Group items tagged

 ✓ We create learning environments that are carefully crafted, receptive, still, intuitive, unhurried, patient, reflective, quality-over-quantity and engaging. ✓ We develop curriculum that has greater depth than breadth. ✓ We make sure our curriculum takes into account local culture and celebrates the uniqueness of our local community. ✓ We don’t isolate skills development but let students grow their skills as they engage with important content. ✓ We construct learning environments that foster questioning, creativity and innovation, such as the maker movement and project/problem based learning. ✓ We find the courage to have serious discussions about abolishing standardized testing, classroom marks and grading, and the use of “birth year” as our primary criterion for sorting students. ✓ We lobby our governments for funds to assure true equality in education for all children. ✓ We discontinue the ranking of teachers and schools.  ✓ We replace our egg-carton grades with flexible, personalized learning that takes into account when students are ready to engage in and acquire important skills. ✓ We make time for teacher collaboration a top priority.

Sadly, many online classes are Web-based correspondence courses where students complete worksheets and take tests. The offerings and content mirror traditional curriculums

My colleagues and I have demonstrated that online environments focused on collaboration and action, rather than reading and test-taking, can be more social, creative, substantial and personally meaningful than traditional classes

The computer’s real power lies in how it allows kids to learn and do new things in new ways unimaginable just a few years ago

the most important characteristics of effective professional development for educators, you might be surprised by one of their first answers: A blank bulletin board and a bunch of empty classrooms.