on ASCD (3)'s page for the newly released book, Flip Your Classroom: Reach Every Student in Every Class Every Day (4), by flipped classroom pioneers Aaron Sams and Jonathan Bergmann, "In this model of instruction, students watch recorded lectures for homework and complete their assignments, labs, and tests in class."
22More
The Flipped Classroom: Pro and Con | Edutopia - 0 views
-
the model is a mixture of direct instruction and constructivism, that it makes it easier for students who may have missed class to keep up because they can watch the videos at any time.
-
NOT "a synonym for online videos. When most people hear about the flipped class all they think about are the videos. It is the interaction and the meaningful learning activities that occur during the face-to-face time that is most important."
- ...18 more annotations...
-
Brian at ISTE, and it was great to hear him express his thoughts about the model in more than 140 characters. He also runs the #flipclass chat (8) on Twitter every Monday night, which is a great chance to learn more about the model.
-
the idea is not that KA will replace the teacher or replace the content as a whole. From my experience with KA, the content is taught in only one way. Good instruction, especially for math concepts, requires that ideas be presented in a number of ways. In addition, not all math is solving equations. One of the hardest parts about teaching math is making sure that students are not blindly solving equations without really understanding what they are doing with the numbers.
-
They also point to the ability for students to catch up on missed lessons easily through the use of video and online course tools like Edmodo (12) or Moodle (13).
-
"This won't work with my students." This continues to be an argument made by a lot of rural and urban teachers. Our students just don't have the access required for the model to really work. I've had people tell me, "They can use the public library." To which I explain that there are usually three computers available and there is usually a 30-minute limit per user
-
if everyone starts flipping their classrooms, students will end up sitting in front of a screen for hours every night as they watch the required videos. And as many teachers can tell you, not everyone learns best through a screen.
-
John Dewey described at the turn of the 20th century: learning that is centered around the student, not the teacher; learning that allows students to show their mastery of content they way they prefer. These are not new concepts. I am often brought back to the question: "Are we doing things differently or doing different things? (15)"
-
why should we care so much about the flipped classroom model? The primary reason is because it is forcing teachers to reflect on their practice and rethink how they reach their kids. It is inspiring teachers to change the way they've always done things, and it is motivating them to bring technology into their classrooms through the use of video and virtual classrooms like Edmodo and similar tools
-
"In this model of instruction, students watch recorded lectures for homework and complete their assignments, labs, and tests in class."
-
It is the interaction and the meaningful learning activities that occur during the face-to-face time that is most important."
-
a mixture of direct instruction and constructivism, that it makes it easier for students who may have missed class to keep up because they can watch the videos at any time.
-
For students to be successful on their own, videos used in the flipped classroom model must include a variety of approaches in the same way a face-to-face lesson would, and they must also have good sound and image quality so that students can follow along easily. These videos must also match the curriculum, standards and the labs or activities the students will complete in class.
-
flipped classroom has truly individualized learning for students. Teachers describe how students can now move at their own pace, how they can review what they need when they need to, and how the teacher is then freed up to work one-on-one with students on the content they most need support with.
-
t if everyone starts flipping their classrooms, students will end up sitting in front of a screen for hours every night as they watch the required videos. And as many teachers can tell you, not everyone learns best through a screen.
-
what John Dewey described at the turn of the 20th century: learning that is centered around the student, not the teacher; learning that allows students to show their mastery of content they way they prefer. These are not new concepts. I am often brought back to the question: "Are we doing things differently or doing different things? (15)
The "E" in STEM: Clarifying What Engineering Education Means for K-12 + The Opportunity... - 0 views
opportunityequation.org/...em-clarifying-what-engineering
twitter stem engineering K-12 STEAM chandler
![](/images/link.gif)
21More
Why I Gave Up Flipped Instruction - 0 views
-
my brief love affair with the flip has ended. It simply didn’t produce the tranformative learning experience I knew I wanted for my students .
