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Nigel Coutts

Project Zero Turns 50 - The Learner's Way - 8 views

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    This year is the fiftieth birthday of Harvard's Project Zero, a research project designed to explore the nature of thinking and learning and from this suggest pedagogies which align with what we know about the mind. For its birthday celebration Project Zero shared insights from its five decades of research with presentations from Howard Gardner, David Perkins, Shari Tasman, Steve Seidel and Daniel Wilson. The presentations revealed the changing nature of the work of Project Zero from its early days and focus on arts education to its current position as a research organisation with broad interests across education but with a focus on thinking, understanding and the workings of the mind.
David McGavock

CITE Journal - Editorial - 21 views

  • A classroom that has successfully integrated technology into the curriculum would be one where you would not really notice it because it would be so second nature. The teacher would not have to think up ways to use whatever tools were available, but would seamlessly use them to enhance the learning of whatever content was being covered. Technology [would be] used to assist in acquiring content knowledge, and the acquisition of technology skills [would be] secondary. Contrast this depiction with what the International Society for Technology in Education’s (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S; ISTE, 2002) say about technology integration: Curriculum integration with the use of technology involves the infusion of technology as a tool to enhance the learning in a content area or multidisciplinary setting….Effective integration of technology is achieved when students are able to select technology tools to help them obtain information in a timely manner, analyze and synthesize the information, and present it professionally. The technology should become an integral part of how the classroom functions—as accessible as all other classroom tools.
  • his urging to shift the focus from the learning tools to what is being learned and how that learning happens still needs to be heeded—almost 20 years later.
  • Integration is defined not by the amount or type of technology used, but by how and why it is used.
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  • many of these technology-specific studies did not explore more fundamental issues in technology and education
  • what needs to be further developed, examined, and shared
  • particular curriculum standards-based instructional strategies that are appropriately matched to students’ learning needs and preferences
  • understanding the processes and interim results of how and why specific tools can and should be appropriated
  • help students with distinct needs and preferences to achieve identified learning goals.
  • the STaR Chart
  • According to the national StaR Chart, then, technology use in what is typically described as “constructivist” learning is preferable to technology used to “reinforce basic academic skills.”
  • Constructivists view people as constructive agents and view the phenomenon of interest (meaning or knowledge) as built instead of passively “received”
  • curriculum-based integration of educational technologies – defined in Education and Technology: An Encyclopedia (Kovalchick & Dawson, 2004) as “the effective integration of technology throughout the curriculum to help students meet the standards and outcomes of each lesson, unit, or activity”
  • As discerning educators and researchers, we should question why teachers’ roles “must” change to integrate technology effectively into K-12 curricula.
  • the technologies themselves do not require this shift
  • Though teachers in the nationally representative sample they studied acknowledged that computers helped them to change instructional practice over time, they cited experience, organized professional learning, and school culture as the primary factors provoking instructional changes.
  • In districts in which teachers’ academic freedom is preserved—at least in part—aren’t the pedagogical approaches to be used the result of decisions that each teacher makes, preferably rooted in a well-informed knowledge base of both students’ learning needs and preferences and corresponding methodological alternatives?
  • Can it really be assumed that a particular approach “works best” in all teaching, learning, school, district, and community contexts?
  • perhaps a new approach is warranted at this point in time—one that genuinely respects pedagogical plurality and honors teachers’ academic freedom.
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    A classroom that has successfully integrated technology into the curriculum would be one where you would not really notice it because it would be so second nature. The teacher would not have to think up ways to use whatever tools were available, but would seamlessly use them to enhance the learning of whatever content was being covered. Technology [would be] used to assist in acquiring content knowledge, and the acquisition of technology skills [would be] secondary. Contrast this depiction with what the International Society for Technology in Education's (ISTE) National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS-S; ISTE, 2002) say about technology integration: Curriculum integration with the use of technology involves the infusion of technology as a tool to enhance the learning in a content area or multidisciplinary setting….Effective integration of technology is achieved when students are able to select technology tools to help them obtain information in a timely manner, analyze and synthesize the information, and present it professionally. The technology should become an integral part of how the classroom functions-as accessible as all other classroom tools.
Tero Toivanen

