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Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 2 views

  • 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.”
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  • 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.
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    This week's articles cover PBL, differentiation, effective teams, tech integration, teacher retention and science teaching and learning.
Gayle Cole

Chris Lehmann's Keynote at #140edu 2012 « 140 Character Conference - 0 views

  • When I was in high school I hated biology. Funny that I became the Principal of a science high school. But I hated biology for one simple reason: I am a horrendous artist. Every lab report that I did looked like I had dissected an amoeba.
  • But my best friend, who sat next to me, was an amazing artist. And I’m a pretty good writer. You know, I look back and I think, you know, if you had you only let us collaborate, we could have done some really amazing work, even without some of the tools that we have at our disposal today, we could have done great stuff.
  • we are beginning to realize that power of collaboration. People really do talk about the idea of collaboration being the 21st century ‘silver bullet.’ I think people have been collaborating for a really long time. I think we’re only now getting good at it in schools—at least in some schools.
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  • This is going to be SLA’s seventh year. In those seven years I’ve had seven superintendents. [Laughter, applause.]
  • And what is driving all of the decisions right now in cities all over this country? It’s this question: ‘How good are your test scores?’
  • For example, in this state [New York], the state-wide English Language Arts Regents exam was a high-stakes test for students and for teachers. It determined students promotion. It determined whether or not teachers would keep their jobs. It determined whether or not schools would stay open. There was question about a talking pineapple. And again, Adam referenced this earlier. But again, the amazing thing was that they claimed that they took it from this children’s author. They interviewed the children’s author. He said they got it wrong!
  • do you know who made the test? Anybody? Pearson. Not educators. Not state officials. Not the way that it used to be, when at least these tests were designed by people who did not have a financial stake in the game. Instead, this test was designed by a company that was deeply, deeply concerned that it be financially profitable.
  • educators have more stuff thrown at them than they’ve ever had to think about before. I am the child of a lifelong teacher and a union lawyer, so all of these ideas are incredibly derivative and I take them from my parents
  • we wonder why so many teachers push back as we say, ‘Oh and by the way, you’ve got to learn Twitter and Edmodo and this and that and the other and all of these tools.
  • powerful question: Is school relevant? And behind that is the question that many of us as teachers are asking: Am I relevant?
  • t if you ask her, ‘Who are you?’ the first thing she says isn’t ‘Oh, I’m a publicist.’ But if you ask a teacher, ‘Who are you?’ they are going to say, ‘I am a teacher.’ Who we are is wrapped up deeply in what we do and what do is under attack and changing rapidly, and that uncertainty is very difficult to deal with.
  • Johnny Learned to Read. Johnny went to the Store. Johnny went to the Park. Johnny killed himself because learning was boring! [Laughter.]
  • I respect what Deven Black said about the idea of ‘get out of school before the school kills the joy of creativity and kills that joy of learning that you have’ I also believe that school can be amazing places of learning. Schools can teach us how to learn, more than any fact or figure that we can get in a classroom. What schools should teach us is how learn, that metacognitive practice of figuring out, ‘How do I learn best? How do I make sense of our world?’ And when I do that, schools can help us learn to live.
  • Spanish 4 class at Science Leadership Academy. Now, what the kids had to do was to write an essay about hwo they were. Identity is a frequent theme at SLA. The essay was of two parts: One, what was visible about them and, two, what was invisible about them.
  • Schools can help us learn to live.
  • The incredibly reflective moment they were going through was, ‘How could we have prevented this as teachers? What are we doing wrong, that these are the students we are creating? These are the citizens we are creating?’
  • I think that when you are told the whole purpose you are learning this stuff is so you can work for somebody someday and that you can be part of the global economy. I think that’s an isolating feeling. I don’t think that builds community or gets us where we need to go.
  • we need to start talking about ‘the global citizen.’ We need to start talking about community
  • We would instead make sure that every child had a deep and powerful understanding of statistics before they left formal education
  • We’re creating a profoundly innumerate society and solving problems that we face today are going to need people who understand numbers.
