Skip to main content

Home/ Diigo In Education/ Group items tagged academic programs

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Deborah Baillesderr

Gamestar Mechanic - 46 views

  •  
    Play, design and share games.  Focuses on game design
  •  
    a very popular web-based game design environment. Global Kids http://olpglobalkids.org/ is using it to run social benefits game design contests and badging programs. They are getting 100+ new game design entries per week. From the parents' guide: Gamestar Mechanic is currently supported by a partnership between the Institute of Play and E-Line Media. The game was originally developed by Gamelab in partnership with the Institute of Play and the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Lab (AADLC) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Initial funding for the game and companion learning guides came from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The design of the game is based on research by some of the leading academics in the field including Katie Salen (Executive Director of the Institute of Play and curriculum author for the New York City Public School Quest To Learn) and James Paul Gee (author of What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy).
  •  
    This site has students creating games from scratch and putting them out into the world for feedback within the Gamestar Mechanic community. Students use math, problem solving, writing skills and more to make their games interesting. I think this could be used in the classroom as a theme-based project or just to get students interested in coding.
Martin Burrett

Reading to therapy dogs improves literacy attitudes in second-grade students - 8 views

  •  
    "Second-grade students who read aloud to dogs in an after-school program demonstrated improved attitudes about reading, according to researchers at Tufts Institute for Human-Animal Interaction at Tufts University. Their research appears online in advance of print in the Early Childhood Education Journal. Reading skills are often associated with improved academic performance and positive attitudes about school in children. Researchers wanted to learn if animal-assisted intervention in the form of reading aloud to dogs in a classroom setting could contribute to improved skills and attitudes."
Matt McKee

Kindle DX called "poor excuse of an academic tool" in Princeton pilot program - 24 views

  • Most of the criticisms center around the Kindle's weak annotation features, which make things like highlighting and margin notes almost impossible to use, but even a simple thing like the lack of true page numbers has caused problems, since allowing students to cite the Kindle's location numbers in their papers is "meaningless for anyone working from analog books."
    • Matt McKee
       
      isn't the whole point of having a digital book the ability to manipulate what's on the page?
  •  
    Note that annotation is a key educational need not currently met by Kindle. If only there was a version of Diigo embedded...
  •  
    It will be interesting to see if the upcoming Apple Tablet will take the shortcomings of the Kindle and improve on them, or be flawed itself.
D. S. Koelling

Plagiarizing Yourself - Advice - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 31 views

shared by D. S. Koelling on 05 Oct 10 - No Cached
msovoice liked it
  • Her presentation contained a slide that said academic dishonesty included plagiarizing yourself—i.e., taking a paper you had written for one course and turning it in for credit in another course. That, she explained, constituted a dishonest representation of your work for a course. "Unless," one of my colleagues chimed in at that point, "you're an academic, and you're presenting the same idea at a bunch of different conferences. Then it's clearly not dishonest."
  • "Are we allowed to use ideas from our writing exercise to help us write this paper?" she asked. "Of course," I said. "That was the whole point of the writing exercise—to get you a head start in thinking about how you want to approach your paper." "OK," she said. And then after a brief pause: "Because at orientation they told us we weren't allowed to use our own work twice." "Ah," I said. "That doesn't really apply in this case. And anyway, I don't really mind, in this course, if you take a paper that you've written for another course and revise it for an assignment in here. You just have to make sure that what you turn in fulfills my specific assignment. Other professors might feel differently, though. So I would always ask before you tried to do that."
  • So does the injunction against plagiarizing from yourself fall into the category of one of those hypocritical rules that we like to impose on our children: Drinking soda every day would be bad for your health, honey, but it's fine for me? If a categorical difference exists here between what we do and what we forbid our students to do, I confess, I have a hard time seeing it.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • counterargument
  • So why deprive our students of the opportunity to learn those same lessons, by recycling a particular paper from one course to the next?
  • I can foresee one more objection: What's to prevent a student from recycling the same paper from course to course to course? Students who did so would lose the valuable opportunity to practice their writing—and writing, like any other intellectual or physical skill, requires lots of practice. But—practically speaking—the opportunity to reuse a paper might arise only once or twice in a student's career, thanks to the diversity of our course assignments and disciplines.
  • First, do you see a problem with allowing students to revise a paper or presentation created for one course and turn it in for another one, assuming they can make it fit the assignment for the new course? Does this count as plagiarism? Second, are there any courses or programs that build such a process into the curriculum—requiring or encouraging students to take work from one course and adapt it for another? I encourage readers to offer their ideas. Of course if you have published or presented elsewhere on this subject, you should still go ahead and share your recycled idea. I will leave it up to you to decide whether to feel guilty about that.
paul lowe