Education Futures - Designing Education 3.0 - 0 views

  • This is my take on the future of education.
  • The role of the corresponding Education 1.0 regime was to create graduates that would perform well in jobs with easily defined parameters and relationships.
  • The role of Education 2.0 is to develop our talents to compete in a global market with new social relationships, and where we are able to leverage our knowledge.
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  • In this paradigm, information is no longer as important as the knowledge that’s created as we interpret information and create meaning. Increasingly, people are becoming more valued for their personal knowledge rather than their ability to perform tasks.
  • Society 2.0
  • Society 3.0 refers to an emerging innovation-based society that is not quite here, yet. This is a society that is driven by accelerating change, globalized relationships, and fueled by knowmads. In an era of accelerating change, the amount of information available doubles at an increasing rate, and the half-life of useful knowledge decreases exponentially. This requires innovative thinking and action by all members of society.
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    This is John Moravec's take on the future of education.
Tero Toivanen

Digital Citizenship | the human network - 0 views

  • The change is already well underway, but this change is not being led by teachers, administrators, parents or politicians. Coming from the ground up, the true agents of change are the students within the educational system.
  • While some may be content to sit on the sidelines and wait until this cultural reorganization plays itself out, as educators you have no such luxury. Everything hits you first, and with full force. You are embedded within this change, as much so as this generation of students.
  • We make much of the difference between “digital immigrants”, such as ourselves, and “digital natives”, such as these children. These kids are entirely comfortable within the digital world, having never known anything else. We casually assume that this difference is merely a quantitative facility. In fact, the difference is almost entirely qualitative. The schema upon which their world-views are based, the literal ‘rules of their world’, are completely different.
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  • The Earth becomes a chalkboard, a spreadsheet, a presentation medium, where the thorny problems of global civilization and its discontents can be explored out in exquisite detail. In this sense, no problem, no matter how vast, no matter how global, will be seen as being beyond the reach of these children. They’ll learn this – not because of what teacher says, or what homework assignments they complete – through interaction with the technology itself.
  • We and our technological-materialist culture have fostered an environment of such tremendous novelty and variety that we have changed the equations of childhood.
  • As it turns out (and there are numerous examples to support this) a mobile handset is probably the most important tool someone can employ to improve their economic well-being. A farmer can call ahead to markets to find out which is paying the best price for his crop; the same goes for fishermen. Tradesmen can close deals without the hassle and lost time involved in travel; craftswomen can coordinate their creative resources with a few text messages. Each of these examples can be found in any Bangladeshi city or Africa village.
  • The sharing of information is an innate human behavior: since we learned to speak we’ve been talking to each other, warning each other of dangers, informing each other of opportunities, positing possibilities, and just generally reassuring each other with the sound of our voices. We’ve now extended that four-billion-fold, so that half of humanity is directly connected, one to another.
  • Everything we do, both within and outside the classroom, must be seen through this prism of sharing. Teenagers log onto video chat services such as Skype, and do their homework together, at a distance, sharing and comparing their results. Parents offer up their kindergartener’s presentations to other parents through Twitter – and those parents respond to the offer. All of this both amplifies and undermines the classroom. The classroom has not dealt with the phenomenal transformation in the connectivity of the broader culture, and is in danger of becoming obsolesced by it.
  • We already live in a time of disconnect, where the classroom has stopped reflecting the world outside its walls. The classroom is born of an industrial mode of thinking, where hierarchy and reproducibility were the order of the day. The world outside those walls is networked and highly heterogeneous. And where the classroom touches the world outside, sparks fly; the classroom can’t handle the currents generated by the culture of connectivity and sharing. This can not go on.
  • We must accept the reality of the 21st century, that, more than anything else, this is the networked era, and that this network has gifted us with new capabilities even as it presents us with new dangers. Both gifts and dangers are issues of potency; the network has made us incredibly powerful. The network is smarter, faster and more agile than the hierarchy; when the two collide – as they’re bound to, with increasing frequency – the network always wins.
  • A text message can unleash revolution, or land a teenager in jail on charges of peddling child pornography, or spark a riot on a Sydney beach; Wikipedia can drive Britannica, a quarter millennium-old reference text out of business; a outsider candidate can get himself elected president of the United States because his team masters the logic of the network. In truth, we already live in the age of digital citizenship, but so many of us don’t know the rules, and hence, are poor citizens.
  • before a child is given a computer – either at home or in school – it must be accompanied by instruction in the power of the network. A child may have a natural facility with the network without having any sense of the power of the network as an amplifier of capability. It’s that disconnect which digital citizenship must bridge.
  • Let us instead focus on how we will use technology in fifty years’ time. We can already see the shape of the future in one outstanding example – a website known as RateMyProfessors.com. Here, in a database of nine million reviews of one million teachers, lecturers and professors, students can learn which instructors bore, which grade easily, which excite the mind, and so forth. This simple site – which grew out of the power of sharing – has radically changed the balance of power on university campuses throughout the US and the UK.
  • Alongside the rise of RateMyProfessors.com, there has been an exponential increase in the amount of lecture material you can find online, whether on YouTube, or iTunes University, or any number of dedicated websites. Those lectures also have ratings, so it is already possible for a student to get to the best and most popular lectures on any subject, be it calculus or Mandarin or the medieval history of Europe.
  • As the university dissolves in the universal solvent of the network, the capacity to use the network for education increases geometrically; education will be available everywhere the network reaches. It already reaches half of humanity; in a few years it will cover three-quarters of the population of the planet. Certainly by 2060 network access will be thought of as a human right, much like food and clean water.
  • Educators will continue to collaborate, but without much of the physical infrastructure we currently associate with educational institutions. Classrooms will self-organize and disperse organically, driven by need, proximity, or interest, and the best instructors will find themselves constantly in demand. Life-long learning will no longer be a catch-phrase, but a reality for the billions of individuals all focusing on improving their effectiveness within an ever-more-competitive global market for talent.
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    Mark Pesce: Digital Citizenship and the future of Education.
Nigel Coutts

