Just by playing a game on the internet, looking up a definition, or maybe checking out some music, they'll encounter some of the most vile and offensive words and images that can be expressed in the comments section of a YouTube video, a meme in their feed, or a group chat
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shared by Jill Bergeron on 03 Nov 18
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Where Kids Find Hate Online | Common Sense Media - 0 views
www.commonsensemedia.org/...where-kids-find-hate-online
digital citizenship hate speech bullying cyberbullying diversity
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The intensity of these ideas, the frequency with which kids see them, and the acceptance by so many that it's just part of internet life mean that it's critical to talk to kids about this difficult topic.
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But when kids see the horrific race-, religion-, and gender-based attacks committed in the real world by members of online extremist groups, they must wonder why adults can't stop these hate crimes.
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Ultimately, hate speech is an area where sharing your own family's values -- around compassion and tolerance, appropriate communication, and empathy toward other -- sets a stable path forward for your kids to follow even in unsettled times.
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Does it matter if you're exposed to it a lot or a little? Are people with different social statuses -- for example, a popular kid vs. a loner type -- affected differently?
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What's the difference between hate speech and cyberbullying? If someone is trying to hurt someone, or knows that they're hurting someone, and does it repeatedly, that's cyberbullying. When someone expresses vicious views about a group or toward an attribute of a group, that's hate speech.
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What's Worth Learning in School? | Harvard Graduate School of Education - 0 views
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Educators, Perkins says, need to embrace these same insights. They need to start asking themselves what he considers to be one of the most important questions in education: What's worth learning in school?
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These days, he says we teach a lot that isn’t going to matter, in a significant way, in students’ lives. There’s also much we aren’t teaching that would be a better return on investment. As a result, as educators, “we have a somewhat quiet crisis of content,” Perkins writes, “quiet not for utter lack of voices but because other concerns in education tend to muffle them.” These other concerns are what he calls rival learning agendas: information, achievement, and expertise.
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The information in textbooks is not necessarily what you need or would like to have at your fingertips.” Instead, even though most people would say that education should prepare you for life, much of what is offered in schools doesn’t work in that direction, Perkins says. Educators are “fixated” on building up students’ reservoirs of knowledge, often because we default to what has always been done.
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“Conventional curriculum is chained to the bicycle rack,” he says. “It sits solidly in the minds of parents: ‘I learned that. Why aren’t my children learning it?’
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Curriculum suffers from something of a crowded garage effect: It generally seems safer and easier to keep the old bicycle around than to throw it out.”
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Just as educators are pushing students to build a huge reservoir of knowledge, they are also focused on having students master material, sometimes at the expense of relevance.
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Unfortunately, if someone questions whether this expertise serves students well and instead suggests more life-relevant topics, Perkins says the common reaction is: “We’re sacrificing rigor!”
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Instead of building during the first 12 years of schooling toward expertise in an advanced topic like calculus that hardly ever comes up in our lives, Perkins says students can instead become “expert amateurs” in something like statistics — a rigorous topic that is also used in daily life. In fact, expert amateurism works great, he says, in most of what we do in our lives
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There’s no list of 1,000 things we must know or teach. Perkins says there would be no way to create a definitive list because there are lots of things worth learning at any given time or for a specialized career or even simply because we enjoy learning.
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With high-stakes testing, he says, there’s a fixation on “summative” versus “formative” assessment — evaluating students’ mastery of material with exams and final projects (achievements) versus providing ongoing feedback that can improve learning.
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“The fixation on the heap of information in the textbooks is itself part of the problem because the world we are educating learners for is something of a moving target,” he says.
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Perkins says he’s not surprised that so many people have trouble naming things they learned early on that still have meaning today or that disengaged students are raising their hands, asking why they need to know something.
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shared by Jill Bergeron on 04 Oct 16
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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
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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
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“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.”
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the best long-term performers tap into positive energy at all levels of the performance pyramid.” Here are the four levels:
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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,
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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.
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Explore “want to” versus “have to” thinking. What aspects of the job energize you? How can other aspects be made more efficient and pleasant?
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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?
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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.
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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,
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In all-class discussions, teachers should resist the temptation to comment themselves, instead asking specific follow-up questions to get other students involved.
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Another approach is asking “what if” and “what else” questions to push students to expand or elaborate on what they’re studying
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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.”
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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.
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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
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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.
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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:
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• 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.
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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,’”
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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.
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Purpose #2: Making key instructional decisions – Observing and taking notes on students’ responses to this task gave teachers two specific teaching points.