Anthropology Program at Kansas State University - Wesch - 0 views

  •  
    Dubbed "the explainer" by Wired magazine, Michael Wesch is a cultural anthropologist exploring the impact of new media on society and culture. After two years studying the impact of writing on a remote indigenous culture in the rain forest of Papua New Guinea, he has turned his attention to the effects of social media and digital technology on global society. His videos on culture, technology, education, and information have been viewed by millions, translated in over ten languages, and are frequently featured at international film festivals and major academic conferences worldwide. Wesch has won several major awards for his work, including a Wired Magazine Rave Award, the John Culkin Award for Outstanding Praxis in Media Ecology, and he was recently named an Emerging Explorer by National Geographic. He has also won several teaching awards, including the 2008 CASE/Carnegie U.S. Professor of the Year for Doctoral and Research Universities.
Randolph Hollingsworth

Welcome to the Middle College National Consortium - MCNC - 5 views

  •  
    "Our focus is on professional development and staff leadership; democratic school governance and peer review; comprehensive academic, social and emotional student support; and high school-college collaboration."
Kurt Schmidt

A Perfect Storm in Undergraduate Education, Part 2 - Advice - The Chronicle of Higher E... - 43 views

  • But, in the past few generations, the imagery and rhetoric of academic marketing have cultivated a belief that college will be, if not decadent, at least primarily recreational: social activities, sporting events, and travel.
  • Increasingly, students are buying an "experience" instead of earning an education, and, in the competition to attract customers, that's what's colleges are selling.
  • a growing percentage of students are arriving at college without ever having written a research paper, read a novel, or taken an essay examination. And those students do not perceive that they have missed something in their education; after all, they have top grades. In that context, the demands of professors for different kinds of work can seem bewildering and unreasonable, and students naturally gravitate to courses with more-familiar expectations.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Students increasingly are pressured to go to college not because they want to learn (much less become prepared for the duties of citizenship), but because they and their parents believe—perhaps rightly—that not going will exclude them from middle-class jobs.
  • At most universities, a student is likely to be unknown to the professor and would expect to feel like a nuisance, a distraction from more important work.
  • As academic expectations have decreased, social programming and extracurricular activities have expanded to fill more than the available time. That is particularly the case for residential students, for whom the possibility of social isolation is a source of great anxiety.
  • College has become unaffordable for most people without substantial loans; essentially they are mortgaging their future in the expectation of greater earnings. In order to reduce borrowing, more and more students leave class early or arrive late or neglect assignments, because they are working to provide money for tuition or living expenses.
  • As students' anxiety about the future increases, no amount of special pleading for general-education courses on history, literature, or philosophy—really anything that is not obviously job-related—will convince most students that they should take those courses seriously.
  • But at the major universities, most professors are too busy to care about individual students, and it is easy to become lost amid a sea of equally disenchanted undergraduates looking for some kind of purpose—and not finding it.
  • we need to make "rigorous and high-quality educational experiences a moral imperative."
  •  
    ". . . we need to make 'rigorous and high-quality educational experiences a moral imperative.'"
grayberg

Blended learning: Uncovering its transformative potential in higher education - 48 views

  •  
    This article is one of the many written by D. Randy Garrison on the value of e-learning both as an independent entity and (as in this article) part of the blended learning environment. The authors are Dr. D. Randy Garrison, professor and academic director of Learning Commons at the University of Calgary; and Dr. Heather Kanuka, professor and academic director of the Centre for Teaching and Learning at the University of Alberta. Both authors have written extensively on the topic of e-learning, distance education, and adult education. This article discusses the potential of blended learning in higher education. The authors conclude that blended learning can have a substantial benefit for the student both in terms of logistics and educational satisfaction. "Blended learning is about rethinking and redesigning the teaching and learning relationship." However, it requires that the program's administrative and leadership issues are addressed and a solid action plan is in place. A "community of inquiry" must be formed by good course design which can be at the same time quite simple and yet complex. This topic is of great interest to me as I would like to reinstate a successful blended learning program at the college where I teach.
Marti Pike

RTI Talks | RTI for Gifted Students - 9 views

shared by Marti Pike on 02 Aug 17 - No Cached
  • learning contracts with the student focused on work that takes the students interests in to account may be helpful.
    • Marti Pike
       
      Genius Hour
  • "Up from Underachievement" by Diane Heacox
  • Gifted learners are rarely "globally gifted
  • ...59 more annotations...
  • From a parent's perspective (and sometimes from the child's), this can seem like we are "de-gifted" the child.
  • The most important thing is that you have the "data" that shows what the student needs and that you are matching this with an appropriate service.
  • Be very explicit with what the differentiation is and how it is addressing the needs
  • A major shift with RTI is that there is less emphasis on the "label" and more on the provision of appropriate service.
  • When a child has met all the expected benchmarks
  • independent reading
  • reading log
  • small group for discussions using similar questions.
  • long-term solutions might include forming a seminar group using a
  • program like "Junior Great Books."
  • Ideas for differentiating reading for young children can also be found at: http://www.k8accesscenter.org/training_resources/readingdifferentiation.asp http://www.appomattox.k12.va.us/acps/attachments/6_6_12_dan_mulligan_handout.pdf
  • enrich potential
  • to plan appropriate instruction, based on data that show the learners' needs.
  • additional enrichment and challenge in their area(s) strength.
  • Tiers 2 or 3
  • As the intensity of the needs increase, the intensity of the services also increases.
  • our ability to nurture potential in students prior to formal identification
  • appropriately scaffolded activities through Tier 2 support.
  • , with high-end differentiation and expectations, we are able to support the development of potential in all students.
  • This body-of-evidence can be used to support the nomination process and formal identification when appropriate.
  • likely to be of particular benefit for culturally and linguistically diverse, economically disadvantaged, and twice exceptional youngsters who are currently underrepresented within gifted education.
  • Tier 1 include:
  • Tier 2 include:
  • Tier 3 include:
  • universal screening
  • Aspergers
  • gifted children with learning disabilities?
  • If we provide enrichment activities for our advanced students, won't that just increase the acheivement gap?
    • Marti Pike
       