What might it take to bring real change to education? - The Learner's Way - 8 views

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    I had the pleasure recently of listening to Michael Fullan thanks to ACEL (Australian Council for Educational Leaders). Like many thought leaders who are looking closely at the current state of education, Michael builds a strong case for radical change in education.
Sheri Edwards

Education Week: Backers of '21st-Century Skills' Take Flak - 0 views

  • Unless states that sign on to the movement ensure that all students are also taught a body of explicit, well-sequenced content, a focus on skills will not help students develop higher-order critical-thinking abilities, they said at a panel discussion here in the nation’s capital last week.
  • Array of Skills In the Partnership for 21st Century Skills’ vision for K-12 education, the arches of the rainbow depict outcomes, while the pools represent the resources needed to support those outcomes. But critics contend that states implementing this vision might focus too heavily on discrete skills instruction, at the expense of core content. SOURCE: Partnership for 21st Century Skills
  • Ten states have agreed to work with P21 to incorporate a focus on technology, analytical and communication skills into their content standards, teacher training, and assessments.
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  • “We’ve been having this curriculum war for years.”
  • Mr. Kay, in contrast, painted the P21 vision as one that transcends this debate. The partnership tries to encourage states to be more deliberative about how they help students learn the skills,
  • “[But] the liberal arts movement, which we embrace, has not been as purposeful and intentional about the skill outcomes as we need to be.”
  • Mr. Willingham argued not only that the teaching of skills is inseparable from that of core content, but also that it is the content itself that allows individuals to recognize problems and to determine which critical-thinking skills to apply to solve them.
  • Students become proficient critical thinkers only by gleaning a broad body of knowledge in multiple content domains, he said.
  • Those techniques include student-directed methods such as project-based learning, which requires students to work in groups to solve a specified problem, relying on teachers for guidance rather than for explicit instruction.
  • “Teachers will rise to the challenge given the kind of supports they need.”
  • “If [curriculum] is just picking up a manual, or a series of nonconnected or nonsequenced experiments in science or literary works with no connection and no background knowledge, it’s not going to help our kids think any better,” she said in an interview.
  • Academics like Ms. Darling-Hammond said that setting forth a clear understanding once and for all about what students should know, and which teaching methods best help students engage that content in depth, will be crucial to putting such debates to rest.
  • The highest-scoring countries on international exams, she said, undertook efforts to outline such goals specifically 20 to 30 years ago. “When you really think about delivering a rich curriculum, it takes a very skillful type of teaching,” Ms. Darling-Hammond said. “It can be done badly; we have to acknowledge that. But we don’t really have a choice, if we want to join other nations.”
  • Meanwhile the critics go about squawking while promoting their own panaceas
  • he majority of kids just go right on tuning out, dropping out, or just getting by
  • I challenge what I read by looking at source material. These are timeless skills. It's the technology that is 21st century.
  • As for the topics we are unfamiliar with, the poster just before me rightly points out that the Internet is out there for just that purpose. Real teachers are also learners, and should be constantly seeking to know more.
  • Many recent studies have concluded that the current system is broken beyond repair and that point solutions like those being advocates above cannot fix it. We know that people learn best when they teach others so small groups that encourage peer-to-peer mentoring should be encouraged. Those same small groups require the students to learn and use the high-performance skills advocated by P21. At the same time, there is a body of knowledge that has been determined to be important to a student's future - represented by the state academic content standards. Robust, in-depth discussions of academic content help achieve the mastery of academic content. To ensure the content has meaning, it is best learned in a multi-disciplinary environment. By embedding a selected set of content standards from a variety of disciplines into a realistic setting/project the students get the opportunity to use the knowledge and go beyond the standards as their interest leads them.
  • The fact is, while "experts" pore over the fabric of pedagogical delivery methods, online teaching and learning is quietly replacing classroom environments globally. Educators better make some quick adjustments or the very definition of what an "education" means nowadays will make many of these folks irrelevant.
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    What do you think? How do we envision the future and teach for it?
anonymous