  • but school belongs to our best, most powerful democratic instincts as a society. And what we are seeing right now, is a lot of people saying that schools need to be just like business.
  • If not that corporate model, then what model?
  • there’s a profound difference between these two statements: ‘I care about kids, and I care for kids.
  • We need to stop saying, ‘I teach math. I teach English. I teach art.’ We need to start saying, ‘I teach kids.’ And then we build systems and structures that reflect that.
  • we’ve got to understand that an inquiry-driven education is the most powerful way to learn
  • By the way, there is one questions that every teacher should ask a bazillion times a day that they don’t know the answer to. That question is, ‘What do you think?’
  • Want to see a really amazing thing with a group of kids? Read a book with them freshman year. Have them write their reflections on the book. Read it with them again in their senior year. See what the book holds for them now. Teach them that ideas and answers can change. And that that’s good.
  • It’s called the Dialogic Curriculum. It’s by a woman named Patricia L. Stock.
  • This isn’t just about talking. What I see in a lot of classrooms when I visit schools is people talking and listening—but not really. I see in a lot of classrooms debate, where kids are listening for the thing they can disagree with. So that way they can make their point. Right? We’ve all had that experience where the teacher says, ‘Wait a second, I’ll get back to your comment in a minute.’ Three or four more kids have said the thing and the kid says the exact same thing that they were going to say four questions ago, because they didn’t listen to the four things that the other kids said. We need to teach kids that we can argue and we can discuss to learn.
  • Teach kids to build their ideas off of others. Teach them not just to disagree, but run a classroom where no one is allowed to talk until they first express their idea, before they first echo back what they’ve heard from someone else. What did I learn from what you just said? ‘Well, I understand that you just said this, and I thought that this was really interesting. And where I found disagreement or disharmony was here.’ But first I’ve got to acknowledge the things that you said. First I’ve got to acknowledge that you said that with which I can find common cause. Teach kids to build, not just tear down.
  • What they’re selling to us as personalized learning is, ‘everybody does the exact same content, only at your own pace.’ That’s not personal!
  • If someone shows up and says, ‘We’ve got a great new personalized learning system. You put the kids on the computer and they all go at their own pace.’ Say to them, ‘That’s not personal. When do they get to do the things they care about?’
  • This is two of our students competing in a kinetic sculpture contest. Think about that. And what’s cool about it is that they built this device in their engineering classroom. Our kids in our engineering classrooms have built a solar water heater, and Engineers Without Borders took the actual thing that the kids built, shipped it to Sierra Leone, where what our kids built is now being used to heat water in order to sterilize instruments in a hospital for amputee victims. Our kids have built flow-process biodiesel generators, and they have then released the designs to anyone who wanted to use them, under a Creative Commons license. What we found out was that students in Central and South America built what are kids designed and are using it to take their schools ‘off the grid’ by powering their own schools.
  • Ask powerful questions. Seek out answers. Build real stuff. That’s inquiry-driven project-based learning.
  • world
  • What we are really trying to do is help our kids change the
  • Project-based learning is when the kids own head, heart and hands—when the work that they do, that matters to them, is the most important thing in a classroom—is the highest form of work that gets done. That’s true project-based learning.
  • In every single class at SLA, for all four years that they are there, every quarter has what we call a benchmark project in each class that that allows every child to build something that serves as the signpost of their learning every single quarter.
  • nquiry—what are the questions we can ask; Research—how do we find the answers to those questions; Collaboration—how do we work together to make those answers deeper, better and richer; Presentation—how do we share what we’ve learned; and Reflection—
  • You must build systems and structures to allow kids to do real stuff, and then get out of their way. By the way, once they have, you’ve got to let them share it.
  • You can share stuff in the physical world, you can share stuff in the virtual world, but kids have got to understand that they can be expert voices in the world. Create the space for them to do it. You don’t have to tell them how.
  • She said, ‘I just expose them to a whole bunch of different ideas and then said, go learn the stuff you need to learn.’
  • you have to share what you know
  • Chris Lehmann (@chrislehmann) is the founding Principal of the Science Leadership Academy (SLA)
  • honored by the White House as a Champion of Change for his work in education reform. In June 2010, Chris was named as one of the “30 Most Influential People in EdTech”
Jill Bergeron