      Grrrrrrrrr
  • Educational opportunities are not a “zero sum” game where some students gain and others lose.
  • the needs of all learners.
  • One is focusing on remediation, however the second approach focuses on the nurturing of potential through creating expectations for excellence that permeate Tier 1 with extended opportunities for enrichment for all children who need them at Tier 2. With the focus on excellence, the rising tide will help all students reach their potential. This is the goal of education.
  • make sure that the screener is directly related to the curriculum that you are using and that it has a high enough ceiling to allow advance learners to show what they know.
  • recognizing that students who are above grade level, or advanced in their academics, also need support to thrive
  • all students deserve to attend a school where their learning needs are met
  • seek out ways to build the knowledge and skills of teachers to address the range of needs
  • This includes learning about differentiated instruction within Tier 1and creating additional opportunities for enhancements and enrichments within Tier 2.
  • first
  • This often means that the district views the school as a “high-needs” school and does feel that many children would qualify for gifted education services (thus no teacher allocation is warranted). If this is the case, then this is a problematic view as it perpetuates the myth that some groups of children are not likely to be “gifted”.
  • These five differentiation strategies are as follows: Curriculum Compacting (pre-assessment of learners to see what they know)  The use of Tiered Assignments that address: Mastery, Enrichment, and Challenge  Tiered Learning Centers that allow children to further explore skills and concepts  Independent and Small group learning contracts that allow students to follow area of interest  Questioning for Higher Level thinking to stretch the minds of each child.
  • RTI was,
  • first proposed as a way to help us better identify students who continue to need additional support in spite of having appropriate instructional opportunities to learn.
  • The primary issue is the need for measures of potential as well as performance.
  • an IQ measure
  • portfolio
  • that sometimes occur outside of school
  • children with complex sets of strengths and needs require a comprehensive evaluation that includes multiple types, sources, and time periods to create the most accurate and complete understanding of their educational needs.
  • a "diamond" shaped RTI model
  • confusing
  • use the same icon to represent how we address the increasing intensity of academic and behavioral needs for all learners.
  • English Language Learners?
  • Differentiated instruction is part of a strength-based approach to Tier 1, providing enriched and challenging learning opportunities for all students. However, a comprehensive RTI approach for gifted learners will also need strong Tier 2 and 3 supports and services.
  • Tracking, or the fixed stratification of children into learning levels based on limited data (placing children in fixed learning groups based on a single reading score), is the opposite of RTI.
  • off grade level trajectories
  • this may includ
  • assess the slope and speed of learning and plot the target from there.
  • content acceleration and content enrichment.
  • independent or small group project of their choice.
  • renzullilearning.com.
  • additional learning opportunities that both challenge the learner and address high interest learning topics.
Tracy Tuten

The real economics of massive online courses (essay) | Inside Higher Ed - 2 views

  • Is there a model out there, or an institution/student mix that could effectively utilize MOOCs in such a way as to get around this flaw? It’s hard to tell. Recent articles on Inside Higher Ed have suggested that distance education providers (like the University of Maryland’s University College – UMUC) may opt to certify the MOOCs that come out of these elite schools and bake them into their own online programs. Others suggest that MOOCs could be certified by other schools and embedded in prior learning portfolios.
  • The fatal flaw that I referred to earlier is pretty apparent:  the very notions of "mass, open" and selectivity just don’t lend themselves to a workable model that benefits both institutions and students. Our higher education system needs MOOCs to provide credentials in order for students to find it worthwhile to invest the effort, yet colleges can’t afford to provide MOOC credentials without sacrificing prestige, giving up control of the quality of the students who take their courses and running the risk of eventually diluting the value of their education brand in the eyes of the labor market.
  • In other words, as economists tell us, students themselves are an important input to education. The fact that no school uses a lottery system to determine who gets in means that determining who gets in matters a great deal to these schools, because it helps them control quality and head off the adverse effects of unqualified students either dropping out or performing poorly in career positions. For individual institutions, obtaining high quality inputs works to optimize the school’s objective function, which is maximizing prestige.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • We also know that there are plenty of low- to no-cost learning options available to people on a daily basis, from books on nearly every academic topic at the local library and on-the-job experience, to the television programming on the National Geographic, History and Discovery channels. If learning can and does take place everywhere, there has to be a specific reason that people would be willing to spend tens of thousands of dollars and several years of their life to get it from one particular source like a college. There is, of course, and again it’s the credential, because no matter how many years I spend diligently tuned to the History Channel, I’m simply not going to get a job as a high-school history teacher with “television watching” as the core of my resume, even if I both learned and retained far more information than I ever could have in a series of college history classes.
  •  
    On why MOOCs are flawed
Maureen Greenbaum