Critical Issue: Using Technology to Improve Student Achievement - 0 views

shared by anonymous on 23 Feb 10 - Cached
  • Technologies available in classrooms today range from simple tool-based applications (such as word processors) to online repositories of scientific data and primary historical documents, to handheld computers, closed-circuit television channels, and two-way distance learning classrooms. Even the cell phones that many students now carry with them can be used to learn (Prensky, 2005).
  • Bruce and Levin (1997), for example, look at ways in which the tools, techniques, and applications of technology can support integrated, inquiry-based learning to "engage children in exploring, thinking, reading, writing, researching, inventing, problem-solving, and experiencing the world." They developed the idea of technology as media with four different focuses: media for inquiry (such as data modeling, spreadsheets, access to online databases, access to online observatories and microscopes, and hypertext), media for communication (such as word processing, e-mail, synchronous conferencing, graphics software, simulations, and tutorials), media for construction (such as robotics, computer-aided design, and control systems), and media for expression (such as interactive video, animation software, and music composition). In a review of existing evidence of technology's impact on learning, Marshall (2002) found strong evidence that educational technology "complements what a great teacher does naturally," extending their reach and broadening their students' experience beyond the classroom. "With ever-expanding content and technology choices, from video to multimedia to the Internet," Marshall suggests "there's an unprecedented need to understand the recipe for success, which involves the learner, the teacher, the content, and the environment in which technology is used."
  • In examining large-scale state and national studies, as well as some innovative smaller studies on newer educational technologies, Schacter (1999) found that students with access to any of a number of technologies (such as computer assisted instruction, integrated learning systems, simulations and software that teaches higher order thinking, collaborative networked technologies, or design and programming technologies) show positive gains in achievement on researcher constructed tests, standardized tests, and national tests.
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  • Boster, Meyer, Roberto, & Inge (2002) examined the integration of standards-based video clips into lessons developed by classroom teachers and found increases student achievement. The study of more than 1,400 elementary and middle school students in three Virginia school districts showed an average increase in learning for students exposed to the video clip application compared to students who received traditional instruction alone.
  • Wenglinsky (1998) noted that for fourth- and eighth-graders technology has "positive benefits" on achievement as measured in NAEP's mathematics test. Interestingly, Wenglinsky found that using computers to teach low order thinking skills, such as drill and practice, had a negative impact on academic achievement, while using computers to solve simulations saw their students' math scores increase significantly. Hiebert (1999) raised a similar point. When students over-practice procedures before they understand them, they have more difficulty making sense of them later; however, they can learn new concepts and skills while they are solving problems. In a study that examined relationship between computer use and students' science achievement based on data from a standardized assessment, Papanastasiou, Zemblyas, & Vrasidas (2003) found it is not the computer use itself that has a positive or negative effect on achievement of students, but the way in which computers are used.
  • Another factor influencing the impact of technology on student achievement is that changes in classroom technologies correlate to changes in other educational factors as well. Originally the determination of student achievement was based on traditional methods of social scientific investigation: it asked whether there was a specific, causal relationship between one thing—technology—and another—student achievement. Because schools are complex social environments, however, it is impossible to change just one thing at a time (Glennan & Melmed, 1996; Hawkins, Panush, & Spielvogel, 1996; Newman, 1990). If a new technology is introduced into a classroom, other things also change. For example, teachers' perceptions of their students' capabilities can shift dramatically when technology is integrated into the classroom (Honey, Chang, Light, Moeller, in press). Also, teachers frequently find themselves acting more as coaches and less as lecturers (Henriquez & Riconscente, 1998). Another example is that use of technology tends to foster collaboration among students, which in turn may have a positive effect on student achievement (Tinzmann, 1998). Because the technology becomes part of a complex network of changes, its impact cannot be reduced to a simple cause-and-effect model that would provide a definitive answer to how it has improved student achievement.
  • When new technologies are adopted, learning how to use the technology may take precedence over learning through the technology. "The technology learning curve tends to eclipse content learning temporarily; both kids and teachers seem to orient to technology until they become comfortable," note Goldman, Cole, and Syer (1999). Effective content integration takes time, and new technologies may have glitches. As a result, "teachers' first technology projects generate excitement but often little content learning. Often it takes a few years until teachers can use technology effectively in core subject areas" (Goldman, Cole, & Syer, 1999). Educators may find impediments to evaluating the impact of technology. Such impediments include lack of measures to assess higher-order thinking skills, difficulty in separating technology from the entire instructional process, and the outdating of technologies used by the school. To address these impediments, educators may need to develop new strategies for student assessment, ensure that all aspects of the instructional process—including technology, instructional design, content, teaching strategies, and classroom environment—are conducive to student learning, and conduct ongoing evaluation studies to determine the effectiveness of learning with technology (Kosakowski, 1998).
Nigel Coutts

