A consensus is emerging on what those best practices are, and they have little to do with test-driven instruction. Research by Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford University teaching expert and former Obama adviser, has found that in Finland, South Korea, and other high-performing nations, teachers spend just 50 percent of their workday in the classroom with students, compared to about 80 percent for American teachers. During the rest of their day, Finnish and South Korean teachers work with other adults to plan lessons, observe one another's classrooms, and evaluate student work. This balance is especially important for beginning teachers; powerful evidence suggests that the single most helpful teacher-training exercise is to spend time inside a master teacher's classroom and to get feedback from that master teacher on one's own practice.
Michael Johnson on 25 May 10Examples of how social media can be used for 5 types of learning: IOL - Intra-Organisational Learning - how social media can be used to keep the employees up to date and up to speed on strategic and other internal initiatives and activities FSL - Formal Structured Learning - how educators (teachers, trainers, learning designers) as well as students can use social media within formal education and training GDL - Group Directed Learning - how groups of individuals - teams, projects, study groups etc - can use social media to work and learn together (Note: a "group" could be as small as two people, so coaching and mentoring falls into this category) PDL - Personal Directed Learning - how individuals can use social media to organise and manage their own personal or professional learning ASL - Accidental & Serendipitous Learning - how individuals, by using social media, can learn without consciously realising it (aka incidental or random learning)