Calls from Washington for streamlined regulation and emerging models | Inside Higher Ed - 0 views

  • more of online “innovations” like competency-based education.
  • reauthorization of the Higher Education Act might shake out.
  • flow of federal financial aid to a wide range of course providers, some of which look nothing like colleges.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • give state regulators a new option to either act as accreditors or create their own accreditation systems.
  • “States could accredit online courses, or hybrid models with elements on- and off-campus.”
  • any new money for those emerging models would likely come out of the coffers of traditional colleges.
  • cut back on red tape that prevents colleges from experimenting with ways to cut prices and boost student learning.
  • decentralized, more streamlined form of accreditation.
  • regional accreditors are doing a fairly good job. They are under enormous pressure to keep “bad actors” at bay while also encouraging experimentation. And he said accreditors usually get it right.
  • Andrew Kelly, however, likes Lee’s idea. Kelly, who is director of the American Enterprise Institute’s Center on Higher Education Reform, said it would create a credible alternative to the existing accreditation system, which the bill would leave intact.
  • eliminating bureaucracy in higher education regulation is a top priority
  • “Accreditation could also be available to specialized programs, individual courses, apprenticeships, professional credentialing and even competency-based tests,”
  • “The gateway to education reform is education oversight reform,”
  • broad, bipartisan agreement that federal aid policies have not kept pace with new approaches to higher education.
  • expansion of competency-based education. And he said the federal rules governing financial aid make it hard for colleges to go big with those programs.
  • accreditors is that they favor the status quo, in part because they are membership organizations of academics that essentially practice self-regulation.
  • “The technology has reached the point where it really can improve learning,” he said, adding that “it can lower the costs.”
  • changes to the existing accreditation system that might make it easier for competency-based and other emerging forms of online education to spread.
  • offering competency-based degrees through a process called direct assessment, which is completely de-coupled from the credit-hour standard.
Ian Woods

AJET 26(3) Drexler (2010) - The networked student model for construction of personal le... - 77 views

