Skip to main content

Home/ Chandler School/ Group items tagged article

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Scott Nancarrow

Education | Greater Good - 0 views

greatergood.berkeley.edu/education

education empathy science

shared by Scott Nancarrow on 20 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • Seven Ways to Cultivate Joy and Empathy in Math Class
  • Four Ways Teachers Can Reduce Implicit Bias
  • How to Awaken Joy in Kids
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • How to Stop the Culture of Complaining in Schools
  • How to Talk with Boys about Trump’s Attitude Toward Women
  • Three Gratitude Lessons for K-8 Classrooms
  • How to Help Diverse Students Find Common Ground
  • Our Best Education Articles of 2016
  • The Best Greater Good Articles of 2016
  • How to Listen with Compassion in the Classroom
  • How to Nurture Empathic Joy in Your Classroom
Jill Bergeron

Student-Centered Learning: March 2016 | Matt Renwick - 0 views

mattrenwick.com/...what-im-reading-march-2016

student-centered learning

shared by Jill Bergeron on 25 Apr 16 - No Cached
  • Kraft and his team found four attributes identified in schools that experienced consistently high achievement: School safety and order Leadership and professional development High academic expectations Teacher relationships and collaboration
  • Specific professional learning offerings for teachers include one-to-one instructional coaching and school leadership opportunities. Teacher retention and higher test scores have been the result of these efforts.
  • Educators can start reimagining instruction by asking ourselves what learning we experienced in our school careers that truly mattered in our lives. This reflection can lead to finding topics and themes from our current curriculum and assessing how well they fit within this mindset of lifeworthy learning. Four tenets of big understandings – opportunity, insight, action, and ethics – can serve as gatekeepers in this process.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Perkins closes this piece of identifying three national agendas (achievement, information, expertise) that may have had too much importance placed upon them.
  • Play-based learning should allow for the students to explore their passions and interests without an outcome necessarily in mind. “Play is not something you do to a child. If you have an agenda, if you are requiring them to do it, if you have to make it ‘fun’ to get them to comply, if they are not free to stop at any time, then it is not play.”
  • Play is self-chosen, enjoyable, inherently valuable, and unstructured.
  • Jill Bergeron on 25 Apr 16
     
    This is my title I created for this post. Mr. Renwick sums up several books and posts related to the idea of creating conditions for student-centered learning.
Scott Nancarrow

Bullying in Schools Plagues Neurodivergent Students: ADDitude Survey - 0 views

www.additudemag.com/neurodivergent-students-report

bullying

shared by Scott Nancarrow on 02 Nov 22 - No Cached
  • Advertisement ADHD Parenting Friendships & Activities Friends at School Bullying Is the Norm. So Is an Inadequate Response. Bullying plagues a majority of neurodivergent students at school, on social media, and/or on the bus. When asked about the school’s response to incidents of bullying, 72% of ADDitude readers surveyed said they were dissatisfied and only 12% said the bullies faced any punishment. By ADDitude Editors Verified Updated on October 28, 2022 Email Save Save
  • Bullying Prevention Strategies
  • For Educators and School Staff
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • e
  • vigilant.
  • B
  • Respond quickly and consistently to bullying. Always try to stop bullying on the spot, as it can stop bullying behavior over time. Do not ignore the situation and assume that the issue will resolve on its own. Avoid forcing the bully and victim to “work it out” on the spot. Get medical attention or police help if warranted.
  • Incorporate bullying prevention activities in lessons. Get creative. Students can learn how to respond to bullying, how to report it (including cyberbullying) to teachers and staff, and the role they play in fostering a culture of safety, inclusion, and respect at school.
  • Conduct school-wide bullying assessments and evaluation prevention efforts. Refine plans as necessary.
  • Bullying generally happens in areas where supervision is limited – playgrounds, crowded hallways, lunchrooms, school buses, etc. Monitor these hot spots.
Jill Bergeron

How play could save US education - Tech Insider - 0 views

www.techinsider.io/ow-to-save-us-education-2016-4

play recess play-based

shared by Jill Bergeron on 06 May 16 - No Cached
  • The main findings: The more play a school gives its student body, the greater rewards kids see in their character development, academic achievement, safety, and overall health.
  • According to Vialet, structure is a child's best friend when it comes to play. While kids may have a built-in urge to run around and get dirty, playing with other kids is a social experience, which means it has to be learned.
  • A 2013 study of the Playworks model from Stanford University found it led to 43% less bullying, 20% higher feelings of student safety, 43% more physical activity, and 34% less time transitioning from recess back to the classroom. A number of other studies suggest recess can also lead to better grades in school, regardless of the form it takes.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • An absence of recess could simply mark the absence of creativity in schools more generally.
  • Jill Bergeron on 06 May 16
     
    This article describes the research that supports the value of play in schools.
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views

www.marshallmemo.com/issue.php

leadership pedagogy new teacher improved teaching assessment Reflection Learning critical thinking problem solving emotional labor balance work-life balance longevity