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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?
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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?
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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 –
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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.”
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“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.”
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shared by Jill Bergeron on 16 Aug 16
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Making Compassion the Fifth C of Learning - The Learner's Way - 0 views
thelearnersway.net/...compassionthefifthc
compassion pillars of character character design thinking empathy 21st century skills
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Critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity are vital and each plays an important role in allowing us to manage the complexity of modern day life. Beyond being relevant to success in the classroom the Four C’s are the foundations of life-long learning but I question if alone they are enough. I believe we must include a fifth; compassion.
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shared by Jill Bergeron on 20 Sep 16
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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
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“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.”
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Behaviors like these undermine leaders’ effectiveness by depressing the performance of those around them, and are ultimately self-defeating.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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“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.”
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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.
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There’s one more reason: once-a-year reviews focus on past performance rather than encouraging current work and grooming talent for the future.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Accommodate. Some parents need an interpreter (children shouldn’t be asked to translate) and support with disabilities.
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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.
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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.
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• 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.
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“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.”
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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.”
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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.
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Number lines or graphics should be consistent through the grades, for example, a graphic showing two parts next to one whole.
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“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 "
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Teaching Empathy: Turning a Lesson Plan into a Life Skill | Edutopia - 0 views
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academic rigor, with its unflinching emphasis on measurable success, seems strangely at odds with emotional intelligence, a soufflé of moods and feelings.
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Designed around cooperative learning, your lesson plan can actively foster class-wide feelings of cohesiveness, collaboration and interdependence -- without sacrificing instructional time or learning goals.
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In cooperative learning, students work together, think together and plan together using a variety of group structures designed along an instructional path.
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Cooperative learning creates what Daniel Goleman calls "cognitive empathy," a mind-to-mind sense of how another person's thinking works.
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The better we understand others, the better we know them -- pointing toward (among other virtues) greater trust, appreciation and generosity.
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Dispatching students into "groups" with the hopes they'll become more empathetic carries the same potential for success as trying to hit a dartboard while blindfolded
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o harness the power of cooperative learning as a tool for building empathy, teachers need a specific strategy, a best practice that works
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Created in 1971 by psychologist Elliot Aronson (1) to defuse his volatile fifth grade classroom, the jigsaw method (2) has a long track record of successfully reducing classroom conflict and increasing positive educational outcomes. As an empathy builder, it also opens doors of opportunity.
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The fluid movement, flexible groupings and redistribution of responsibility force kids to be more actively engaged in what and how they learn.
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Teachers re-outfit themselves as sideline reporters, monitoring, questioning and analyzing the action, while the quickest and slowest students suddenly discover themselves in supporting and leading roles they never quite imagined.
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Creating points of contact between students who would otherwise not interact delivers a humbling but elevating awareness of the "other."
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the hard currency is active listening, or the art of thinking about what the other person is saying.
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And because each student has a purpose (a teaching role) and something valuable (new and necessary information), every learner is regarded as an asset, not a liability
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Treating Failure Like a Scientist | UKEdChat.com - Supporting the #UKEdChat Education C... - 0 views
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Labelling ourselves as failures at particular aspect in our life can be self-disparaging, stopping us from reaching more successful goals in life.
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Scientists view failures within experiments as just another data point, learning from one experiment; changing an element; then try again until a conclusion has been established.
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But for the scientist, a negative result is not an indication that they are a bad scientist. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Proving a hypothesis wrong is often just as useful as proving it right because you learned something along the way.”
Work - Life - School Balance | This Middle School Principal's Thoughts - 0 views
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Newbery Challenge: Criss Cross | sharpread - 0 views
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Really like Newbery videos each week with slice of life convos in addition to comments about the books. @colbysharp http://t.co/YoALHqMluY
Smart Tech Tools to Make Mom's Life Easier | Common Sense Media - 0 views
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5 Tips for Avoiding Teacher Burnout | Edutopia - 0 views
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Spend some time when you are not thinking about the classroom, and stay connected to your support group of friends and family
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One of the easiest ways to burn out as a teacher is to get stuck in the same routine and practices year after year. Keep it fresh by reading new research on teaching, and by learning, talking, and collaborating with peers inside and outside of your school building
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Give teachers opportunities to connect with each other about their teaching. When they don't have time or opportunities to connect, share, and plan together during the day, they start feeling isolated.