  • Web application(networked studentcomponent) Tool usedin test case Student activitylevel of structure Social bookmarking (RSS) Delicioushttp://delicious.com/ Set up the account Subscribe to each others accounts Bookmark and read 10 reliable websites that reflect the content of chosen topic Add and read at least 3 additional sites each week. News and blog alert (RSS) Google Alerthttp://www.google.com/alerts Create a Google Alert of keywords associated with selected topic Read news and blogs on that topic that are delivered via email daily Subscribe to appropriate blogs in reader News and blog reader (RSS) Google Readerhttp://reader.google.com Search for blogs devoted to chosen topic Subscribe to blogs to keep track of updates Personal blog (RSS) Bloggerhttp://www.blogger.com Create a personal blog Post a personal reflection each day of the content found and experiences related to the use of personal learning environment Students subscribe to each others blogs in reader Internet search (information management, contacts, and synchronous communication) Google Scholarhttp://scholar.google.com/ Conduct searches in Google Scholar and library databases for scholarly works. Bookmark appropriate sites Consider making contact with expert for video conference Podcasts (RSS) iTunesUhttp://www.apple.com/itunes/whatson/itunesu.html Search iTunesU for podcasts related to topic Subscribe to at least 2 podcasts if possible Video conferencing (contacts and synchronous communication) Skypehttp://www.skype.com Identify at least one subject matter expert to invite to Skype with the class. Content gathering/ digital notebook Evernotehttp://evernote.com/ Set up account Use Evernote to take notes on all content collected via other tools Content synthesis Wikispaceshttp://www.wikispaces.com Post final project on personal page of class wiki The process and tools are overwhelming to students if presented all at once. As with any instructional design, the teacher determines the pace at which the students best assimilate each new learning tool. For this particular project, a new tool was introduced each day over two weeks. Once the construction process was complete, there were a number of personal web page aggregators that could have been selected to bring everything together in one place. Options at the time included iGoogle, PageFlakes, NetVibes, and Symbaloo. These sites offer a means to compile or pull together content from a variety of web applications. A web widget or gadget is a bit of code that is executed within the personal web page to pull up external content from other sites. The students in this case designed the personal web page using the gadgets needed in the format that best met their learning goals. Figure 3 is an instructor example of a personal webpage that includes the reader, email, personal blog, note taking program, and social bookmarks on one page. The personal learning environment can take the place of a traditional textbook, though does not preclude the student from using a textbook or accessing one or more numerous open source texts that may be available for the research topic. The goal is to access content from many sources to effectively meet the learning objectives. The next challenge is to determine whether those objectives have been met. Figure 3: Personal web page compiles learning tools
  • Table 2: Personal learning environment toolset Web application (networked student component) Tool used in test case Student activity level of structure Social bookmarking (RSS) Delicious http://delicious.com/ Set up the account Subscribe to each others accounts Bookmark and read 10 reliable websites that reflect the content of chosen topic Add and read at least 3 additional sites each week. News and blog alert (RSS) Google Alert http://www.google.com/alerts Create a Google Alert of keywords associated with selected topic Read news and blogs on that topic that are delivered via email daily Subscribe to appropriate blogs in reader News and blog reader (RSS) Google Reader http://reader.google.com Search for blogs devoted to chosen topic Subscribe to blogs to keep track of updates Personal blog (RSS) Blogger http://www.blogger.com Create a personal blog Post a personal reflection each day of the content found and experiences related to the use of personal learning environment Students subscribe to each others blogs in reader Internet search (information management, contacts, and synchronous communication) Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com/ Conduct searches in Google Scholar and library databases for scholarly works. Bookmark appropriate sites Consider making contact with expert for video conference Podcasts (RSS) iTunesU http://www.apple.com/itunes/ whatson/itunesu.html Search iTunesU for podcasts related to topic Subscribe to at least 2 podcasts if possible Video conferencing (contacts and synchronous communication) Skype http://www.skype.com Identify at least one subject matter expert to invite to Skype with the class. Content gathering/ digital notebook Evernote http://evernote.com/ Set up account Use Evernote to take notes on all content collected via other tools Content synthesis Wikispaces http://www.wikispaces.com Post final project on personal page of class wiki The process and tools are overwhelming to students if presented all at once. As with any instructional design, the teacher determines the pace at which the students best assimilate each new learning tool. For this particular project, a new tool was introduced each day over two weeks. Once the construction process was complete, there were a number of personal web page aggregators that could have been selected to bring everything together in one place. Options at the time included iGoogle, PageFlakes, NetVibes, and Symbaloo. These sites offer a means to compile or pull together content from a variety of web applications. A web widget or gadget is a bit of code that is executed within the personal web page to pull up external content from other sites. The students in this case designed the personal web page using the gadgets needed in the format that best met their learning goals. Figure 3 is an instructor example of a personal webpage that includes the reader, email, personal blog, note taking program, and social bookmarks on one page.
  • The personal learning environment can take the place of a traditional textbook, though does not preclude the student from using a textbook or accessing one or more numerous open source texts that may be available for the research topic. The goal is to access content from many sources to effectively meet the learning objectives. The next challenge is to determine whether those objectives have been met.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • AssessmentThere were four components of the assessment process for this test case of the Networked Student Model: (1) Ongoing performance assessment in the form of weekly assignments to facilitate the construction and maintenance of the personal learning environment, (2) rubric-based assessment of the personal learning environment at the end of the project, (3) written essay, and (4) multimedia synthesis of topic content. Points were earned for meeting the following requirements: Identify ten reliable resources and post to social bookmarking account. At least three new resources should be added each week. Subscribe and respond to at least 3 new blogs each week. Follow these blogs and news alerts using the reader. Subscribe to and listen to at least two podcasts (if available). Respectfully contact and request a video conference from a subject matter expert recognised in the field. Maintain daily notes and highlight resources as needed in digital notebook. Post at least a one-paragraph reflection in personal blog each day. At the end of the project, the personal learning environment was assessed with a rubric that encompassed each of the items listed above. The student's ability to synthesise the research was further evaluated with a reflective essay. Writing shapes thinking (Langer & Applebee, 1987), and the essay requirement was one more avenue through which the students demonstrated higher order learning. The personal blog provided an opportunity for regular reflection during the course of the project. The essay was the culmination of the reflections along with a thoughtful synthesis of the learning experience. Students were instructed to articulate what was learned about the selected topic and why others should care or be concerned. The essay provided an overview of everything learned about the contemporary issue. It was well organised, detailed, and long enough to serve as a resource for others who wished to learn from the work. As part of a final exam, the students were required to access the final projects of their classmates and reflect on what they learned from this exposure. The purpose of this activity was to give the students an additional opportunity to share and learn from each other. Creativity is considered a key 21st century skill (Partnership for 21st Century Skills, 2009). A number of emerging web applications support the academic creative process. Students in this project used web tools to combine text, video, audio, and photographs to teach the research topics to others. The final multimedia project was posted or embedded on the student's personal wiki page. Analysis and assessment of student work was facilitated by the very technologies in use by the students. In order to follow their progress, the teacher simply subscribed to student social bookmarking accounts, readers, and blogs. Clicking through daily contributions was relatively quick and efficient.
  •  
    Scholarly and important but also practical. Scroll down for an incredible chart of ideas that challenges older students to take charge of their own learning.
Josh Flores

Annotating the Model Content Frameworks for ELA/Literacy by PARCC - 9 views

    • Josh Flores
       
      Quarterly Modules - but could be adjusted for your school's purposes.
    • Josh Flores
       