shared by Jill Bergeron on 04 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • In This Issue: 1. Four secrets of peak performance 2. “Emotional labor” on the job 3. Getting students thinking at higher levels 4. Student work analysis to improve teaching, assessment, and learning 5. Elements of the Haberman principal interview
  • “The key to resilience is trying really hard, then stopping, recovering, and then trying again… Our brains need a rest as much as our bodies do… The value of a recovery period rises in proportion to the amount of work required of us.”
  • the best long-term performers tap into positive energy at all levels of the performance pyramid.” Here are the four levels:
  • ...36 more annotations...
  • being able to mobilize energy when it’s needed – depends on two things: (a) alternating between intense work and recovery; and (b) developing regular rituals to build in recovery.
  • For those of us who are not professional athletes, regular workouts each week, coupled with good nutrition and sleep, make a major difference in work productivity and enjoyment.
  • Positive emotions have a remarkable impact on reducing physiological stress, whereas negative emotions, even simulated, increase stress. The key, psychologists have found, is to “act as if.”
  • Here are some workplace conditions that increase emotional labor: -   A mismatch between your personality and what’s expected on the job; -   A misalignment of values, especially if what you’re asked to do is in conflict with what you believe; -   A workplace culture in which particular ways of expressing emotion are endorsed, or not endorsed.
  • The key to improving cognitive work is focus, say Loehr and Schwartz. A big part of that is managing down-time – knowing the body’s need for breaks every 90-120 minutes – and using meditation and visualization.
  • Practiced regularly, meditation quiets the mind, the emotions, and the body, promoting energy recovery.” Experienced meditators need considerably less sleep and have enhanced creativity and productivity.
  • Spiritual capacity – By this, Loehr and Schwartz mean “the energy that is unleashed by tapping into one’s deepest values and defining a strong sense of purpose.”
  • Sometimes, when we’re doing work that isn’t in synch with how we feel, we have to put on our professional game face. That effort is known among psychologists as “emotional labor” – remaining energetic and upbeat despite a bad night’s sleep,
  • framing his response in positive language.
  • If you’re in a job that’s meaningful and largely aligned with your values, the best way to reduce emotional labor, says David, is to substitute surface acting with what she calls “deep acting.” Some tips:             • Remind yourself why you’re in the job you’re in.
  • Explore “want to” versus “have to” thinking. What aspects of the job energize you? How can other aspects be made more efficient and pleasant?
  • Do some job crafting. Can you and your boss tweak the work so it’s of greater value to you and the organization? Or is there a new project that would be fun and productive?
  • “Drill-and-practice is boring. But thinking, for most students most of the time, is actually fun.”
  • four strategies to engage students in higher-order thinking:             • Open questions – Every lesson should have two or three of these to highlight key content and thinking skills.
  • Wait time is important. Think time, no hands up, is a good admonition. “If you don’t provide enough wait time, you’ll get either no responses or surface-level responses,
  • In all-class discussions, teachers should resist the temptation to comment themselves, instead asking specific follow-up questions to get other students involved.
  • Another approach is asking “what if” and “what else” questions to push students to expand or elaborate on what they’re studying
  • Students thinking, not just retelling
  • The way out of this dynamic is posing a thought-provoking problem
  • All too many student projects are simple regurgitation,
  • Self-assessment – “Students who can self-assess are poised to be life-long learners,” says Brookhart. “They are poised to use self-regulation strategies and to be their own best coaches as they learn. They are able to ask focused questions when they don’t understand or when they’re stuck.”
  • Teach students to self-assess with rubrics. It’s important that the rubric goes beyond the basic level and stipulates higher-level criteria like stating a position, defending one’s reasoning, using supportive details.
  • Use confidence ratings. For example, students might be asked to use the “fist of fives” on their chest to indicate how confident they are that they understand a particular term or concept
  • Have students co-create success criteria. Studying material with which students are familiar, they can jointly create what the teacher and students will look for in their work.
  • consultant Karin Hess suggests analyzing student work in three layers: first describing the student work we actually see (or what students tell about it); then interpreting what the evidence might mean (specific to the intended purpose); and then evaluating what next steps should be taken. Hess outlines how the process of analyzing student work can be helpful to teaching and learning:
  • • Purpose #1: Improving the quality of tasks/prompts and scoring guides – Piloting tasks and looking at student work helps to clarify prompts, make tasks accessible and engaging for all students, trim unnecessary components, modify the wording of scoring rubrics, and tweak questions so they will measure deeper thinking.
  • Students can use assessment evidence to set and monitor progress, reflect on themselves as learners, and evaluate the quality of their own work. “Valuing both one’s struggles and successes at accomplishing smaller learning targets over time has proven to have a profound influence on deepening motivation, developing independence as a learner, and building what we have come to know as ‘a growth mindset,’”
  • Purpose #3: Monitoring progress over time – A good pre-assessment focuses on the core learning or prerequisite skills that students will need to build on, and teachers can sort and work with students according to what they need to learn to be successful in the unit.
  • Purpose #4: Engaging students in peer- and self-assessment – One approach is having students look at two pieces of work by other students side by side and asking them (for example): -   What does each student know and understand and where might they improve?
  • What does the student know now that he or she didn’t know how to do as well on the first task? What were the areas of improvement?
  • Which piece of work comes closest to the expectations? What’s the evidence?
  • Purpose #2: Making key instructional decisions – Observing and taking notes on students’ responses to this task gave teachers two specific teaching points.
  • Purpose #5: Better understanding how learning progresses over time – Many skills, concepts, and misconceptions revealed in student work analysis are not explicitly addressed in curriculum standards. Looking at students’ learning trajectories in interim assessments and student work can guide teachers in the next step that students at different levels of progress need to take. • Purpose #6: Building content and pedagogical expertise –
  • it is analyzing evidence in student work that causes teachers to reflect on how students learn and how to make their instructional and assessment practices more effective.”
  • “students who engage with rich, strategically-designed tasks on a regular basis learn that finding the answer is not as personally meaningful as knowing how to apply knowledge in new situations and explain the reasoning that supports their thinking.”
  • 13 dimensions of school leadership
  • Jill Bergeron on 04 Oct 16
     
