Group items tagged

With each unit of study, I made sure to incorporate an active simulation, ranging from mock press conferences and trials to murder mysteries and dinner parties, from spy dilemmas to mock Survivor games.

When a student adopted that character's thinking and point of view in one of the simulations, passion and purpose soared.

Even the quietest, most introverted student, given the opportunity to play a personality from history, can step up and into the opportunity to speak from that person's perspective

In 2009, TNTP reported that teacher evaluation systems didn’t accurately distinguish among teachers with varying levels of proficiency, failed to identify most of the teachers with serious performance problems, and were unhelpful in guiding professional development.

The Widget Effect study concluded that “school districts must begin to distinguish great from good, good from fair, and fair from poor.”

On average, only 2.7 percent of teachers were rated below Proficient/Exemplary on a 4- or 5-point scale.

1. Equity and diversity will not happen by accident

3. Projects should not be limited to classrooms

This idea of blending Maker opportunities with real-life activities has a strong supporter in Davis, who believes that it helps to show students the purpose of what they are doing.

We live in a culture that does not always encourage or support expressions of loss and, frankly, expects people "to get over" grief fairly quickly

For example, in language arts, students can be told that they will be writing about someone they remember and they can focus on what they miss about that person or how they remember that person in their lives now

In the visual and performing arts, a similar assignment to make the focus of students' products someone they miss or remember.

Speak Up 2013 flipped learning findings include: One out of six math and science teachers are implementing a flipped learning model using videos that they have created or sourced online.         16 percent of teachers say they are regularly creating videos of their lessons or lectures to students to watch.    45 percent of librarians and media specialists are regularly creating videos and similar rich media as part of their professional practice.  37 percent of librarians are helping to build teacher capacity by supporting teachers’ skills in using and creating  video and rich media for classroom use. While, almost one-fifth of current teachers have “learning how to flip my classroom” on their wish list for professional development this year,  41 percent of administrators say pre-service teachers should learn how to set up a flipped learning class model before getting a teaching credential. 66 percent of principals said pre-service teachers should learn how to create and use videos and other digital media within their teacher preparation programs.   75 percent of middle and high school students agree that flipped learning would be a good way for them to learn, with 32 percent of those students strongly agreeing with that idea.

A principal remembers how she built trust 2. Giving and receiving feedback with grace and skill 3. A Georgia district works to improve classroom observations 4. Douglas Reeves takes on five myths about grading 5. Enlisting students to comment helpfully on each others’ work 6. Unintended consequences from New York City’s discipline policies 7. The minefield that girls and young women must traverse 8. Thomas Friedman on what the new era portends for young people 9. Short item: An online social-emotional survey

“When schools dig in on the underlying reasons why kids violate norms, rather than reflexively and automatically punishing and sending kids away, outcomes can change quickly and dramatically. It’s especially important for everyone in a school to dig deep to decrease head-to-head conflict and understand behaviors that are often quickly labeled insubordination or disrespect.”

“Trust happens through thousands of small, purposeful interactions over time,” says Sarah Fiarman in this article in Principal. “[L]eaders earn trust when they keep promises, respond when teachers ask for help, and have difficult conversations with adults to ensure high-quality teaching for everyone.” Integral to all this is listening well, speaking wisely, and acknowledging one’s own biases.

“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.

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.”

#1) Use a normal, natural voice

#2) Speak only when students are quiet and ready

#3) Use hand signals and other non-verbal communication

Did I refer to the class as our class or my class?

8. If our class were a company, would it be out-of-business now?

9. Did students create and experience a great class or simply take a class and get credit?

It can be very, very, painfully slow to build trust in a group of adults -- but it can be done, and you as the facilitator have to believe it can be done.

As a facilitator, it's our job to clarify purpose and raise it, integrate it, and reference it all the time.

When we do things together that are new and challenging (but within our zone of proximal development), our brains actually produce hormones that make us feel good and feel closer to each other.

The Skills All Students Need

Communication. Demonstrate strong writing, speaking, and listening skills. These skills are game changers for employees with strong technical skills, since their work often impacts members of other teams, technical and non-technical, across the company. Critical thinking. Assess a situation and determine whether or not to ask for help, seek additional information, or forge ahead. Recognize when to “pull the cord” and stop the bus. Ownership. When taking on a project, own it from start to finish. Be reliable and know what needs to be done to complete the task, project, or initiative, whether alone or as a member of a team. Leadership. Act as leader, with or without the title. Recognize that leadership lies in how you behave and how you conduct yourself as much as it does in the title that you hold. Creative problem solving. Enjoy solving problems and doing so in creative ways, especially when resources may be constrained, time short, and expectations high. Self-directed learning. Own professional learning and stay up-to-date on new trends in the field. Participate in ongoing learning through online and in-person options, and be willing to share what you’ve learned with colleagues. Curiosity. Get stumped, but never get overwhelmed. When stuck, turn to personal and professional learning networks to problem solve. Failure is a part of the learning process. Collaboration. Contribute to larger projects and meet game-changing goals. View collaboration as a key part of the job, especially when it comes to achieving outcomes. High threshold for uncertainty. Be comfortable with the uncertainty that often accompanies problem solving, innovative and creative work. Uncertainty is what drives leaders to seek answers and solve problems. Recognize that setbacks and dead-ends are part of the process.

“The act of writing, even if the product consists of only a hundred and forty characters composed with one’s thumbs, forces a kind of real-time distillation of emotional chaos.” Researchers have confirmed the efficacy of writing as a therapeutic intervention.

She was trained to avoid jumping into problem-solving mode, instead using validation

Probes were important to get more information