      Ingredients!
  • shape the content within the modules in any way that suit their desired purposes
  • ...54 more annotations...
  • re-order
  • order in which the four modules may be used is not critical
  • ocus and emphasis on the types of texts
  • What changes
  • is the
  • analytic reading
  • examining its meaning
  • read and reread deliberately.
  • understand the central ideas
  • supporting details
  • entails the careful gathering of observations
  • overall understanding and judgment
  • omparison and synthesis of ideas
  • drawing on relevant prior knowledge
  • suggests that educators select a minimum number of grade-level-appropriate short texts
  • as well as one extended text
  • in lower grades, chosen texts should include content from across the disciplines.
  • upper grades, content-area teachers are encouraged to consider how best to implement informational reading across the disciplines
    • Josh Flores
       
      The Nonfiction Split
    • Josh Flores
       
      Elementary and Secodnary
    • Josh Flores
       
      Selecting Multiple Texts
  • present their analyses in writing and speaking
    • Josh Flores
       
      Listening and Speaking Tip: Class presentations with a rubric; allow class to complete rubric of their peers too and use video or text-to-speech based web 2.0 animation programs for shy students
  • all students need access to a wide range of materials on a variety of topics and genres
    • Josh Flores
       
      INTERNETS: Open Resource Revolution!
  • students improve both their reading comprehension and their writing skills when writing in response to texts.
    • Josh Flores
       
      I knew it!
  • notes, summaries, learning logs, writing to learn tasks, or even a response to a short text selection or an open-ended question.[9]
    • Josh Flores
       
      Examples of Writing Practices
  • hese responses can vary in length based on the questions asked and tasks performed, from answering brief questions to crafting multiparagraph responses in upper grades.
  • narrative story and narrative description
    • Josh Flores
       
      TWO TYPES OF NARRATIVE Writing
  • creative fiction, as well as memoirs, anecdotes, biographies, and autobiographies
  • include writing under time constraints
  • writing over multiple drafts
  • generate writing pieces in response to teacher-provided prompts and to their own prompts
    • Josh Flores
       
      LEVEL Qs: Teach students to generate Academic Questions to explore
  • For reading and writing in each module
    • Josh Flores
       
      Essential READING & WRITING Skills
    • Josh Flores
       
      for ELA/Literacy
  • Understand and apply grammar:
  • Cite evidence and analyze content
  • Understand and apply vocabulary
  • Conduct discussions and report findings:
  • grades 3-5
  • two standards progression charts for each grade level
  • Writing
  • peaking and Listening
  • Graham, S., and M. A. Hebert. 2010. Writing to Read: Evidence for How Writing Can Improve Reading. A Carnegie Corporation Time to Act Report. Washington, D.C.: Alliance for Excellent Education.
  • suggests both the number and types
  • Students
  • offer one way of organizing the standards
  • quarterly modules
  • reflects the integrated nature
  • four sections
  • to express an opinion/make an argument or to inform/explain
  • write
  • citing evidence
  • analyzing
  • grammar
  • vocabulary
  • discussions
  • reporting
Russ Goerend

NPR : Homework: How Much is Too Much? - 1 views

  • Some influential researchers say homework does little to improve a student's academic abilities. Others believe homework is excessive, and doing more harm than good.
Candice Nogueira

Academic Leadership Journal - 0 views

  • Therefore, school districts need to add elements of comprehensive induction  to their mentoring programs to help promote learning and professionaldevelopment.
    • Candice Nogueira
       
      I think that this is one thing that HCPSS does well with the New Teacher orientation--especially because it happens a week before verteran teachers come back.
Maureen Greenbaum