Four perspectives on truth, normality and education in times of rapid change - The Lear... - 2 views

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    We are living in interesting, frightening and rapidly changing times. Where rapid changes and transformations through technology, politics, globalisation and the climate, conspire against normality. These times demand a fresh approach to education, one that provides learners with the thinking dispositions they need to turn challenges into opportunities.  "All that was 'normal' has now evaporated; we have entered postnormal times, the in-between period where old orthodoxies are dying, new ones have not yet emerged, and nothing really makes sense." But what thinking might guide us through this time of volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity?
Dwayne Abrahams

Google Changes Its Tune on Interviews - Vault: Blog - 12 views

  • Thus, the old pre-reqs are out: GPAs, transcripts, SATS.  In fact, Google is beginning to disregard academic educations altogether: they're just not a good predictor of success at the company. Says Bock, "After two or three years, your ability to perform at Google is completely unrelated to how you performed when you were in school, because the skills you required in college are very different. You’re also fundamentally a different person. You learn and grow, you think about things differently." According to the Times, Google is putting its money where its mouth is: they've actually increased their hires with no college education—14% of some of its teams have never been to school, according to Bock. Instead, the emphasis is on hiring candidates who are leaders, and work well in teams. The only way to discover this, says Bock, is through "structured" behavior interviews that assess how a person makes decisions. The winning interviewees will be able to demonstrate that they are "consistent and fair in how [they] think about making decisions and that there’s an element of predictability." This is key to building trust among team members once hired, he explains. "If a leader is consistent, people on their teams experience tremendous freedom, because then they know that within certain parameters, they can do whatever they want. If your manager is all over the place, you’re never going to know what you can do, and you’re going to experience it as very restrictive."
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    Google is beginning to disregard academic educations altogether: they're just not a good predictor of success at the company.  According to the Times, Google is putting its money where its mouth is: they've actually increased their hires with no college education-14% of some of its teams have never been to school, according to Bock. Instead, the emphasis is on hiring candidates who are leaders, and work well in teams.
J Black

