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Michelle Krill

Test Today, Privatize Tomorrow - 0 views

www.alfiekohn.org/...testtoday.htm

kohn NCLB standards critical

shared by Michelle Krill on 28 Aug 09 - Cached
  • But the word reform is particularly slippery and tendentious.
  • But the word reform is particularly slippery and tendentious.
  • But the word reform is particularly slippery and tendentious.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • But the word reform is particularly slippery and tendentious.
  • The clarity of language be damned: They come to bury a given institution rather than to improve it, but they describe their mission as “reform.”
  • It’s a very clever gambit, you have to admit. Either you’re in favor of privatization or else you are inexplicably satisfied with mediocrity.
  • there’s plenty of room for dissatisfaction with the current state of our schools. An awful lot is wrong with them: the way conformity is valued over curiosity and enforced with rewards and punishments, the way children are compelled to compete against one another, the way curriculum so often privileges skills over meaning, the way students are prevented from designing their own learning, the way instruction and assessment are increasingly standardized, the way different avenues of study are rarely integrated, the way educators are systematically deskilled .
  • To that extent, even if privatization worked exactly the way it was supposed to, we shouldn’t expect any of the defects I’ve just listed to be corrected.
  • Making schools resemble businesses often results in a kind of pedagogy that’s not merely conservative but reactionary, turning back the clock on the few changes that have managed to infiltrate and improve classrooms.
  • ut an attack on schooling as we know it is generally grounded in politics rather than pedagogy, and is most energetically advanced by those who despise not just public schools but all public institutions.
  • Michelle Krill on 28 Aug 09
     
    Using Accountability to "Reform" Public Schools to Death
Anne Van Meter

Ed schools vs. education - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - 5 views

www.post-gazette.com/...ed-schools-vs-education-648613

education

shared by Anne Van Meter on 12 Aug 12 - No Cached
  • "The achievement gap between the U.S. and the world's top-performing countries can be said to be causing the equivalent of a permanent recession," Mr. Hanushek wrote for Education Next.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 12 Aug 12
       
      What are your thoughts on this?
  • Today we lead the world only in how much we spend per pupil.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 12 Aug 12
       
      There are many reasons for this, of course. But, why do you suppose we're not getting the achievement?
    • Jimbo Lamb
      Jimbo Lamb on 13 Aug 12
       
      Is it because we are forcing all kids to fit the same standards rather than develop different standards for different needs of the students?
    • Anne Van Meter
      Anne Van Meter on 29 Aug 12
       
      Not in % of GDP we spend... Of course, those other countries spend on pupil support: extended parental leave, full health care...
  • Far and away the most important factor in student learning is the quality of teachers. If we got rid of just the bottom 5 percent to 7 percent of teachers, that alone would lift our kids to Canadian levels, Mr. Hanushek calculates.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 12 Aug 12
       
      This is a delicate subject. But, we all know folks who don't put forth the effort that they should. What IF we did this?
    • Jimbo Lamb
      Jimbo Lamb on 13 Aug 12
       
      How do you compare this? In my school, I will have 183 students in my classes this year, and none will be considered advanced math students. Our calc teacher will have a majority of the advanced students and his enrollment numbers are at 93. How does this compare?
    • Anne Van Meter
      Anne Van Meter on 29 Aug 12
       
      I only teach the lower level students (no complaints about that, I'm good at what I do) but they will not hit "advanced"!!
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Our teachers "do not know anything," according to Terrence Moore, who teaches history at Hillsdale College. That's largely because most have degrees in education rather than in the subjects they teach.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 12 Aug 12
       
      This statement just TICKS.ME.OFF!
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 12 Aug 12
       
      Teachers are constrained by many different influences. Creativity is stifled, we teacher to the lowest common "core" denominator. Schools are not bold but old. We are rewarded by passing many useless measures, which unfortunately this article is based off of. Standardized test scores have blinded the public to what is important. Being able to problem solve and to be creative has always been the mark of an American, but that is being stripped of this generation b/c of the drive to wards testing.
    • Anne Van Meter
      Anne Van Meter on 29 Aug 12
       
      And what are elementary teachers supposed to have degrees in? Do you really want a second grade teacher with a major in history? Or chemistry? In college, I took engineering and business calculus classes, business statistics and accounting, in addition to my education math classes. Does it matter that I didn't get a degree in math? Isn't it better that I also have courses in ancient near eastern history? And Arthurian legends? And American and English literature and American government?
  • "Future teachers are better served by getting good grounding in academic subject matter."
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 12 Aug 12
       