-
The flipped classroom essentially reverses traditional teaching. Instead of lectures occurring in the classroom and assignments being done at home, the opposite occurs.
- ...18 more annotations...
-
my students began to do lots of their their own research. Sometimes this resulted in them teaching each other. Sometimes they created a project with the knowledge they were acquiring. But the bottom line was that their learning had a purpose that was apparent to them, beyond simply passing the unit exam.
-
. My goal as a teacher shifted from information-giver and gatekeeper to someone who was determined to work myself out of a job by the time my students graduated.
-
“If you think it’s only about the videos, then you have a really shallow definition of what this could be. The real power is when students take responsibility for their own learning.”
-
When we shifted to a student-centred classroom, my students took control of their learning, and I quit lecturing. I haven’t lectured in almost two years.
-
It’s been stated that “At its most basic level, the flipped classroom gives students more control over their educations, allowing them to start and stop or rewind important lectures to focus on key points.” To me, this isn’t giving students control over their education, although it may be creating new markets for content-oriented videos and related materials.
-
What are you going to learn? How are you going to learn it? How are you going to show me your learning? This became our mantra — our framework for learning. This is what it means to give students “control over their education.”
-
My students chose the resources that helped them learn best. Throughout the 8 weeks, students sent me the ones they considered “best of the best,” and they were added to our online textbook. And it really was “ours.”
-
Others needed to hunker down to really grasp them. My students differentiated their own instruction.
-
I talked to every student every day. I could look at their work, have them articulate their thinking process, and see where they were struggling.
-
cognitive dissonance, and when they do, we talk about that in the context of their brain development.
-
, they needed to construct theories as to how stoichiometry works, rather than watching a video and memorizing the equation.
-
Alfie Kohn states, a learning environment that promotes constructing knowledge “treats students as meaning makers and offers carefully calibrated challenges that help them to develop increasingly sophisticated theories. The point is for them to understand ideas from the inside out.”
-
my students created flexible groups, depending on what they were working on. They found peers who were working on the same concept they were, so that they could help each other. Sometimes they realized who they couldn’t work with on a particular day, and found a different group of peers to work with instead.
6More
shared by Jill Bergeron on 24 May 16
- No Cached
3 Ways to Plan for Diverse Learners: What Teachers Do | Edutopia - 0 views
www.edutopia.org/...ion-ways-to-plan-john-mccarthy
differentiation diverse-learners differentiated instruction edutopia
![](/images/link.gif)
-
Differentiating content includes using various delivery formats such as video, readings, lectures, or audio. Content may be chunked, shared through graphic organizers, addressed through jigsaw groups, or used to provide different techniques for solving equations.
-
Process is how students make sense of the content. They need time to reflect and digest the learning activities before moving on to the next segment of a lesson.
-
Processing helps students assess what they do and don't understand. It's also a formative assessment opportunity for teachers to monitor students' progress.
- ...2 more annotations...
-
For example, having one or two processing experiences for every 30 minutes of instruction alleviates feelings of content saturation.
-
The key to product options is having clear academic criteria that students understand. When products are cleanly aligned to learning targets, student voice and choice flourish, while ensuring that significant content is addressed.
45More
shared by Jill Bergeron on 26 Apr 16
- No Cached
The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views
www.marshallmemo.com/issue.php
coaching instructional coaching math financial literacy mentoring learning evolution science student-centered anxiety SEL orientation bridge
![](/images/link.gif)
-
Every superintendent, or state commissioner, must be able to say, with confidence, ‘Everyone who teaches here is good. Here’s how we know. We have a system.
-
school-based administrators “don’t always have the skill to differentiate great teaching from that which is merely good, or perhaps even mediocre.” Another problem is the lack of consensus on how we should define “good teaching.”
-
- ...41 more annotations...
-
Only about six percent of teachers are ineffective, she continues. For the remaining 94 percent, the emphasis should shift from ratings to learning.
