make and Learn. Among the other MOOC offerings in the new suite is a course designed specifically for parents, Parenting in the Digital Age, which aims to help them address issues such as cyberbullying, digital citizenship, exposure to inappropriate content, media literacy and screentime. Taught by Andrew Swickheimer, director of technology at Noblesville Schools, the self-paced course opens September 22. "Parental involvement in K-12 education has one of the biggest impacts on a child's commitment to learning," said Jared Stein, vice pres

"To quote Bob Dylan, the times, they are a-changin'. We wonder, though, if teachers have the dispositions needed to make fundamental changes to their teaching practices in order to respond constructively to our changing times, especially when those changes reveal that what they were doing was less effective than their egos thought they were. The way we teach is often a statement of who we are. If someone questions our practices, it's like they're questioning our value as teachers. Our classroom instruction, including assessment and grading, technology integration, student-teacher interactions, and more, are expressions of how we see ourselves; they are our identity. Can we navigate these frequently troubled waters without invoking self-preserving egos and drowning in resentment?"

"Community and connection are more vital than ever as children reconnect after nearly two years of disrupted learning and isolation. Last year-the toughest one in terms of behavior management that I can remember-I used three tools to create a positive community in my second-grade classroom. They helped me build students' self-esteem, teach empathy and problem-solving, and inspire leadership among my students. This was my most successful year for behavior management, despite having a handful of children who needed a lot of support."