The 21st Century Centurion: 21st Century Questions - 0 views

  • The report extended literacy to “Five New Basics” - English, mathematics, science, social studies, and computer science. A Nation At Risk specified that all high school graduates should be able to “understand the computer as an information, computation and communication device; students should be able to use the computer in the study of the other Basics and for personal and work-related purposes; and students should understand the world of computers, electronics, and related technologies."That was 1983 - twenty- six years ago. I ask you, Ben: Has education produced students with basic knowledge in the core disciplines and computer science TODAY? Are we there yet? OR - are we still at risk for not producing students with the essential skills for success in 1983?
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      I had never really considered this before...how computer science has been totally left out of the equaltion....why is that? Cost of really delivering this would be enormous -- think how much money the districts would have to pour into the school systems.
  • On June 29, 1996, the U. S. Department of Education released Getting America's Students Ready for the 21st Century; Meeting the Technology Literacy Challenge, A Report to the Nation on Technology and Education. Recognizing the rapid changes in workplace needs and the vast challenges facing education, the Technology Literacy Challenge launched programs in the states that focused on a vision of the 21st century where all students are “technologically literate.” Four goals, relating primarily to technology skills, were advanced that focused specifically on: 1.) Training and support for teachers; 2.) Acquisition of multimedia computers in classrooms; 3.) Connection to the Internet for every classroom; and 4.) Acquiring effective software and online learning resources integral to teaching the school's curriculum.
    • J Black
       
      we are really stuck here....the training and support -- the acquisition of hardware, connectivity etc.
  • Our profession is failing miserably to respond to twenty-six years of policy, programs and even statutory requirements designed to improve the ability of students to perform and contribute in a high performance workplace. Our students are losing while we are debating.
    • J Black
       
      This is really, really well said here...bravo
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  • In 2007, The Report of the NEW Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce: Tough Choices or Tough Times made our nation hyperaware that "World market professionals are available in a wide range of fields for a fraction of what U.S. professionals charge." Guess what? While U.S. educators stuck learned heads in the sand, the world's citizens gained 21st century skills! Tough Choices spares no hard truth: "Our young adults score at “mediocre” levels on the best international measure of performance." Do you think it is an accident that the word "mediocre" is used? Let's see, I believe we saw it w-a-a-a-y back in 1983 when A Nation At Risk warned of a "tide of mediocrity." Tough Choices asks the hard question: "Will the world’s employers pick U.S. graduates when workers in Asia will work for much less? Then the question is answered. Our graduates will be chosen for global work "only if the U.S. worker can compete academically, exceed in creativity, learn quickly, and demonstrate a capacity to innovate." There they are
    • J Black
       
      This is exactly what dawns on students when they realize what globalization means for them..the incredibly stiff competition that it is posed to bring about.
  • “Learning is what most adults will do for a living in the 21st century."
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    The report extended literacy to "Five New Basics" - English, mathematics, science, social studies, and computer science. A Nation At Risk specified that all high school graduates should be able to "understand the computer as an information, computation and communication device; students should be able to use the computer in the study of the other Basics and for personal and work-related purposes; and students should understand the world of computers, electronics, and related technologies." That was 1983 - twenty- six years ago. I ask you, Ben: Has education produced students with basic knowledge in the core disciplines and computer science TODAY? Are we there yet? OR - are we still at risk for not producing students with the essential skills for success in 1983?
sophiya miller

The Virtual Classroom: How Online Learning Reshapes Mechanical Engineering Education - 3 views

In the fast-paced world of academia, students pursuing mechanical engineering often find themselves grappling with the complexities of their coursework. From intricate design projects to challengin...

#takemyclasscourse #college #university #education #student

started by sophiya miller on 29 Dec 23 no follow-up yet
Tom Daccord

Advise the Advisor: Melody Barnes | The White House - 9 views

  • Advise the Advisor is a new program to help senior staff at the White House stay connected to the American people.

    Providing our nation’s students with a world-class education is a shared responsibility. It’s going to take all of us – teachers, parents, students, philanthropists, state and local governments, and the federal government – working together to prepare today’s students for the future.

    This week, Melody Barnes, Director of the Domestic Policy Council and one of President Obama’s senior advisors on education policy, is asking for feedback from parents, teachers and students about what’s working in their communities and what needs to change when it comes to education.