    The first four articles have to do with building a better teacher and leader. The last article looks at educational leadership and the qualities that support it.
Jill Bergeron

Seven ways to give better feedback to your students | Teacher Network | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...tter-feedback-to-your-students

feedback assessment

shared by Jill Bergeron on 21 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • too much praise can convey a sense of low expectation and, as a result, can be demotivating.
  • Teenagers care a lot about what their peers think of them. Constructive feedback given in front of others, even if it is well-intended, can be read as a public attack on them and their ability. This can lead to students developing a fear of failure and putting up a front.
  • This is similar to the technique he calls the whisper correction – the feedback technically takes place in public, but the pitch and tone of voice is designed to be heard only by the individual receiving it.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • A recent study found that being positively compared to others can lead to narcissistic behaviour. This sort of comparison can also reduce motivation and result in lower confidence, emotional control, academic performance and increased anxiety.
  • The more detailed and specific your feedback is, the better, to remove any ambiguity. Rather than “good work”, say “The way you did X was really good.”
  • Praising effort instead of intelligence increases intrinsic motivation and provides a template for students to follow next time.
  • In this study, 86% of children who had been praised for their natural ability asked for information about how their peers did on the same task. Only 23% of children who had been praised for effort asked for this type of feedback, with the vast majority of them asking for feedback about how they could do better.
  • But you should aim for a combination of open and closed questions in your feedback, along with statements. Closed statements are useful for conveying key information and keeping the conversation focused.
  • Any feedback that doesn’t lead to a change in behaviour change is redundant – there must be a point to it. What do you want them to do differently? What are they going to do after the conversation to improve? The more detailed and specific the action points, the better.
  • Jill Bergeron on 21 Nov 16
     
    This article gives tangible tips on how to improve feedback to students.
Gayle Cole

My Daughter's Homework Is Killing Me - Karl Taro Greenfeld - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...309514

Homework balance

shared by Gayle Cole on 24 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Memorization, not rationalization
  • from Pacific Palisades, California,
  • October 2013 My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me What happens when a father, alarmed by his 13-year-old daughter's nightly workload, tries to do her homework for a week Karl Taro Greenfeld Sep 18 2013, 8:24 PM ET
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • We have 11 algebra equations.
  • We also have to read 79 pages of Angela’s Ashes and find “three important and powerful quotes from the section with 1–2 sentence analyses of its [sic] significance.
  • Gayle Cole on 24 Oct 13
     
    Jennifer Smith shared
Gayle Cole

The Case for a Campus Makerspace - 0 views

www.hackeducation.com/...e-case-for-a-campus-makerspace

spcatholic etmooc twitter edtech MOOCs article maker movement reform education future Make Magazine ThnkLab STEM innovation CATIE Caine's arcade

shared by Gayle Cole on 12 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • Gayle Cole on 12 Feb 13
     
    Article with compelling persuasion about importance of makerspaces
Jill Bergeron

Research Finds Effects Of Homework On Elementary Students - 1 views

www.lifehack.org/...and-the-results-are-surprising

homework

shared by Jill Bergeron on 06 May 16 - No Cached
smontevirgen liked it
  • While homework has a significant benefit at the high school level, the benefit drops off for middle school students and “there’s no benefit at the elementary school level,”
  • Homework can generate a negative impact on children’s attitudes toward school.
  • After a long day at school, something that includes the word “work” is not exactly what kids want to do before going to bed. This ends up too often in a sorrowful battle that can be extended to the later years when homework does have benefits.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • Those who support homework will say that daily homework helps kids become more responsible, but this is only true at a later age.
  • Homework leaves less time for kids to be kids.
  • All students, and especially the youngest ones, should use their evenings and holiday time to do more physical activities, playing outdoors and participating in sports with friends.
  • Another problem with elementary school homework is that it often takes time away from their sleeping hours. Children need, on average, ten hours of sleep a day. For kids to be 100% the next day at school, they need to have a proper rest.
  • encourage fun reading.
  • Although personalizing this activity for each kid will require more effort than homogeneous homework, the benefits of fun reading will be noticeable.
  • Teach responsibility with daily chores.
  • Teach them that they are always learners.
  • Take them to visit a museum.
  • Overall, administrators, parents, and teachers may leverage after-school experiences where creativity, sociability, and learning converge to enhance elementary schools students’ educations.
  • Jill Bergeron on 06 May 16
     
    This article details how homework can be detrimental to elementary school children. However, it also offers alternatives to homework.
  • smontevirgen on 08 May 16
     
    Love this article! Homework should be the last thing a child does when they get home after working in school all day. How about learning to cook with mom and dad? This may be a hard sell for some parents who see learning as a concrete task and not a reflective one. Some alternatives: Reading a good book for pleasure, reading with your kids, going to the park.... Kids need school life balance as well.
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views

www.marshallmemo.com/issue.php

empathy management leadership gratitude generosity evaluation check-in collaboration parent-teacher conferences PLC English poetry math election 2016