The Future of College? - The Atlantic - 29 views

  • proprietary online platform developed to apply pedagogical practices that have been studied and vetted by one of the world’s foremost psychologists, a former Harvard dean named Stephen M. Kosslyn, who joined Minerva in 2012.
  • inductive reasoning
  • Minerva class extended no refuge for the timid, nor privilege for the garrulous. Within seconds, every student had to provide an answer, and Bonabeau displayed our choices so that we could be called upon to defend them.
  • ...45 more annotations...
  • subjecting us to pop quizzes, cold calls, and pedagogical tactics that during an in-the-flesh seminar would have taken precious minutes of class time to arrange.
  • felt decidedly unlike a normal classroom. For one thing, it was exhausting: a continuous period of forced engagement, with no relief in the form of time when my attention could flag
  • One educational psychologist, Ludy Benjamin, likens lectures to Velveeta cheese—something lots of people consume but no one considers either delicious or nourishing.)
  • because I had to answer a quiz question or articulate a position. I was forced, in effect, to learn
  • adically remake one of the most sclerotic sectors of the U.S. economy, one so shielded from the need for improvement that its biggest innovation in the past 30 years has been to double its costs and hire more administrators at higher salaries.
  • past half millennium, the technology of learning has hardly budge
  • fellow edu-nauts
  • Lectures are banned
  • attending class on Apple laptops
  • Lectures, Kosslyn says, are cost-effective but pedagogically unsound. “A great way to teach, but a terrible way to learn.”
  • Minerva boast is that it will strip the university experience down to the aspects that are shown to contribute directly to student learning. Lectures, gone. Tenure, gone. Gothic architecture, football, ivy crawling up the walls—gone, gone, gone.
  • “Your cash cow is the lecture, and the lecture is over,” he told a gathering of deans. “The lecture model ... will be obliterated.”
  • One imagines tumbleweeds rolling through abandoned quads and wrecking balls smashing through the windows of classrooms left empty by students who have plugged into new online platforms.
  • when you have a noncurated academic experience, you effectively don’t get educated.
  • Liberal-arts education is about developing the intellectual capacity of the individual, and learning to be a productive member of society. And you cannot do that without a curriculum.”
  • “The freshman year [as taught at traditional schools] should not exist,” Nelson says, suggesting that MOOCs can teach the basics. “Do your freshman year at home.”) Instead, Minerva’s first-year classes are designed to inculcate what Nelson calls “habits of mind” and “foundational concepts,” which are the basis for all sound systematic thought. In a science class, for example, students should develop a deep understanding of the need for controlled experiments. In a humanities class, they need to learn the classical techniques of rhetoric and develop basic persuasive skills. The curriculum then builds from that foundation.
  • What, he asks, does it mean to be educated?
  • methods will be tested against scientifically determined best practices
  • Subsidies, Nelson says, encourage universities to enroll even students who aren’t likely to thrive, and to raise tuition, since federal money is pegged to costs.
  • We have numerous sound, reproducible experiments that tell us how people learn, and what teachers can do to improve learning.” Some of the studies are ancient, by the standards of scientific research—and yet their lessons are almost wholly ignored.
  • memory of material is enhanced by “deep” cognitive tasks
  • he found the man’s view of education, in a word, faith-based
  • ask a student to explain a concept she has been studying, the very act of articulating it seems to lodge it in her memory. Forcing students to guess the answer to a problem, and to discuss their answers in small groups, seems to make them understand the problem better—even if they guess wrong.
  • e traditional concept of “cognitive styles”—visual versus aural learners, those who learn by doing versus those who learn by studying—is muddled and wrong.
  • pedagogical best practices Kosslyn has identified have been programmed into the Minerva platform so that they are easy for professors to apply. They are not only easy, in fact, but also compulsory, and professors will be trained intensively in how to use the platform.
  • Professors are able to sort students instantly, and by many metrics, for small-group work—
  • a pop quiz at the beginning of a class and (if the students are warned in advance) another one at a random moment later in the class greatly increases the durability of what is learned.
  • he could have alerted colleagues to best practices, but they most likely would have ignored them. “The classroom time is theirs, and it is sacrosanct,
  • Lectures, Kosslyn says, are pedagogically unsound,
  • I couldn’t wait for Minerva’s wrecking ball to demolish the ivory tower.
  • The MOOCs will eventually make lectures obsolete.”
  • Minerva’s model, Nelson says, will flourish in part because it will exploit free online content, rather than trying to compete with it, as traditional universities do.
  • The MOOCs will eventually make lectures obsolete.”
  • certain functions of universities have simply become less relevant as information has become more ubiquitous
  • Minerva challenges the field to return to first principles.
  • MOOCs will continue to get better, until eventually no one will pay Duke or Johns Hopkins for the possibility of a good lecture, when Coursera offers a reliably great one, with hundreds of thousands of five-star ratings, for free.
  • It took deep concentration,” he said. “It’s not some lecture class where you can just click ‘record’ on your tape.”
  • part of the process of education happens not just through good pedagogy but by having students in places where they see the scholars working and plying their trades.”
  • “hydraulic metaphor” of education—the idea that the main task of education is to increase the flow of knowledge into the student—an “old fallacy.”
  • I remembered what I was like as a teenager headed off to college, so ignorant of what college was and what it could be, and so reliant on the college itself to provide what I’d need in order to get a good education.
  • it is designed to convey not just information, as most MOOCs seem to, but whole mental tool kits that help students become morethoughtful citizens.
  • for all the high-minded talk of liberal education— of lighting fires and raising thoughtful citizens—is really just a credential, or an entry point to an old-boys network that gets you your first job and your first lunch with the machers at your alumni club.
  • Its seminar platform will challenge professors to stop thinking they’re using technology just because they lecture with PowerPoint.
  • professors and students increasingly separated geographically, mediated through technology that alters the nature of the student-teacher relationship
  • The idea that college will in two decades look exactly as it does today increasingly sounds like the forlorn, fingers-crossed hope of a higher-education dinosaur that retirement comes before extinction.
Matt Renwick

Rage Against the Common Core - NYTimes.com - 22 views

  • Race to the Top program to encourage states
  • misconception that standards and testing are identical has become widespread
  • Many teachers like the standards, because they invite creativity in the classroom — instead of memorization, the Common Core emphasizes critical thinking and problem-solving.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • unreliable and biased against those who teach both low- and high-achieving students.
  • 76 percent of teachers favored nationwide academic standards
  • Obama administration has only itself to blame
  • emphasized high-stakes “accountability” and market-driven reforms
  • link talented teachers with engaged students and a challenging curriculum
Ed Webb