    You can add your voice to the conversation by answering one or all of the following questions:

    • Parents: Responsibility for our children’s education and future begins in our homes and communities. What are some of the most effective ways you're taking responsibility at a personal and local level for your child’s education?
    • Teachers: President Obama has set a goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. How are you preparing your students for college and career? What’s working and what challenges do you face?
    • Students: In order to compete for the jobs of the 21st century, America’s students must be prepared with a strong background in reading, math and science along with the critical thinking, problem solving, and creativity needed to succeed in tomorrow’s workforce. How has your education prepared you for a career in the 21st century? What has worked and what challenges do you face?

    Past Questions

    David Plouffe, Senior Advisor to the President, kicked off the series by asked for your feedback on how American innovation affects your community and the obstacles to innovation you see where you live. Check out David’s video and read his follow up blog post responding to some of the major themes we saw in reading your feedback.

    Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, posted the second edition of Advise the Advisor asking for feedback from small businesses about the obstacles they face in getting off the ground. Austan responded to some of your feedback during a live chat at the Winning the Future Forum on Small Business in Cleveland.

    Please answer the question(s) below that best apply to you. Please restrict your answers to no more than 2,500 characters.

    = Required field

    Responsibility for our children’s education and future begins in our homes and communities. What are some of the most effective ways you're taking responsibility at a personal and local level for your child’s education?

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    "Advise the Advisor is a new program to help senior staff at the White House stay connected to the American people."
Jorge Gonçalves

Microsoft Teacher Guides: Developing Critical Thinking Through Web Research Skills | Le... - 59 views

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    Free e-book about critical thinking and a very good collection of critical thinking related sites.
Nigel Coutts

Language Moves for Thinking - The Learner's Way - 1 views

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    A good place to start in our efforts to shift the impact that our language choices have is with a focus on the language of thinking. If we believe that all learning is a consequence of thinking, it is natural to select language moves that encourage this from our learners.
Nigel Coutts

Essential Reading for Teachers Interested in Thinking - The Learner's Way - 6 views

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    If you are interested in building a classroom culture where thinking is noticed, named and celebrated, there are three books which make essential reading. They provide clear evidence for why teachers should focus their efforts on encouraging and normalising thinking and offer research-backed strategies to support this. The books are the result of ongoing research by Harvard's Project Zero and their lead author Ron Ritchhart.
Paul Beaufait

MultiBrief: The 4 C's of 21st century learning for ELLs: Critical thinking - 20 views

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    "This is the first article of a four-part series on teaching the four C's effectively to English learners: Critical thinking | Communication | Collaboration | Creativity" (deck, 2015.03.16).
Nigel Coutts

All learning is a consequence of thinking - The Learner's Way - 5 views

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    All learning is a consequence of thinking. I have these words printed and posted on the wall above my desk. It is a reminder of what I believe is a vital understanding. The consequences of this one statement are quite profound. They fundamentally shape what I do as an educator and the experiences I hope to create for my learners.
Nigel Coutts

Pondering metaphors for the impact that we have as educators - The Learner's Way - 4 views

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    often think in metaphors. They help me to clarify and communicate my thinking. A metaphor can make a complex idea accessible and comprehensible. They invite understanding and are a useful catalyst for conversation. A metaphor can be made even more powerful when it is combined with a practical demonstration. One metaphor I like to share with colleagues revolves around the impact that we might have as teachers. - A guest post by Stellina Sim
David Freeburg

Bill Gates: The Internet Will Be Responsible For The Best Education. « Epic E... - 0 views

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    Bill Gates thinks the best education will come from the Internet. Should it?
Allison Kipta

The Answer Sheet - Willingham: Why doesn't reading more make us better readers? - 25 views

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    "We have supposedly been in the midst of an educational back-to-basics movement since the 1983 release of "A Nation at Risk," a report by a national commission that said American society was in danger of deteriorating because of an eroding public education system. Why, then, have reading scores (as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, a test often called the nation's report card), been flat since 1971? One obvious answer is that even if we're getting back to basics in school, kids read less and less outside of school. Think of all of the new technologies that compete for their time: they have ipods, video games, text messaging, instant messaging, cell phones. Who has time to read? Surprise! Americans read more now than they did in 1980. A lot more, according to an exhaustive study done at the University of California, San Diego."
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