shared by Jill Bergeron on 20 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • “While people usually gain power through traits and actions that advance the interests of others, such as empathy, collaboration, openness, fairness, and sharing, when they start to feel powerful or enjoy a position of privilege, those qualities begin to fade.”
  • Behaviors like these undermine leaders’ effectiveness by depressing the performance of those around them, and are ultimately self-defeating.
  • power puts us in something like a manic state, making us feel expansive, energized, omnipotent, hungry for rewards, and immune to risk – which opens us up to rash, rude, and unethical actions.” But it turns out that simply being aware of those feelings – “Hey, I’m feeling as if I should rule the world right now” – and monitoring impulses to behave inappropriately helps keep those behaviors in check.
  • ...29 more annotations...
  • When Keltner works with up-and-coming executives, he counsels them to remember and repeat the virtuous behaviors that helped them rise in the first place and develop three essential practices: empathy, gratitude, and generosity.
  • To practice empathy: -   Ask a question or two in every interaction, showing genuine interest in the subject. -   Paraphrase important points made by others. -   Listen with gusto, orienting your body and eyes toward the person speaking and verbally showing interest and engagement. -   When someone comes to you with a problem, don’t jump right to judgment and advice but say something like, “That’s really tough” or “I’m sorry.” -   Before a meeting, take a moment to think about the person you’ll be with and what’s happening in his or her life.
  • The alternative mindset is that people can grow professionally and managers can change the way people perform through effective coaching, management, and intrinsic rewards like personal development and making a difference.
  • “From Silicon Valley to New York, and in offices across the world, firms are replacing annual reviews with frequent, informal check-ins between managers and employees.”
  • One observer called the traditional performance evaluation a “rite of corporate kabuki” that restricted creativity, generated mountains of paperwork, and served no real purpose. It was also an incentive to put off bad news until the end of the year, at which point both manager and employee may have forgotten what the problem was.
  • There’s one more reason: once-a-year reviews focus on past performance rather than encouraging current work and grooming talent for the future.
  • To practice gratitude: -   Make thoughtful thank-yous a part of how you communicate with others. -   Send colleagues specific and timely e-mails or notes of appreciation for a job well done. -   Publicly acknowledge the value that each person contributes to the team, including support staff. -   Use the right kind of touch – pats on the back, fist bumps, high-fives – to celebrate success. • To practice generosity: -   Seek opportunities to spend a little one-on-one time with people you lead. -   Delegate some important and high-profile responsibilities. -   Give praise generously. -   Share the limelight – give credit to all who contribute to the success of your team and your organization.
  • employees, especially recent college graduates, learn faster from frequent, detailed feedback from mentors and superiors. Second, companies realized they needed to be agile to survive and thrive in the competitive, ever-changing marketplace and real-time performance monitoring and feedback led to more rapid adaptations. And third, managers saw that teamwork was key to innovation and productivity and moving from forced annual ranking to frequent individual accountability was more conducive to teamwork and better results.
  • Studies of the workplace show that the time employees spend helping others is as important to their evaluations and chances of promotion as how they do their jobs. And Grant’s own research on “givers” (who enjoy helping others) and “takers” (who are focused on coming out ahead) shows that givers consistently achieve better results.
  • on the most difficult part of his exams – the multiple choice section – if a student was unsure of an question, he or she wrote down the name of another student who might know the answer – like asking for a lifeline on “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” If the classmate had it right, they both earned points; one person’s success also benefited a classmate. Grant reports that this made a big difference – more students joined study groups, the groups pooled their knowledge, and the class’s average score went up 2 percentage points compared to the previous year. Why? Because one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it to someone else, and that’s what was going on in the groups.
  • There was something else going on in the lifeline idea: transactive memory, or knowing who knows best and taking advantage of their knowledge. It’s easier to get help if you know where to look.
  • In this Chronicle of Higher Education article, Ellen Boucher (Amherst College) says the “pressure of perfection” is causing lots of stress for students in their teens and twenties, contributing to the rising suicide rate in this age bracket.
  • The burden of multiple obligations can seem insurmountable.”
  • Sociologists have shown that students from less-privileged backgrounds often have trouble understanding the unwritten rules of college life – the so-called hidden curriculum… [A]sking a professor for an extension doesn’t always come naturally. It might not even occur to them as an option.”
  • all students can elect to take a two-day grace period on any paper, with no questions asked.
  • “Since changing my policy, I’ve seen higher-quality work, less anxiety, and fewer cases of burnout.
  • Rebrand. A more inviting name for these perennial meetings is “progress conferences.” This is more positive and doesn’t seem to exclude foster parents and guardians.
  • Finesse the childcare issue. “To pay a babysitter to watch your three younger siblings so a parent can attend a conference is not going to happen,” says Ohio high-school teacher Allison Ricket. She invites parents to bring along other children and provides crayons and paper in an area at the back of her classroom where they can entertain themselves during conferences.
  • Accommodate. Some parents need an interpreter (children shouldn’t be asked to translate) and support with disabilities.
  • Change the dynamic. It makes a difference if a teacher sits side by side with family members and doesn’t hold a clipboard or pad of paper; open hands suggest an open mind.
  • Involve students. Progress conferences are much more helpful when students are at the table reporting on their progress, challenges, and goals. Advisory group meetings focus on preparing students to lead parent conferences and lobby their parents to attend.
  • • Listen. “Parents usually come in having an idea of what they want to talk about, so I like to be open and ready for whatever they need,” says Ricket. Although she has students’ grades and portfolios on hand, she lets parents go first and is careful to empathize with any concerns they have.
  • “mathematics is better taught when everyone shares in consistent language, symbols and notation, models and schema, and rules that support developing learners. The idea behind this comprehensive agreement is not unlike a schoolwide behavior management policy – whereby children hear the same phrases, share identical expectations, and experience practices that are common and consistent year after year across classrooms and throughout the school.”
  • Language – Moving from less conceptual language – borrowing, carrying, reducing fractions, the “Ring around the Rosie” property – to more mathematically appropriate language – regrouping, simplifying fractions to the lowest terms.
  • Symbols and notation – For example, writing fractions with a slanted bar 3/8 may confuse students who think the bar is the numeral 1 and think it’s 318.
  • Models and schema
  • Number lines or graphics should be consistent through the grades, for example, a graphic showing two parts next to one whole.
  • Rules
  • “This unified approach is particularly helpful for students who struggle,” conclude Karp, Bush, and Dougherty, “as it provides a recognizable component to new content. Additionally, all learners in a school can make connections among ideas in a unified and collaborative culture that promotes stronger learning in mathematics.”
  • Jill Bergeron on 20 Sep 16
     