      Is that true? Or, is it better to learn how to teach and to use technology for what its capable of doing, etc etc?
  • Ed schools seem to think knowing stuff isn't important.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 12 Aug 12
       
      Humbug!
  • "If you confront [teachers] with the fact that they, just as their students, can tell you nothing about the first 10 presidents or the use of the gerund, they will blithely respond that it is not so important for them to know things as to know 'how to know things,' " said Mr. Moore.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 12 Aug 12
       
      What do you think?
  • The reform needed is to remove state "certification" requirements. The reason for them, we're told, is to guarantee that only the qualified teach. Their real purpose is to keep the knowledgeable out of the classroom.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 12 Aug 12
       
      This is sounding more and more like a rant instead of a thoughtful argument.
  • "Yet these education schools," Mr. Moore points out, "not only do not impart real knowledge of academic subjects; they are actively hostile to it."
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 12 Aug 12
       
      I need to see facts to support this.
    • Anne Van Meter
      Anne Van Meter on 29 Aug 12
       
      The first three out of four years in college were spent taking more non-education courses than education related. We all had to take the full math/English/history/science core courses, then added psychology and sociology in addition to the education courses and several internships as well.
  • If instead of being forced to hire the certified, schools were free to hire the qualified, colleges of education would wither away -- and learning would blossom.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 12 Aug 12
       
      Many qualified folks lost their positions when they weren't deemed 'highly qualified.' 
    • Jimbo Lamb
      Jimbo Lamb on 13 Aug 12
       
      Isn't that what certification is? An official statement that the person is indeed qualified?
    • Anne Van Meter
      Anne Van Meter on 29 Aug 12
       
      But, wasn't he just complaining several paragraphs ago that 60% of teachers are certified in their subjects? And he wants to add more uncertified teachers?
  • Students learn a lot from the teacher who knows a lot," Mr. Moore said. "They learn nothing from the teacher who knows nothing."
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 12 Aug 12
       
      Now, that's profound.
  • they aren't allowed to teach.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 12 Aug 12
       
      Why would they? The work is difficult, the pay is terrible and everyone outside of education thinks you're lazy.
    • Jimbo Lamb
      Jimbo Lamb on 13 Aug 12
       
      A medical doctor teaching in HS? What, around their appointments with patients? 
    • Anne Van Meter
      Anne Van Meter on 29 Aug 12
       
      And politicians take cushy jobs as lobbyists. I can't think of many teachers who only need to teach civics. It's only a small part of the full curriculum.
  • Not so many years ago, our schools were the best in the world
    • Jimbo Lamb
      Jimbo Lamb on 13 Aug 12
       
      I'd like to see the supporting evidence on this.
  • anonymous on 12 Aug 12
     
    An interesting article, and certainly not without other opinions.
  • Anne Van Meter on 29 Aug 12
     
    An interesting article, and certainly not without other opinions.
Ben Louey

Mobile Learning Institute - 0 views

www.mobilelearninginstitute.org/...index.html

education 21stcenturyskills 21stcenturylearning learning mobilelearning

shared by Ben Louey on 06 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Ben Louey on 06 Aug 09
     
    The Mobile Learning Institute's film series "A 21st Century Education" profiles individuals who embrace and defend fresh approaches to learning and who confront the urgent social challenges that are part of a 21st century experience. "A 21st Century Education" compiles, in short film format, the best ideas around school reform. The series is meant to start, extend, or nudge the conversation about how to make change in education happen.
Mardy McGaw

Educational Leadership:Teaching for the 21st Century:21st Century Skills: The Challenge... - 1 views