-
And what do we know about professional learning? That it requires: • Active intellectual engagement – That is, self-assessment, reflection on practice, and on-going conversations; • Trust – “Fear shuts people down,” says Danielson. “Learning, after all, entails vulnerability. The culture of the school and of the district must be one that encourages risk-taking.” • Challenge – “The culture must include an expectation that every teacher will engage in a career-long process of learning,” she says, “one that is never ‘finished.’ Teaching is simply too complex for anyone to believe that there is no more to learn.” • Teacher collaboration – PD and supervisory suggestions rarely drive classroom improvements, says Danielson. “Overwhelmingly, most teachers report that they learn more from their colleagues than from an ‘expert’ in a workshop… or being directed by a supervisor to read a certain book or take a particular course.” Most often, classroom improvement comes from working with colleagues analyzing student work and planning curriculum.
-
a new system should include: - An emphasis on professional learning in a culture of trust and inquiry; - A career ladder from probationary to continuing status after about three years; from that point on, the main emphasis becomes professional learning; - Differentiation in the evaluation system, with novice teachers getting support from a mentor and being evaluated every year; - Career teachers assessed periodically to ensure continuing quality; - Teacher leadership positions (mentor, instructional coach, team leader) for which experienced teachers in good standing are eligible to apply; these come with training and support, extra compensation, or released time during the regular school day; - The ability to identify seriously underperforming teachers, support their improvement, and if sufficient progress isn’t made, deny them tenure or continuing employment.
-
“Former service members tend to be committed to their students and tenacious in their efforts to improve,” say Parham and Gordon. Some early studies suggest that over time, veterans are stronger in classroom management, instructional practices, and student results.
-
Veterans who have had life-and-death combat experiences “tend to have low tolerance for petty politics in schools or for initiatives that seem unrelated to educating students. Former service members may sometimes seem overly assertive in discussions with colleagues.”
-
Veterans entering the classroom may feel like novices and have to adjust to their students not snapping to attention when given an order.
-
Veterans who are used to explicit operating procedures have to decode the unspoken expectations on how to relate to colleagues, handle student discipline, deal with parent concerns, get supplies, and get help.
-
“Discussions of shared experiences, shared values, and shared goals can help veterans and other teachers begin to build relationships.”
-
This might consist of a well-chosen mentor (similar to their “battle buddy” in the military), a support team (perhaps a grade-level or subject team that meets regularly), and a support network with other veterans in the school or district.
-
Veterans need an especially thorough briefing as they enter a new setting, including policies, procedures (copying machines, grading, and more), formal and informal rules, and a map of the school.
-
up to speed on teaching priorities, curriculum breadth versus depth, dealing with student differences, lesson planning, instructional materials, and, of course, discipline.
-
Support for this common challenge can come from peer coaching, observing expert teachers, workshops, articles and books, and seminars.
-
Effective teachers assign tasks that require explanation or require students to organize material in meaningful ways. Stories and mnemonics are also helpful in getting students to impose meaning on hard-to-remember content.
-
Effective teachers make content explicit through carefully paced explanation, modeling, and examples; present new information through multiple modalities; and make good use of worked problems.
-
Rather, the mastery of new concepts happens in fits and starts. “Content should not be kept from students because it is ‘developmentally inappropriate,’” says the report. “To answer the question ‘is the student ready?’ it’s best to consider ‘has the student mastered the prerequisites?’”
-
we shouldn’t push skeptical students to say, “Natural selection is one of the most important ways species came to be differentiated.” Better for them to say, “Most scientists think natural selection is one of the best explanations.”
-
Frequent quizzes with low stakes, and students testing themselves, help establish long-term retention through the “retrieval effect.”
-
Each subject has basic facts that support higher-level learning by freeing working memory and illuminating applications.
-
To transfer learning to a novel problem, students need to know the problem’s context and its underlying structure.