    "Online Resources for Teaching About the Presidential Campaign             In this article in Education Week, Madeline Will shares five free classroom resources for teaching and discussing this year's election: -   Letters to the Next President 2.0 www.letters2president.org - Students' letters to the 45th president will be published by PBS member station KQED and the National Writing Project. -   Teaching Tolerance Election 2016 Resources www.tolerance.org/election2016 - These include a civility contract, civic activities, and PD webinars. -   iCivics www.icivics.org/election_resources_2016 - Materials on the basics of democracy, with an interactive digital game in which students manage their own presidential campaign. -   C-Span Classroom www.c-spanclassroom.org/campaign-2016.aspx - Primary sources with historical and contemporary video clips and related discussion questions, handouts, and activity ideas. -   Join the Debates www.jointhedebates.org - Curriculum materials for collaborative discussions on issues in the campaign and debates.   "Educators Grapple with Election 2016" by Madeline Will in Education Week, September 14, 2016 (Vol. 36, #4, p. 1, 12-13), www.edweek.org "
Jill Bergeron

An Inside Look at an Award-Winning Maker Program | Edutopia - 0 views

www.edutopia.org/...ng-maker-program-kevin-jarrett

maker makered design thinking pbl

shared by Jill Bergeron on 14 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • Making matters. And design thinking matters to makers.
  • Eleven students, including four who had just graduated eighth grade, would spend the weekend explaining how design thinking drove our program’s work and their learning. Kids used student-built prototypes to explain how they employed design thinking to solve problems and make the world a better place.
  • We set up stations where Faire attendees got to experience prototyping for themselves, tackling design challenges based on the Extraordinaires Design Studio and expertly explained by our kids.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • students would work with JeffDESIGN over the summer to learn valuable lessons about what it takes to get an idea from concept to production in the real world.
  • We have adopted the free and fabulous EPICS—Engineering Projects In Community Service—as the heart and soul of our program this year.
  • I love that the EPICS framework is just that—a framework. It provides a flexible structure I can modify as necessary to suit our processes and needs.
  • When we are done, we’ll have a powerful, document-driven, human-centered methodology to guide our work in design.
  • The new school year has gotten off to a good start. We’re creating an entirely new understanding of design thinking in Digital Shop, an amalgam of our shared past experiences and the practices of some of the world’s best design thinking practitioners. It’s ridiculously hard work, alternatively frustrating and exhilarating, but totally worth it.
  • Jill Bergeron on 14 Dec 16
     
    This article gives a good idea of how to scaffold a maker program and it is chock full of resources we can use to support those initiatives.
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 2 views

www.marshallmemo.com/issue.php

PBL differentiation effective teams tech integration teacher retention science learning gap' meetings teacher mentorship mentors

