Group items tagged

Note that I'm using the term "facilitator" to mean the person who plans and designs agendas as well as who guides a team through processes outlined on an agenda

The purpose of the meeting and desired outcomes are articulated and connected to the school's vision, mission, and big goals

a variety of structures or protocols to meet the desired outcomes.

A Maker is an individual who communicates, collaborates, tinkers, fixes, breaks, rebuilds, and constructs projects for the world around him or her.

Great projects, on the other hand, are opportunities for learners and teachers to collaborate with those around them.

Making loves the process and allows the teacher to move fluidly between levels and subjects. When I designed a middle school level Forces and Motion unit, NGSS MS-PS2 dovetails nicely with CCSS Mathmatical Practice.

Whatever support you ask from a parent needs to be something that is within her sphere of influence.

Always convey a growth mindset. All behaviors can change given the right conditions. If you want to see changes and have concerns about a student, be prepared to offer specific, actionable solutions

If this is the first time you're sitting down with parents, it's a great opportunity to hear their perspective on their child's school experience so far, on what their child likes to do outside of school, on the questions and concerns they have about their child, and so on.

At the most basic level, design thinking is thought of as a 5-step process. The first step is to empathize, which is getting into other people’s shoes… literally! Interviewing people, observing them or immersing yourself in what they do. The second step is to define, which is when designers identify implicit needs that users have, or reframe a problem in a new way. The third step is to ideate, which is when designers brainstorm novel solutions to the problems or opportunities they have identified. The fourth step is to prototype, that is making ideas tangible, often with few resources. The last step is to test, which is inviting users to experience your solution and having them help you make it better.

one principle is having an empathetic mindset, which means that you are always looking for multiple and diverse points of view before you make decisions about a problem. Another principle is to have a bias towards action, which is having an idea and doing something about it. Another principle is identifying and challenging assumptions, which is being aware that there are norms accepted as “truth” and challenging them.

Using a process like design thinking helps designers to get into the lives and experiences of others. It helps them be less focused on their own emotions and more focused on what is actually needed.

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?

So according to our "big tent" model of PBL, some of the newer "X-BLs" -- problem-, challenge- and design-based -- are basically modern versions of the same concept.

At BIE, we see project-based learning as a broad category which, as long as there is an extended "project" at the heart of it, could take several forms or be a combination of: Designing and/or creating a tangible product, performance or event Solving a real-world problem (may be simulated or fully authentic) Investigating a topic or issue to develop an answer to an open-ended question

We decided to call problem-based learning a subset of project-based learning -- that is, one of the ways a teacher could frame a project is "to solve a problem."

Set and Debrief Goals for "Work" Time

Reflect on the Driving Question

Use Team Contracts

Technology is tempting to embed in the classroom en masse. It piques kids’ interests and it is fun to explore. But does it lead to achievement and help students grow as learners? We need to ask ourselves these types of questions if we want to realize the impact that connected education can have on students

When words are on a screen, we tend to not stick with content as long as we might when compared to paper.

Reasons include more distractions on a screen, such as multimedia enhancements and advertisements, and the “difficulty to see any one passage in the context of the entire text” (Jabr, 2013). These factors can lead to decreased comprehension and understanding.

The most effective creative process alternates between time in groups, collaboration, interaction, and conversation... [and] times of solitude, where something different happens cognitively in your brain,

Unequal participation is perhaps the most common complaint about group work.

a handful of practices that educators use to promote equal participation. These involve setting out clear expectations for group work, increasing accountability among participants, and nurturing a productive group work dynamic.

To look at ourselves honestly means to ask: Why are our schools here? The raison d’être of independent schools has been, and continues to be, that of advancing the interests of those who already have privilege—to provide a return on investment (ROI) to those who have sufficient disposable income to afford independent school. To put it differently, our main job is to preserve the social status quo or reproduce the elite; this class-bound purpose results in a hierarchical view of the world in which our students are destined for leadership. In our mission statements, the idea that we are creating leaders is almost universal. On their face, these statements provide a binary and hierarchical understanding of society, one in which there are leaders and followers, and we are teaching the leaders.

noblesse oblige, a worldview that accepts and perpetuates existing social hierarchies while promoting social good.

When we look at our schools’ service programs, the idea of “giving back” is ubiquitous. Yet we fail to discuss or even question how much taking is appropriate.

As you revise your teaching philosophy, you might ask yourself the following questions, which are outlined below using the mnemonic CRISIS: Capability: What are the capabilities of your learning platform, yourself, and students? Reliability: Are your plans and software reliable?  Inability: What are you not able to do in this situation? Suitability: Are your plans suitable for the current situation?  Ingenuity: How can you be ingenious and still hold true to your philosophy? Sustainability: Is what you’re doing sustainable in the long term?

But if you’ve ever wondered whether you’re doing and intervening too much, you’re not alone.

Many parents of students with ADHD wonder how to strike the elusive balance that offers support and encourages independent self-advocacy skills.

Enabling is doing something for someone else, without a plan to help them do it for themselves. Supporting is providing guidance and encouragement to someone as they learn to manage the task on their own in time.

Many parents are afraid that “labeling” a child as having a learning disability will make him feel broken, left out, or less willing to try. In fact, the opposite is true: giving your child an understanding of the nature of his learning disabilities will comfort him — and motivate him to push through his challenges.

The knowledge that he has an identifiable, common, measurable, and treatable condition often comes as great comfort to the youngster. Without this information, the child is likely to believe the taunts of his classmates and feel that he indeed is a dummy.

If a child does not have a basic understanding of the nature of his learning challenges, it is unlikely that he will be able to sustain his motivation in the classroom.

I recommend asking the parent to complete the Spence Preschool Anxiety Scale for a quick, reliable measure of anxiety in young children who can’t necessarily express their feelings.

To help determine whether anxiety is impairing or interfering in children’s lives, I ask the following questions using the acronym FISH. (This can be applied to children of all ages.) Frequency — What is the frequency of the child’s anxious behaviors? Is it every day? Once a week? Once a month? Intensity — How intense is the child’s anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10? Severity — How severe is the child’s anxiety on a scale of 1 to 10? How long — How long have anxious behaviors occurred?

The following tendencies among children should send up red flags: Overestimating a threat: “I’m going to get COVID. I’m going to die.” Difficulty tolerating uncertainty: “I don’t know what’s going to happen if I go to school. What’s going to be there? I don’t know that I can handle it.” Underestimating the ability to control a situation: “I never will be able to handle all this uncertainly. It is going make me really sick to my stomach or feel like I’m going to die.” Feeling increased responsibility: “If I get sick and I get my parents sick, it’s my fault. They will never forgive me.”