-
Explicitly comparing the examples helps students remember the underlying similarities. With multi-step procedures, students need to identify and label the sub-steps so they can apply them to similar problems. It’s also helpful to alternate concrete examples and abstract representations.
-
Motivation is improved if students believe that intelligence and ability can be improved through hard work, and if adults respond to successful work by praising effective effort rather than innate ability. It’s also helpful for teachers to set learning goals (e.g., mastering specific material) rather than performance goals (competing with others or vying for approval).
-
It’s difficult to gauge one’s own learning and understanding. That’s why students need to learn how to monitor their own learning through assessments, self-testing, and explanation.
-
Teachers need to recognize and dispel a set of incorrect beliefs about teaching and learning: - Misconception #1: Students have different “learning styles.” - Misconception #2: Humans use only 10 percent of their brains. - Misconception #3: People are preferentially “right-brained” or “left-brained” in how they think. - Misconception #4: Novices and experts think in all the same ways. - Misconception #5: Cognitive development progresses in age-related stages.
-
having students work in groups for 30-45 minutes coming up with test questions that might be used (or reworded) in the actual exam. This is a two-fer, says Lang: it not only gives students a sense of control over their learning but also serves as an effective review session.
-
Open assessments – This involves leaving 10 percent of the syllabus for an assignment that students create with the instructor.
-
Class constitutions – Having students collectively come up with ground rules for a course gives them a collegial sense of working together toward a shared purpose.
-
“Teaching evolutionary theory is not in and of itself religious indoctrination.” That’s because evolution is not a religion. “How could a religion have no beliefs about the supernatural? No rituals? No moral commandments?”
-
Good feedback is specific and clear, focused on the task rather than the student, explanatory, and directed toward improvement rather than merely verifying performance.
-
“It turns out children are better able to cope if they understand what they’re going through is normal, that it affects everyone, and that it will pass,” comments Adam Gamoran of the William T. Grant Foundation. “How we think about a stressful situation influences how we feel and how we perform.” Studies like this, he says, “show how deeply intertwined are cognition and emotion.”
-
Twitter as authentic audience – Students constantly tweet ideas, assignments, projects, suggestions, and photographs to each other, broadening the reach of their thinking.
-
Twitter as embedded literacy – Students get plenty of practice with succinct writing as they share analyses and observations.
-
Managing students’ encounters with objectionable material from the outside world, including occasional use of profanity and sexually suggestive follower requests.
-
Comparing services – Proportional reasoning, equations, creating and analyzing graphs, and number sense; - Planning a budget – Organizing and representing information and number sense; - Determining the costs and payoffs of higher education – Percentages, compound interest, and rates; - Playing the Stock Market Game – Ratios, proportional reasoning, reading and analyzing reports and graphs, and algebraic thinking (e.g., gains and losses).
-
“The term generally refers to using a wide variety of hands-on activities (such as building, computer programming, and even sewing) to support academic learning and the development of a mindset that values playfulness and experimentation, growth and iteration, and collaboration and community. Typically, ‘making’ involves attempting to solve a particular problem, creating a physical or digital artifact, and sharing that product with a larger audience. Often, such work is guided by the notion that process is more important than results.”
-
""Researchers Probe Equity, Design Principles in Maker Ed." by Benjamin Herold in Education Week, April 20, 2016 (Vol. 35, #28, p. 8-9), www.edweek.org"
34More
shared by Jill Bergeron on 10 Mar 16
- No Cached
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
![](/images/link.gif)
-
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.
- ...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.”
-
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:
-
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.
6More
My Daughter's Homework Is Killing Me - Karl Taro Greenfeld - The Atlantic - 0 views
-
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 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.
1More
Teachers: Math in Videogames ~ Activities : Get The Math - 0 views
-
She uses functions to control objects by assigning a number, or input, to a variable that results in a specific output or movement, producing the action that you see in a videogame. She also uses algebraic reasoning, coordinate graphing, linear equations and rate of change or slope to create her games.)