shared by Jill Bergeron on 10 Mar 16 - No Cached
  • 1. What makes a team effective? 2. A new perspective on closing the achievement gap 3. Project-based learning 101 4. A school network experiments with high tech and student choice 5. Opening up a daily 40-minute block in a North Carolina high school 6. How to hold onto high-quality new teachers 7. The effect of reading about the struggles of accomplished scientists
  • Project Aristotle, as it was dubbed, found that some team characteristics that seemed intuitively important – members sharing interests and hobbies, having similar educational backgrounds, socializing after hours – didn’t correlate with team success.
  • The ‘who’ part of the equation didn’t seem to matter.”
  • ...30 more annotations...
  • Then Project Aristotle began looking at group norms – the culture of unwritten rules that guide people when they collaborate – and hit pay dirt. It turned out that two group norms were shared by virtually all of Google’s most effective teams: -   Equal air time – In teams that got the best results, members participated roughly the same amount during meetings. “As long as everyone got a chance to talk, the team did well,” said Google researcher Anita Woolley. “But if only one person or a small group spoke all the time, the collective intelligence declined.” -   Interpersonal sensitivity – Effective team members had the ability to intuit how colleagues felt by their tone of voice, facial expressions, and other nonverbal cues. The members of less-effective teams were less tuned in to their teammates’ feelings.
  • The behaviors that create psychological safety – conversational turn-taking and empathy – are part of the same unwritten rules we often turn to, as individuals, when we need to establish a bond. And those human bonds matter as much at work as anywhere else. In fact, they sometimes matter more.”
  • In the best teams, members listen to one another and show sensitivity to feelings and needs.”
  • He believes there are two “ubiquitous features of conventional school environments” that trigger and reinforce the psychological factors noted above, augment the disadvantages with which minority students enter school, and feed the peer pressures to disengage from schooling – all of which creates a self-reinforcing downward spiral of achievement. The two features are: -   Students being given work that is too difficult for their current academic level; -   Students getting low grades on their work rather than frequent, individualized, objective feedback.
  • “The hypothesis,” say Yeh, “is that the conventional school system is inadvertently structured in a way that fosters disengagement, thereby reducing effort, which depresses achievement and grades, causing demoralization, which further reduces engagement and achievement.” The process kicks in around third grade, when struggling students begin to view themselves as intellectually inferior because their grades are lower than their classmates’, contributing to decreased self-efficacy and increasing passivity; it accelerates in middle school, at which point low grades strongly correlate with eventually dropping out.
  • What is to be done? Yeh’s theory is that by flipping the two pernicious factors, schools can turn the downward spiral into a virtuous upward cycle of achievement. That involves: -   Adjusting task difficulty for low-performing students to an appropriate level of challenge so that if they apply effective effort, they will be successful. -   Rapid performance feedback with respect to a standard, not other students.
  • He cites positive research on two programs using this approach – Reading Assessment and Math Assessment – and reports on a systematic study comparing different interventions aimed at closing the achievement gap – charter schools, voucher programs, an additional year of school, various high-quality pre-school programs, full-day kindergarten, class size reduction, value-added assessment, summer school, teacher salary incentives, teacher experience, teacher PD, longer school day, computer instruction, tutoring, and school reform. Rapid assessment is dramatically more successful at raising student achievement than any of the others.
  • by far the most powerful and cost-effective intervention is to adjust task difficulty and provide students with prompt, objective feedback on their efforts.
  • “When students engage in project-based learning over the course of their time in school,” says John Larmer (Buck Institute for Education) in this article in Educational Leadership, “there’s an accumulating effect. They feel empowered. They see that they can make a difference.” In addition, they’re more likely to acquire the skills, knowledge, and dispositions needed for college and career success.
  • the key elements of project-based learning, carefully planned and skillfully managed by the teacher:
  • A challenging problem or question
  • Sustained inquiry
  • Student voice and choice
  • Authenticity
  • Reflection
  • Critique and revision
  • Public product
  • four ways that project-based learning can go off the rails and not fulfill its potential: -   Mistake #1: Using materials that aren’t truly project-based; beware of PBL-lite! -   Mistake #2: Providing inadequate training and support for teachers; one-shot workshops are not enough. -   Mistake #3: Over-using projects in the curriculum; basic skills can still be taught in a more conventional format. -   Mistake #4: Implementing project-based learning on an ad hoc basis; to get the long-term effect, students need to engage in high-quality projects on a regular basis through their school years.
  • AltSchools encourage students to dive into topics they’re passionate about, with teachers tracking everything they do using classroom video cameras and elaborate K-8 databases. The schools make a point of shaping diverse student bodies by giving scholarships to students whose parents can’t afford the $30,000-a-year tuition.
  • We are raising a generation that will have the sum of human knowledge at their fingertips, for every minute of their life, so clearly education needs to change to accommodate that.”
  • “Basically, what we have told teachers is we have hired you for your creative teacher brains, and anytime you are doing something that doesn’t require your creative teacher brain that a computer could be doing as well as or better than you, then a computer should do it.”
  • To a computer measuring keystrokes, a student zoning out because he’s bored is indistinguishable from one who is moved by her book to imagine a world of her own.”
  • “People are very focused on the algorithm. But equally important is the quality of the materials” – the clarity of the math questions and the worthiness of the readings being presented on students’ computer screens. Willingham also notes that teachers in high-tech classrooms often have to prepare two lesson plans – one that uses the technology and one for when the technology breaks down.
  • Hire capable, well-matched teachers. Detailed advertisements and postings are important to giving candidates a clear idea of each position, says Clement. She also recommends longer interviews with more candidates, enlisting experienced teachers to take part in interviews, and gathering information on candidates from multiple sources.
  • Provide continuous professional development. This should include induction that eases new teachers into the demands of the full job – orientation before classes begin, well-matched mentors through the first five years, and ongoing PD specific to rookies’ needs.
  • Use colleagues to provide feedback. Traditional “gotcha” teacher evaluation has rarely been helpful in supporting new teachers, says Clement. Trained mentors can provide non-evaluative feedback that really makes a difference, perhaps with a firewall between their observations and the formal evaluation process. Of course it’s important that incoming teachers know the district’s criteria for effective teaching and are familiar with how administrators will assess their work.
  • Understand millennials. “This generation of teachers wants to network and have input,” says Clement. Most have a strong preference for electronic interaction, and administrators and colleagues should meet young teachers where they are tech-wise and provide strong online resources.
  • • Provide leadership opportunities. “While many new teachers are just surviving, others actively seek an avenue to truly make a difference,” says Clement. To find fulfillment in teaching and stay in the profession, they need to get involved in meaningful roles outside their classrooms. Some possibilities: speaking at induction ceremonies and serving on a welcome committee for the newest hires; leading book study groups; taking part in social service organizations on campus; and serving on curriculum committees
  • students who read about scientists’ struggles, whether intellectual or personal, got better grades in science after reading the texts. The positive effect was most pronounced among students whose science grades were low before the experiment.
  • Another finding: both before and after reading the texts, students who had a “growth” mindset (effort, not innate talent, determines success) tended to do better in science classes than students with a “fixed” mindset.
  • Jill Bergeron on 10 Mar 16
     
    This week's articles cover PBL, differentiation, effective teams, tech integration, teacher retention and science teaching and learning.
Jill Bergeron

Managing Email Effectively - Time Management Training From Mind Tools - 0 views

www.mindtools.com/...managing-email.htm

email time management

shared by Jill Bergeron on 08 Feb 17 - No Cached
  • check email only at set points during the day.
  • reserve time to read and respond to email after a long period of focused work, or at the time of day when your energy and creativity are at their lowest (this means that you can do higher value work at other times).
  • if the email will take less than two minutes to read and reply to, then take care of it right now, even if it's not a high priority.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • For emails that will take longer than two minutes to read or respond to, schedule time on your calendar, or add this as an action on your To-Do List , to do later. Most email programs allow you to highlight, flag, or star messages that need a response, so utilize this handy feature whenever you can.
  • Gmail, allow you to establish "Rules" that sort email into a particular folder as soon as it comes in.
  • If you regularly receive email such as newsletters, blogs and article feeds, you could re-route these to another email address, or use rules, so that they're instantly delivered to a particular folder.
  • For instance, if certain team members regularly send you long, drawn-out emails, let them know. Tell them gently but firmly that because of the demand on your time, you'd appreciate emails no longer than a paragraph or two. Anything longer than that should warrant a phone call. Alternatively, they could drop by your office for a discussion.
  • Jill Bergeron on 08 Feb 17
     
