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The Brain Puzzle The Thinking Skills Club organizes fun, cognitively enriching games into a curriculum disguised as a brain puzzle. The puzzle pieces fill with colour as games are passed in all 6 areas of the site: Executive Function, Problem Solving, Memory, Processing Speed, Social Skills and Attention.

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future charts the rise of right-brain thinking i

define organizational chaos. You know exactly what I am talking about: shifting priorities, unclear direction, unstable processes, unhappy customers, disengaged employees.

I'm also not talking about energizing chaos—the type of externally driven change from customers and competitors that stimulates innovation, reduces complacency,

By reducing the organizational chaos that is completely within your control, you not only establish a solid foundation on which excellence can be built, but you also free up the psychic energy and resources you need to cope with the truly unforeseen circumstances

Good self-control has also been shown to be a key component of grit — perseverance in the face of educational challenges. It’s no wonder, then, that colleges have placed great emphasis on teaching students better self-control.

But the strategies that educators are recommending to build that self-control — a reliance on willpower and executive function to suppress emotions and desires for immediate pleasures — are precisely the wrong ones. Besides having a poor long-term success rate in general, the effectiveness of willpower drops precipitously when people are feeling tired, anxious, or stressed. And, unfortunately, that is exactly how many of today’s students often find themselves.

Efforts to emphasize willpower and executive function to achieve self-control are largely ineffective in helping those students.

iPads were designed as a single-user device and not meant to be shared via carts. Financial constraints have forced many schools to abandon 1:1 aspirations, but sharing them separates the functionality from the user. Carts that rotate through several classrooms force teachers to take time away from learning, create a nightmare of student accounts, and often focus attention on workflow systems rather than learning.

Sam Levin, an alum of Monument who is currently a sophomore at the University of Oxford in England studying biological sciences, started the program in 2010. Frustrated with his public-high-school schedule and realizing that his friends weren’t inspired to learn, Levin complained to his mother about how unhappy he and his classmates were, to which she responded: “Why don’t you just make your own school?” And so he did — albeit in small steps. In ninth grade, Levin started a school-wide garden that was solely cared for by students; some woke up early on Saturdays to work with the plants. The garden is still functioning and serves at-need families in the community. After witnessing the commitment that his classmates had to nurturing something they had created themselves, Levin was convinced that they were capable of putting more time and energy into their studies — as long as it was something they cared about. “I was seeing the exact opposite in school. Kids weren’t even doing the things they needed to do to get credit. There was something at odds with students getting up to work for no credit or money [on the garden] at 7 in the morning, but not wanting to wake up to read or do a science experiment,” says Levin. “I saw the really amazing and powerful things that happened when high school students stepped it up and were excited about something.”

The semester is split in half, with the first nine weeks focused on natural and social sciences. Each Monday morning, the students formulate a question with the help of their classmates. For example, “How are plants from different parts of a mountain different from each other?” or “What causes innovation?” The students spend the rest of the week researching the answer and creating a presentation to summarize their findings to share with their classmates at the end of the week for feedback and critique. The students are in charge of keeping themselves on task, creating their research plans and meeting their deadlines.

By taking ownership of their learning, the students at Monument are forced to think creatively and capitalize on their own talents in order to excel. The class framework is similar to what will be expected of them in college and in the workforce, when they have to make their own educated and independent decisions.

explains some of the individual differences that influence problem solving

psychologist David Jonassen

Given the reality of all these differences, how can I even dream of a functional classroom in which every student is learning at their own learning edge?

ust as advances in technology enabled the growth of science, the extremely rapid growth of technology we’re experiencing today is impacting our perspectives, tools, and priorities now. But beyond some mild clamor for a focus on “STEM,” there have been only minor changes in how we think of content–this is spite of extraordinary changes in how students connect, access data, and function on a daily basis.

What kind of changes might we expect in a perfect-but-still-classroom-and-content-based world? What might students learn in the future? Of course any response at all is pure speculation, but if we draw an arc from classical approaches to the Dewey approach to what might be next–factoring in technology change, social values, and criticisms of the current model–we may get a pretty decent answer. This assumes, of course a few things (all of which may be untrue): 1. We’ll still teach content 2. That content will be a mix of skills and knowledge 3. Said skills and knowledge will be thematically arranged into “content areas”

The Content Of The Future: 8 Content Areas For Tomorrow’s Students 1. Literacy Big Idea: Reading and writing in physical & digital spaces Examples of traditional ideas and academic content areas included: Grammar, Word Parts, Greek & Latin Roots, The Writing Process, Fluency; all traditional content areas 2. Patterns Big Idea: How and why patterns emerge everywhere under careful study Examples of traditional ideas and academic content areas include: Grammar, Literature, Math, Geometry, Music, Art, Social Studies, Astronomy 3. Systems Big Idea: The universe—and every single thing in it–is made of systems, and systems are made of parts. Examples of traditional ideas and academic content areas include: Grammar, Law, Medicine, Science, Math, Music, Art, Social Studies, History, Anthropology, Engineering, Biology; all traditional content areas by definition (they’re systems, yes?) 4. Design Big Idea: Marrying creative and analytical thought Examples of traditional ideas and academic content areas include: Literature, Creativity, Art, Music, Engineering, Geometry 5. Citizenship Big Idea: Responding to interdependence Examples of traditional ideas and academic content areas include: Literature, Social Studies, History; Civics, Government, Theology 6. Data Big Idea: Recognizing & using information in traditional & non-traditional forms Examples of traditional ideas and academic content areas include: Math, Geometry, Science, Engineering, Biology; 7. Research Big Idea: Identifying, evaluating, and synthesizing diverse ideas Examples of traditional ideas and academic content areas include: English, Math, Science; Humanities 8. Philosophy Big Idea: The nuance of thought Examples of traditional ideas and academic content areas include: Ethics, Literature/Poetry, Art, Music; Humanities

The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed (i.e., reflective), authentic, and collaborative (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra, 2003). The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption, adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells as illustrated below.

Blended learning can be a great way to make use of whatever technology tools you do have, rather than needing specific technology that you don’t have. Blended learning doesn’t require you to have a 1:1 classroom, a certain number of iPads, or particular software, though you can put any and all of those things to use as you choose. Thus, blended learning covers a lot of ground – and in the process it helps to make learning more engaging, effective, and efficient.

Careful planning and a strong understanding of blended learning will help make the transition much more smooth.  Enter: the handy infographic below. It takes a look at how to set up a blended learning environment, some of the features of a great blended learning program, and some other tidbits of information. Keep reading to learn more!

Content and apps are aligned with CCSS Standards aligned performance and assessment tasks Comprehensive learner profiles including student portfolios Consideration of learning level, student performance, and best learning modality Good reporting functionality