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knowing what others are doing in their classrooms, and seeing how your work fits into the bigger picture is motivating, inspiring, and increases feelings of self-worth
A First-Time Parent's Guide to Digital Life | Common Sense Media - 0 views
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Teachers, Take Care of Yourselves - Education Week - 0 views
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shared by Jill Bergeron on 26 Feb 16
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The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues - 0 views
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work-life balance self-regulation empathy shadow a student exemplary work student examples adhd critical thinking online pd references
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In this Education Week article, Connecticut educator Christopher Doyle worries that many educators are not taking very good care of themselves – not balancing the intense challenges of work with family, friends, love, sleep, vacations, exercise, good nutrition, emotional health, and civic engagement. “Like American society at large,” says Doyle, “ many of us are overworked, stretched thin financially, and torn between roles as spouses, parents, and employees… Not unlike other professionals devoted to nurture, such as doctors, teachers are measured – and measure themselves – against an idealized image of excellence that involves incessant work.”
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Teachers occupy the middle to lower tiers of the American middle class – whose wages have been stagnant for some time.
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Stressed, workaholic educators are not in the best position to help students achieve some kind of balance in their overscheduled lives.
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Prioritize balance in the school schedule. This means building in time for teachers to prepare, think, meet with their colleagues, eat lunch, and pay an occasional visit to the bathroom. It’s also important not to burden teachers with unnecessary meetings.
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We should show our students, through the examples of our own lives, that they can lead healthy, multifaceted existences and not be slaves to their careers.”
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It sends a powerful message to students that someone in authority is taking the time to observe and notice with a view to making improvements in the school for their benefit.
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Give students a minute at the beginning of class to check phones. - Then have them silence their devices, put them face down on desks, and pay attention. - Every 15 minutes, allow students to check their phones for a minute. - Gradually increase the interval to 20, then 25, then 30 minutes. - If students violate the protocol, they forfeit the next phone break. - Naturally there are times when phones can be used legitimately as part of a learning experience.
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it’s unproductive to confiscate students’ phones; this can cause great anxiety and needless conflict.
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the time-honored practice of displaying samples of exemplary student work may be a turn-off for many students.
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when students are exposed to truly exceptional work, they use it as a reference point and realize they are not capable of such exceptional quality. It can lead to decreased motivation and eventually quitting if you believe the exceptional work is actually typical.”
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it appears that study techniques that have recently emerged from cognitive science are helpful to a broad range of students with special needs. Here’s a fuller list of those approaches: - Breaking up study time into chunks; - Studying material from more than one subject in the same session; - Varying study environments; - Retrieving material from memory by testing oneself and restudying what wasn’t recalled (this is especially helpful when the material is beginning to fade, resulting in a productive struggle to recall it).
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Teachers need to integrate a variety of thinking questions throughout the curriculum (analyze scenarios, interpret graphics, evaluate quotes) and make sure students are seeing test questions for the first time.
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If students can produce a quick verbal answer when a question is fired at them in class, it’s probably a lower-level question. Better to let students ponder good questions and discuss them with a classmate before being asked to respond.
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Many teachers need PD on framing good critical thinking questions, modeling high-level thinking themselves, and revising their lesson tasks and assessments so they spur critical thinking.
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• A particular expert is not available in the school or district.
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“Learning of any kind is best done collaboratively with supportive colleagues and facilitators who can push thinking, provide accountability structures, and ensure a quality learning experience. Relying on online professional development becomes dangerous when the learning is too independent and isolated.”
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when teachers go online for resources, they often gravitate to those that are immediately useful rather than looking at material that challenges them and helps them grow professionally. “School-based collaboration is still necessary,” conclude the authors, “maybe even more necessary, in an environment where teachers are participating in independent online learning activities.”
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“Use online learning to meet your personal needs, but find ways to take that learning back to your school.”
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five maxims in reference calls: • Agree with the candidate on a comprehensive and relevant list of references to call. This should include former bosses, peers, and subordinates in previous jobs. Narrow the list by thinking about the specific characteristics of the job you’re trying to fill.
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“[I]t’s easier to solicit the whole truth when you can hear hesitation or emotion in a person’s voice or see it on their face.” And emphasize that all comments will be completely confidential.
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Help the reference avoid common biases. If you start by asking an overly general question (“What can you tell me about Carol?”), Carol’s employer will usually trot out her best characteristics – and will then feel the need to be consistent with those positive comments when answering subsequent questions.
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Check values and cultural fit. Will this candidate fit in and succeed in your organization and work collaboratively with you and your colleagues?
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“Ask for examples of situations in which the person has shown the hallmarks of potential: curiosity, insight, engagement, and determination,” says Fernández-Aráoz.
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