    Tips for managing the barrage of email.
Jill Bergeron

Why Do Teachers Quit? - Liz Riggs - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...280699

teacher retention turnover

shared by Jill Bergeron on 02 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Ingersoll extrapolated and then later confirmed that anywhere between 40 and 50 percent of teachers will leave the classroom within their first five years
  • ut, turnover in teaching is about four percent higher than other professions.
  • Why are all these teachers leaving—or not even entering the classroom in the first place?
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • “Teachers in schools do not call the shots. They have very little say. They’re told what to do; it’s a very disempowered line of work.”
  • if you want to have a family, or you want to have some leisure time, you know, how do you sustain that?”
  • many young teachers soon realize they must do overwhelming amounts of after-hours work. They pour out emotional energy into their work, which breeds quick exhaustion. And they experience the frustrating uphill battle that comes along with teaching—particularly in low-performing schools.
  • What people are asked to do is only the kind of thing that somebody can do for two or three years; you couldn’t sustain that level of intensity throughout a career,” said Thomas Smith, a professor at Vanderbilt University’s education school.
  • Many of them cited “personal reasons,” ranging from individual stress levels to work-life balance struggles.
  • “What many of them working in high-need schools told me, however, was that being successful at school directly conflicted with being successful husbands and fathers. While this is certainly true of any occupation, most occupations don't leave your children asking you, ‘Why do you go to more basketball games of the kids at school than mine?’"
  • Higher pay doesn’t necessarily lead to a better retention rate, though.
  • Most teachers sounded simply frustrated, overworked and underpaid—sentiments that are certainly echoed in the research. 
  • “Those schools that do a far better job of managing and coping with and responding to student behavioral issues have far better teacher retention,”
  • “Respected, well-paid lines of work do not have shortages,”
  • If the overall attractiveness of teaching as a profession gets better, the best teachers will enter the profession, stay, and help increase the effectiveness of schools.
  • Jill Bergeron on 02 Jan 14
     
    Article refers to research on why teachers are apt to quit.
Jill Bergeron

Age of Distraction: Why It's Crucial for Students to Learn to Focus | MindShift - 0 views

blogs.kqed.org/...for-students-to-learn-to-focus

focus distraction attention SEL multitasking

shared by Jill Bergeron on 09 Dec 13 - No Cached
  • “The real message is because attention is under siege more than it has ever been in human history, we have more distractions than ever before, we have to be more focused on cultivating the skills of attention,”
  • If young students don’t build up the neural circuitry that focused attention requires, they could have problems controlling their emotions and being empathetic.
  • “The circuitry for paying attention is identical for the circuits for managing distressing emotion,”
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • The ability to concentrate was the strongest predictor of success.
  • He advocates for a “digital sabbath” everyday, some time when kids aren’t being distracted by devices at all. He’d also like to see schools building exercises that strengthen attention, like mindfulness practices, into the curriculum.
  • Perhaps the most well known study on concentration is a longitudinal study conducted with over 1,000 children in New Zealand by Terrie Moffitt and Avshalom Caspi, psychology and neuroscience professors at Duke University.
  • “The attentional circuitry needs to have the experience of sustained episodes of concentration — reading the text, understanding and listening to what the teacher is saying — in order to build the mental models that create someone who is well educated,” Goleman said.
  • “This ability is more important than IQ or the socio economic status of the family you grew up in for determining career success, financial success and health,” Goleman said.
  • These are signs that educators may need to start paying attention to the act of attention itself. Digital natives may need help cultivating what was once an innate part of growing up.
  • “There’s a need now to teach kids concentration abilities as part of the school curriculum,” Goleman said. “The more children and teens are natural focusers, the better able they’ll be to use the digital tool for what they have to get done and then to use it in ways that they enjoy.”
  • the idea of multitasking is a myth, Goleman said. When people say they’re  “multitasking,” what they are really doing is something called “continuous partial attention,” where the brain switches back and forth quickly between tasks.
  • “I don’t think the enemy is digital devices,” Goleman said. “What we need to do is be sure that the current generation of children has the attentional capacities that other generations had naturally before the distractions of digital devices. It’s about using the devices smartly but having the capacity to concentrate as you need to, when you want to.”
  • Jill Bergeron on 09 Dec 13
     
    Great article on the need to help students better learn to concentrate given the distractions that digital devices provide.
Jill Bergeron

How to Integrate Tech When It Keeps Changing | Edutopia - 0 views

www.edutopia.org/...ech-keeps-changing-todd-finley

tech tools tech integration edutopia edtech

shared by Jill Bergeron on 03 Sep 14 - No Cached
  • Meanwhile, those of us whose skills in tech integration are not quite Olympic class may find the SAMR model (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition) more helpful for locating ourselves along the continuum of maximizing the transformational impact of technology. What won't work is waiting for technological change to stabilize.
  • You'll never keep abreast of every technology innovation, so allow yourself to be a curious learner that doesn't know it all.
  • Give yourself 30 minutes every couple of weeks to learn a new tech tool from Tammy's Technology Tips, Edudemic, Monica Burns' ClassTechTips, Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything, Cybraryman's Teacher Tools, or Richard Byrne's Favorite Resources. Happy clicking!
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • top education technology bloggers and ask their advice on social media
  • "The time I spend helping my students to edit and refine their writing as they write is exponentially more valuable for them than the final comments I leave on their essays."
  • For even more information on this topic, visit Edutopia’s Resources for Technology Integration.
  • Jill Bergeron on 03 Sep 14
     