www.ascd.org/...lls@_The_Challenges_Ahead.aspx

shared by Mardy McGaw on 07 Sep 09 - Cached
  • But in fact, the skills students need in the 21st century are not new.
  • What's actually new is the extent to which changes in our economy and the world mean that collective and individual success depends on having such skills.
  • This distinction between "skills that are novel" and "skills that must be taught more intentionally and effectively" ought to lead policymakers to different education reforms than those they are now considering. If these skills were indeed new, then perhaps we would need a radical overhaul of how we think about content and curriculum. But if the issue is, instead, that schools must be more deliberate about teaching critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving to all students, then the remedies are more obvious, although still intensely challenging.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • To complicate the challenge, some of the rhetoric we have heard surrounding this movement suggests that with so much new knowledge being created, content no longer matters; that ways of knowing information are now much more important than information itself. Such notions contradict what we know about teaching and learning and raise concerns that the 21st century skills movement will end up being a weak intervention for the very students—low-income students and students of color—who most need powerful schools as a matter of social equity.
  • What will it take to ensure that the idea of "21st century skills"—or more precisely, the effort to ensure that all students, rather than just a privileged few, have access to a rich education that intentionally helps them learn these skills—is successful in improving schools? That effort requires three primary components. First, educators and policymakers must ensure that the instructional program is complete and that content is not shortchanged for an ephemeral pursuit of skills. Second, states, school districts, and schools need to revamp how they think about human capital in education—in particular how teachers are trained. Finally, we need new assessments that can accurately measure richer learning and more complex tasks.
  • Why would misunderstanding the relationship of skills and knowledge lead to trouble? If you believe that skills and knowledge are separate, you are likely to draw two incorrect conclusions. First, because content is readily available in many locations but thinking skills reside in the learner's brain, it would seem clear that if we must choose between them, skills are essential, whereas content is merely desirable. Second, if skills are independent of content, we could reasonably conclude that we can develop these skills through the use of any content. For example, if students can learn how to think critically about science in the context of any scientific material, a teacher should select content that will engage students (for instance, the chemistry of candy), even if that content is not central to the field. But all content is not equally important to mathematics, or to science, or to literature. To think critically, students need the knowledge that is central to the domain.
  • Because of these challenges, devising a 21st century skills curriculum requires more than paying lip service to content knowledge.
  • Advocates of 21st century skills favor student-centered methods—for example, problem-based learning and project-based learning—that allow students to collaborate, work on authentic problems, and engage with the community. These approaches are widely acclaimed and can be found in any pedagogical methods textbook; teachers know about them and believe they're effective. And yet, teachers don't use them. Recent data show that most instructional time is composed of seatwork and whole-class instruction led by the teacher (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Early Child Care Research Network, 2005). Even when class sizes are reduced, teachers do not change their teaching strategies or use these student-centered methods (Shapson, Wright, Eason, & Fitzgerald, 1980). Again, these are not new issues. John Goodlad (1984) reported the same finding in his landmark study published more than 20 years ago.
  • Why don't teachers use the methods that they believe are most effective? Even advocates of student-centered methods acknowledge that these methods pose classroom management problems for teachers. When students collaborate, one expects a certain amount of hubbub in the room, which could devolve into chaos in less-than-expert hands. These methods also demand that teachers be knowledgeable about a broad range of topics and are prepared to make in-the-moment decisions as the lesson plan progresses. Anyone who has watched a highly effective teacher lead a class by simultaneously engaging with content, classroom management, and the ongoing monitoring of student progress knows how intense and demanding this work is. It's a constant juggling act that involves keeping many balls in the air.
  • Most teachers don't need to be persuaded that project-based learning is a good idea—they already believe that. What teachers need is much more robust training and support than they receive today, including specific lesson plans that deal with the high cognitive demands and potential classroom management problems of using student-centered methods.
  • Without better curriculum, better teaching, and better tests, the emphasis on "21st century skills" will be a superficial one that will sacrifice long-term gains for the appearance of short-term progress.
  • The debate is not about content versus skills. There is no responsible constituency arguing against ensuring that students learn how to think in school. Rather, the issue is how to meet the challenges of delivering content and skills in a rich way that genuinely improves outcomes for students.
    • Mardy McGaw
      Mardy McGaw on 20 Oct 09
       
      "ensuring that students learn how to think" You would think that this is the essence of education but this is not always asked of students. Memorize, Report and Present but how often do students think and comment on their learning?
  • practice means that you try to improve by noticing what you are doing wrong and formulating strategies to do better. Practice also requires feedback, usually from someone more skilled than you are.
    • Mardy McGaw
      Mardy McGaw on 20 Oct 09
       
      Students need to be taught how to work as part of a group. The need to see mistakes and be given a chance to improve on them. Someone who already knows how to work as a team player is the best coach/teacher.
  • anonymous on 07 Sep 09
     
    A very interesting article. Lots of good discussion points.
Michelle Krill

Until Robots Replace Us - 5 views

www.untilrobotsreplaceus.com

moodle cffcoach

shared by Michelle Krill on 31 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • Michelle Krill on 31 Jul 11
     
    "Passion Driven: living, education, social justice, technology, Moodle, online learning, leadership, reform, cake. -Written by @drewmortensen"
Jason Christiansen