Evaluating Project-Based Learning | Edutopia - 0 views

  • There are many dimensions of student achievement that we need to evaluate in PBL. The end product is certainly important, but if we focus only on that, the meaningful learning that happens throughout the process can be lost as students feel pressure to do whatever it takes to "make the grade."
  • In other words, we want to acknowledge not only what they learned, but how they came to learn it so that they can use these processes in the future.
  • Establish target goals early to provide purpose for the project, while also establishing expectations of the result: What is the problem to solve or the product to create? What kinds of subject area content need to be included or addressed in the project? What expectations do you have for the final product's presentation, publishing, or performance? What kinds of collaborative behaviors must be demonstrated by students throughout the process? Feedback and corrections should happen frequently to keep students on track, improve their work, and set them up for success in the final product. Waiting too long to give feedback may result in work that is too far gone to be fixed or improved.
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  • evaluations should have four dimensions: Self Peer Teacher Audience
  • oral and written feedback is more personal and specific.
  • Self-evaluation is an especially important piece of the summative evaluation because it taps into higher-level thinking and awareness of the material, process, and final product.
  • Peer evaluations are unique to collaborative projects, and I find that they facilitate a better collaborative process because the teacher considers the student experience. We can use this information to modify the workflow for the next project and hold students accountable for their work (effort, constructive contributions to the team, etc.).
  • allow for audience feedback to evaluate that project's levels of success. Public critiques (such as comments on blog posts) and class discussion help provide wider perspective and may even carry more meaning for the student than teacher feedback.
  • Find a combination of both public and private evaluations that you feel is right for your students or the project.
  • Critique Sandwich A negative comment about a problem or flaw is presented between positive comments about something done well. "I Like That. . ." Require feedback that includes answers to all of these statements: I like that. . . I wonder if. . . Best next steps might be. . .
  • Rose/Thorn/Bud This critique also addresses the good (rose) and the bad (thorn), but also the potential (bud) for what may be a good idea but needs work.
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    There are a few good ideas in here about how to offer feedback to students during a PBL unit.
Jill Bergeron

School Retool - Big Idea - 0 views

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    Project-based learning ideas and tools for teachers and admin. This page includes big picture ideas and pointed advice for success.
Jill Bergeron

Summer Is Prime Time for PBL Remodeling | Edutopia - 0 views

  • What were the bright spots of the project? Have you asked students for feedback? What will they remember most about their learning experience? What seemed hardest for them? Were they engaged all the way through? If not, can you pinpoint when and why their interest waned? Were you able to scaffold the experience so that all learners could be successful? What would you change if you were to do this project again?
    • Jill Bergeron
       
      Reflection questions for teachers to ask about their PBL units
  • What's the right line between teacher direction and student freedom? Is it OK for students to swerve toward new questions -- unanticipated by the teacher -- that grab their curiosity? How open is too open?
  • This formula -- the introduction of a thinking routine to stimulate observations and questions at the beginning of each new topic, the formulation of an inquiry-based investigation from those observations and questions, and the subsequent rounds of writing, critique, and rewriting -- essentially became the working formula for the rest of the school year.
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  • consider Werberger's questions for thinking about final products: Will students love what they have created? Where will this go when it's done? Will it make the world a better or more beautiful place?
  • As a resource to help with your own project remodeling, think about the teaching and learning strategies you notice in the film, such as Socratic seminars, authentic deadlines, and an emphasis on public exhibitions. Do you see ideas you might want to borrow to improve your next project?
  • How will your next project help students learn to think more analytically and creatively to design solutions to complex problems? How might you remodel a project to help students get better at monitoring and directing their own learning?
Jill Bergeron

