Cohort 21 Shared Resources

why grit is a better predictor of success than SAT scores.

All of which flies in the face of the kinder, gentler philosophy that has dominated American education over the past few decades. The conventional wisdom holds that teachers are supposed to tease knowledge out of students, rather than pound it into their heads. Projects and collaborative learning are applauded; traditional methods like lecturing and memorization—derided as "drill and kill"—are frowned upon, dismissed as a surefire way to suck young minds dry of creativity and motivation. But the conventional wisdom is wrong

most highly effective teachers

My days with technology do NOT all run smoothly. Sometimes there are many stops and starts. This is especially true at the beginning of the school year as my six year olds become familiar with the tools and apps we will use to learn and share what we know. Bandwidth can be an issue in my school, and access has often been as well. Sometimes a tool that I rely on will not work for some reason or other.

The focus tends to be on how to use computers rather than on what makes them work. Students may become adept at surfing the Web and at word processing, but they aren't developing the critical thinking skills essential to creating the software and hardware that power computers.

“classroom teacher” is someone that focuses on their classroom and students only.

“school teacher“.  This to me was the ideal as this teacher connected with every student in their classroom, as well as students and educators around the school

global teacher has the best elements of the classroom and school teacher, but their focus is on “what is best for kids”, no matter if is their own kids, kids in the school across the street, or across the ocean.

compiled resource page of the Flipped Classroom (with videos and links) can be found at http://www.scoop.it/t/the-flipped-classroom

Cisco in a recent white paper, Video: How Interactivity and Rich Media Change Teaching and Learning, presents the benefits of video in the classroom: Establishes dialogue and idea exchange between students, educators, and subject matter experts regardless of locations. Lectures become homework and class time is used for collaborative student work, experiential exercises, debate, and lab work. Extends access to scarce resources, such as specialized teachers and courses, to more students, allowing them to learn from the best sources and maintain access to challenging curriculum. Enables students to access courses at higher-level institutions, allowing them to progress at their own pace. Prepares students for a future as global citizens. Allows them to meet students and teachers from around the world to experience their culture, language, ideas, and shared experiences. Allows students with multiple learning styles and abilities to learn at their own pace and through traditional models.

A key concept that we employed is that it’s about using a handful of apps to do a variety of projects effectively and creatively. This is the “One Screen Model”

The central tenet of using iPads is App Fluency: “The ultimate goal of fluency challenges is to be able to move information from app to app and from device

“Using two or more applications or web tools in conjunction with one another to create a final product or experience that would not be possible with using a single tool