Imagining College Without Grades :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for N... - 0 views

  • A professor who tells his students that “grades are the death of composition.” Another said: “Grades create a facade of coherence.”
    • Dana Huff
       
      Interesting. I agree. I wish that we didn't have to grade student writing and could just give written or oral feedback. I love the "facade of coherence" comment.
  • politically impossible
    • Dana Huff
       
      Key words. Grading is political.
  • grades were squelching intellectual curiosity.
    • Dana Huff
       
      Totally true in more places than prestigious law schools
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • growing use of e-portfolios
    • Dana Huff
       
      I like portfolios for demonstrating learning, but I haven't learned how to effectively integrate them into my own classroom.
  • most professors and students are much more likely to complain about grading than to praise its accuracy or value.
    • Dana Huff
       
      Amen!
  • Done right, she said, eliminating grades promotes rigor.
  • the elimination of grades — if they are replaced with narrative evaluations, rubrics, and clear learning goals — results in more accountability and better ways for a colleges to measure the success not only of students but of its academic programs.
    • Ed Webb
       
      This strikes me intuitively as correct. Grades are a substitute for thoughful assessment of learning outcomes, not an equivalent to it.
  • the idea of consistent and clear grading just doesn’t reflect the mobility of students
    • Ed Webb
       
      Absolutely. My own institution, Dickinson College, sends ~70% of its students abroad for at least a semester, and most often a year. I have experience in education in different national contexts, and grading conventions simply do not translate.
  • ending grades can mean much more work for both students and faculty members.
    • Ed Webb
       
      Aye, there's the rub. Those of us who are serious about learning - students and faculty - have to recognize that better learning is more work. On the other hand, it's more fun, too.
  • When faculty members are providing written, detailed analyses of multiple course objectives and are also — for majors — relating performance to larger goals for the major, so much more is taking place she said, than in a letter grade.
    • Ed Webb
       
      Yes. Grades are a terrible assessment tool.
  • the training that colleges provide to professors before they start producing narrative evaluations, and officials of the no-grades colleges all said that training was extensive, and that faculty members needed mentors as they started out.
    • Ed Webb
       
      And how much training do faculty get before they start handing out grades?
  • they end up favoring the evaluation system
    • Ed Webb
       
      This is the point. Users have to be educated in the advantages of the system - once they have been, they are likely to favor it over grading.
D. S. Koelling

Embracing the Cloud: Caveat Professor - The Digital Campus - The Chronicle of Higher Ed... - 37 views

  • My work as chief privacy and security officer at a large public university has, however, given me pause to ask if our posture toward risk prevents us from fully embracing technology at a moment of profound change.
  • Consequently, faculty members are accepting major personal and institutional risk by using such third-party services without any institutional endorsement or support. How we provide those services requires a nuanced view of risk and goes to the heart of our willingness to trust our own faculty and staff members.
  • The technologically savvy among us recognize that hard physical, virtual, and legal boundaries actually demark this world of aggressively competitive commercial entities. Our students, faculty, and staff often do not.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • But can we embrace the cloud? Can the faculty member who wears our institution's name in her title and e-mail address, to whom we've entrusted the academic and research mission of the institution, be trusted to reach into the cloud and pluck what she believes is the optimal tool to achieve her pedagogical aims and use it? Unfortunately, no. Many faculty and staff members simply use whatever service they choose, but they often do not have the knowledge or experience needed to evaluate those choices. And those who do try to work through the institution soon find themselves mired in bureaucracy.
  • First we review the company's terms of service. Of course, we also ask the company for any information it can provide on its internal data security and privacy practices. Our purchasing unit rewrites the agreement to include all of the state-required procurement language; we also add our standard contract language on data security. All of this information is fed into some sort of risk assessment of varying degrees of formality, depending on the situation, and, frankly, the urgency. That leads to yet another round of modifications to the agreement, negotiations with the company, and, finally, if successful, circulation for signatures. After which we usually exhume the corpse of the long-deceased faculty member and give him approval to use the service in his class. We go through this process not from misguided love of bureaucracy, but because our institutions know of no other way to manage risk. That is, we have failed to transform ourselves so we can thrive and compete in the 21st century.
  • But our faculty and staff are increasingly voting with their feet—they're more interested in the elegance, portability, and integration of commercial offerings, despite the inability to control how those programs change over time. By insisting on remaining with homegrown solutions, we are failing to fall in lockstep with those we support.
  • Data security? Of course there are plenty of fly-by-night operations with terrible security practices. However, as the infrastructure market has matured (one of the generally unrecognized benefits of cloud services), more and more small companies can provide assurances of data security that would shame many of us even at large research-intensive institutions.
  • If higher education is to break free of the ossified practices of the past, we must find ways to transfer risk acceptance into the faculty domain—that is, to enable faculty to accept risk. Such a transformation is beyond the ability of the IT department alone—it will require our campus officials, faculty senates, registrars, and research and compliance officers working together to deeply understand both the risks and the benefits
‹ Previous 21 - 40 of 49 Next ›
Showing 20 items per page