The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views

  • “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.
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  • 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.”
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    "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

PBL - The Project Wall - 0 views

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    This site gives an idea of how to create a project board on PBL.
Jill Bergeron

Delivering on the promise of STEAM - The Learner's Way - 0 views

  • STEAM projects, like all good inquiry learning, need to be driven by excellent, open ended questions.
  • Questions that require the learner to think like a scientist as they interpret the world, make observations and conduct experiments. Where the relationships between numbers, quantities and shapes are explored with the mindset of a mathematician. Questions in which an artistic response demands more thought than ‘what colour shall I paint the wheels’ and where the intersection of engineering and technology brings new ways of doing things. Good STEAM projects will demand learning contexts that generate novel solutions made possible only through the collaboration of each discipline and whenever possible should be driven by the questions students discover.
  • Engineering is also the field least present in traditional school models and as such may be that field which brings the others together as it has less to lose and most to gain in such a recombination of disciplines.
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  • If STEAM is dominated by Engineering problems where are the opportunities for science to be the servant of art, or for technology to be the doorway to new scientific discoveries.
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    How do you create an authentic STEAM project?
Jill Bergeron

Recent | Make It @ Your Library - 0 views

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    Different project ideas for having kids make with their hands. Teachers would need to build extension activities off of these models in order to challenge some learners. They would also need to tie the projects into their lessons.
Jill Bergeron

Passion Projects 11/22/13 - 0 views

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    This teacher does a great idea of helping his students share their work. And he has done it using a platform that we use at Chandler.
Jill Bergeron

ToolBox « Project H - 0 views

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    Maker project ideas that can adapted for different grade levels. They don't focus on any one subject area.
Jill Bergeron

Educator Innovator | Educator Innovator - 0 views

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    Ideas on different ways to view making through the lens of the humanities. Projects ideas in here though many would need to be adapted for Chandler.
Jill Bergeron

Project Based Learning - Real World Math - 2 views

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    PBL ideas for math classes.
Jill Bergeron

Focus on Audience for Better PBL Results | Edutopia - 0 views

  • The Innovations class is deliberately open-ended, which means students have to propose their own project ideas and the standards they plan to meet.
  • "The mentor can't be their dad or their dad's buddy," Wettrick says. "It has to be an expert in an arena, and it has to be somebody who makes a commitment to help them."
  • Students benefit from honest critique along with positive attention for their projects, Wettrick says. "They don't need to hear, 'Good job!' They're better off when an expert tells them, 'That's not bad, but have you considered this, or you might want to look at that.'
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  • Wettrick encourages teachers to make their good ideas public so that others in education can learn from their examples. "It's not bragging," he says. "It's sharing best practices."
  • The Buck Institute for Education has produced a feedback form (6) to help audience members think through their role.
  • What do you want students to gain from the audience interaction?
  • Who's the audience for the "real-world" version?
  • How can technology connect students with larger audiences?
Jill Bergeron

A World of Project Ideas (You Can Steal) | Edutopia - 0 views

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    PBL prompts to modify for your classes.
Jill Bergeron

How to Run an AWESOME After-school Maker Club | Renovated Learning - 0 views

  • I find that students really benefit from being given guidelines and then making something within those guidelines.
  • Find a way to have students reflect on what they’ve created and document it.
  • I recently created a design process worksheet that I’ve started using with my students.  They write a few brief sentences or draw some sketches for each step of the design process.
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  • Designate a sharing day or time when everyone gets to talk with the group about their projects.  Set up a Skype or Google Hangout with another school and have your students share their projects with them (hello joint design challenges!).
  •  Plan a school-wide Maker Fair where students can showcase projects they’ve created.
  • Come up with a name for your club together.  Design t-shirts.
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    Practical ideas on how to launch a maker club and keep students engaged.
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