The Sun Magazine | Why Schools Don't Educate - 1 views

www.thesunmagazine.org/...937

reform article

shared by Jason Christiansen on 23 Sep 10 - No Cached
  • Jason Christiansen on 23 Sep 10
     
    "Laments about our schools are nothing new; everyone is an expert, it seems, when it comes to education. While most critics point to the lack of funding or the shortage of teachers, John Taylor Gatto insists the problem goes deeper; we've turned our schools, he says, into "torture chambers." If that sounds abrasively radical, consider this: Gatto, with almost thirty years' experience as a public-school teacher, has just been named New York City's Teacher of the Year for 1989. Gatto teaches seventh grade at Junior High School 54 on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Something of a local legend, he's a chess player and a songwriter - and he grows garlic. He was once named Citizen of the Week for coming to the aid of a woman who had been robbed. He has lectured on James Joyce's Ulysses at Cornell University and has taught philosophy at California State College. Perhaps it's not surprising that he's been approached by a film company interested in making a movie of his life. Gatto once ran for the New York State Senate on the Conservative Party ticket, and some of his ideas are quite traditional: he stresses "family values" and questions increased funds for education. But he's too much of a maverick to be easily labeled. At a recent hearing in New York, he castigated the school system for "the murder of 1 million black and Latino children," and was met with a standing ovation. What follows is the text of the speech he gave upon being named Teacher of the Year."
Michelle Krill

iNACOL - International Association for K-12 Online Learning - 6 views

www.inacol.org

onlinelearning reform disruptive elearning distancelearning

shared by Michelle Krill on 30 May 10 - Cached
  • Michelle Krill on 30 May 10
     
    Mission: iNACOL strives to ensure all students have access to world-class education and quality online learning opportunities that prepare them for a lifetime for success. Vision: Online learning is a powerful innovation that expands education opportunities. iNACOL supports access to high-quality online learning for all students.
Aly Kenee

American Education in 2030 | Hoover Institution - 10 views

www.hoover.org/...AE2030

future predicting reform

shared by Aly Kenee on 07 Mar 11 - Cached
  • Aly Kenee on 07 Mar 11
     
    Various videos expressing opinions about where education will be in 2030.
Michelle Krill

Powerful Learning Practice: About Us - 0 views

plpnetwork.com/index.html

21st cff pd reform

shared by Michelle Krill on 18 Sep 08 - Cached
  • Michelle Krill on 18 Sep 08
     
    A one-year, ongoing, job-embedded professional development opportunity built around emerging social Web technologies that connects: * 20 schools from around the state (or world) * 5 educators (administrators/teachers) from each school * 10-21st Century Fellows (Champions) selected from participating districts ...Finally, it prepares schools and districts to move forward in systemic ways after the one-year commitment ends by laying the groundwork for three and five-year community building project plans.
Michelle Krill

School of One - School Of One - New York City Department of Education - 4 views

schools.nyc.gov/...default.htm

elearning shift reform NYC

shared by Michelle Krill on 30 Jun 10 - Cached
  • Michelle Krill on 30 Jun 10
     
    "The mission of School of One is to provide students with personalized, effective, and dynamic classroom instruction so that teachers have more time to focus on the quality of their instruction. To achieve this mission, School of One re-imagines the traditional classroom model. Instead of one teacher and 25-30 students in a classroom, each student participates in multiple instructional modalities, including a combination of teacher-led instruction, one-on-one tutoring, independent learning, and work with virtual tutors. To organize this type of learning, each student receives a unique daily schedule based on his or her academic strengths and needs. As a result, students within the same school or even the same classroom can receive profoundly different instruction as each student's schedule is tailored to the skills they need and the ways they best learn. Teachers acquire data about student achievement each day and then adapt their live instructional lessons accordingly. By leveraging technology to play a more essential role in planning instruction, teachers have more time to focus on doing what they do best - delivering quality instruction and insuring that all students learn."
Michelle Krill

Apple - ACOT2 - About ACOT2 - 0 views

edcommunity.apple.com/acot2

21st 21stcenturyskills apple cff education highschool reform transform

shared by Michelle Krill on 02 Oct 08 - Cached
  • Michelle Krill on 02 Oct 08
     
    ACOT2 has identified six design principles for the 21st century high school.
anonymous

Visions of Students Today - 7 views

visionsofstudents.org

education reform

shared by anonymous on 26 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 26 Jul 11
     
    Wow! Watch the initial video, then click through some of the individual videos along the outside when it's finished. What are your thoughts on the message from these students? Another Michael Wesch video
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