    This article contains a number of resources to help teachers better familiarize themselves with the myriad of tools and ways in which they can be integrated.
Jill Bergeron

The Secret to Raising Smart Kids - Scientific American - 0 views

www.scientificamerican.com/...-secret-to-raising-smart-kids1

mindset motivation SEL

shared by Jill Bergeron on 12 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • more than 35 years of scientific investigation suggests that an overemphasis on intellect or talent leaves people vulnerable to failure, fearful of challenges and unwilling to remedy their shortcomings.
  • our studies show that teaching people to have a “growth mind-set,” which encourages a focus on “process” (consisting of personal effort and effective strategies) rather than on intelligence or talent, helps make them into high achievers in school and in life.
  • Why do some students give up when they encounter difficulty, whereas others who are no more skilled continue to strive and learn? One answer, I soon discovered, lay in people's beliefs about why they had failed.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The helpless ones believe that intelligence is a fixed trait: you have only a certain amount, and that's that. I call this a “fixed mind-set.”
  • These experiments were an early indication that a focus on effort can help resolve helplessness and engender success.
  • The mastery-oriented children, on the other hand, think intelligence is malleable and can be developed through education and hard work. They want to learn above all else.
  • Jill Bergeron on 12 Jan 15
     
    Carol Dweck's article emphasizing mindset and praise.
Jill Bergeron

"Focus on Kids, Not Ourselves": Guiding Principle At Design 39 Campus | The Future of K... - 3 views

www.grantlichtman.com/-principle-at-design-39-campus

design thinking innovation collaboration silos

shared by Jill Bergeron on 26 Feb 16 - No Cached
stephawesomie liked it
  • Mornings are for “Integrated Learning Time”; no rigid boundaries of subject, time, or space.  The pod teachers decide when and how the students will move, and the teams focus relentlessly on how students will learn content through big, cross-disciplinary themes.  The afternoons are split between “Deep Dives”, physical activity-based “Minds in Motion”, “Exploration” opportunities for students to follow their passions,  and some dedicated time for mathematics in the upper grade levels.  Within each of these broad areas, the teachers are expected to amplify the process of inquiry and to embed the skills of design thinking.
  • How might we further dissolve rigidity by allowing students to re-arrange classroom furniture on a very frequent (more than daily) basis to meet the learning objectives of the moment? How often can we get students up to the writing walls to collaborate on work rather than taking individual notes or keying into their individual devices? How might we constantly defuse the “teacher-centrism” of the room?  If the teacher is not using a fixed projector or other device that requires a “front of the room”, why set the podium there, or stand there? How might we empower students to ask the questions that guide discussion? How might we allow students to find the best ways to interact within learning teams, rather than giving them a strict methodology to follow?  When have we given them enough instruction on how to learn, and when is it best for them to find this out for themselves and with their peers?
  • Jill Bergeron on 26 Feb 16
     
    This article showcases a school that focuses on integrated learning, interdisciplinary studies, collaboration and design thinking...all at the elementary school level.
  • smontevirgen on 27 Feb 16
     
    Love this article thinking about the UCLA school that mounts the projector to the ceiling projecting onto the floor as an alternative. Students sit around the projection instead of at desks
Scott Nancarrow

How to Help Middle and High School Students Develop the Skills They Need to Complete Ho... - 0 views

www.edutopia.org/...ls-they-need-complete-homework

shared by Scott Nancarrow on 16 Dec 20 - No Cached
  • Scott Nancarrow on 16 Dec 20
     
    (I think this article just explained a solid 65% of my job!)
Jill Bergeron

How School Leaders Can Support Teachers and Students This Year | Edutopia - 0 views

www.edutopia.org/...students-can-only-take-so-much

leaders stress pandemic SEL

shared by Jill Bergeron on 13 Jan 22 - No Cached
  • One of the things we know about brains that have been pushed too far is that they can’t learn. They just can’t. They need an opportunity to calm, to feel safe, to find their way out of the lizard-brain response that is fight-flight-flock-freeze-appease.
  • High social complexity + low form predictability = stress reactive behaviors.
  • High social complexity (lack of clarity around the social expectations, cultural norms, and how to navigate the expected social realities of a situation) + low form predictability (confusion about what is going to happen moment to moment, day to day, week to week) = stress reactive behaviors (fight-flight-flock-freeze-appease or signs that the amygdala, the lizard brain, has taken control and the prefrontal cortex—the part that learns and plans and creates—isn’t fully engaged).
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • What can we do? We can seek to decrease, wherever possible, the social complexity by slowing down, by working in the smallest groups possible, by building real community through meaningful work, by building expectations with students—keeping them simple and concrete—and then using those expectations to provide much-needed boundaries.
  • Administrators must seek to do the same: build appropriate, clear, simple, concrete expectations with teachers around expectations and routines for students and for one another and then present a unified front with the professionals in their classrooms.
  • We didn’t get here in a few months, and it’s going to take more time than that to get beyond it. We all must commit to actions and values that demonstrate a culture of support and above all flexibility. We’ve suffered a collective trauma—we’re still suffering it—and expecting business as usual or even more than that isn’t going to get us anything but anger, frustration, and hostility from those we seek to serve.
1 - 20 of 180 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page