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Lisa C. Hurst

Inside the School Silicon Valley Thinks Will Save Education | WIRED - 9 views

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    "AUTHOR: ISSIE LAPOWSKY. ISSIE LAPOWSKY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 05.04.15. 05.04.15 TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM. 7:00 AM INSIDE THE SCHOOL SILICON VALLEY THINKS WILL SAVE EDUCATION Click to Open Overlay Gallery Students in the youngest class at the Fort Mason AltSchool help their teacher, Jennifer Aguilar, compile a list of what they know and what they want to know about butterflies. CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK/WIRED SO YOU'RE A parent, thinking about sending your 7-year-old to this rogue startup of a school you heard about from your friend's neighbor's sister. It's prospective parent information day, and you make the trek to San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. You walk up to the second floor of the school, file into a glass-walled conference room overlooking a classroom, and take a seat alongside dozens of other parents who, like you, feel that public schools-with their endless bubble-filled tests, 38-kid classrooms, and antiquated approach to learning-just aren't cutting it. At the same time, you're thinking: this school is kind of weird. On one side of the glass is a cheery little scene, with two teachers leading two different middle school lessons on opposite ends of the room. But on the other side is something altogether unusual: an airy and open office with vaulted ceilings, sunlight streaming onto low-slung couches, and rows of hoodie-wearing employees typing away on their computers while munching on free snacks from the kitchen. And while you can't quite be sure, you think that might be a robot on wheels roaming about. Then there's the guy who's standing at the front of the conference room, the school's founder. Dressed in the San Francisco standard issue t-shirt and jeans, he's unlike any school administrator you've ever met. But the more he talks about how this school uses technology to enhance and individualize education, the more you start to like what he has to say. And so, if you are truly fed up with the school stat
Misha Miller

Using Groups Effectively: 10 Principles » Edurati Review - 50 views

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    "Conversation is key . Sawyer succinctly explains this principle: "Conversation leads to flow, and flow leads to creativity." When having students work in groups, consider what will spark rich conversation. The original researcher on flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, found that rich conversation precedes and ignites flow more than any other activity.1 Tasks that require (or force) interaction lead to richer collaborative conceptualization. Set a clear but open-ended goal . Groups produce the richest ideas when they have a goal that will focus their interaction but also has fluid enough boundaries to allow for creativity. This is a challenge we often overlook. As teachers, we often have an idea of what a group's final product should look like (or sound like, or…). If we put students into groups to produce a predetermined outcome, we prevent creative thinking from finding an entry point. Try not announcing time limits. As teachers we often use a time limit as a "motivator" that we hope will keep group work focused. In reality, this may be a major detractor from quality group work. Deadlines, according to Sawyer, tend to impede flow and produce lower quality results. Groups produce their best work in low-pressure situations. Without a need to "keep one eye on the clock," the group's focus can be fully given to the task. Do not appoint a group "leader." In research studies, supervisors, or group leaders, tend to subvert flow unless they participate as an equal, listening and allowing the group's thoughts and decisions to guide the interaction. Keep it small. Groups with the minimum number of members that are needed to accomplish a task are more efficient and effective. Consider weaving together individual and group work. For additive tasks-tasks in whicha group is expectedtoproduce a list, adding one idea to another-research suggests that better results develop
Shannon Smith

Need resources to assist in creating a 21st century learner training/ professional deve... - 133 views

Thank you! This is great information! James McKee wrote: > Shannon, > > I was recently referred to this video of Michael Wesch who teaches cultural anthropology at Kansas State University. He ...

professional development 21st century learners technology

Karen Polstra

Classroom 2.0 - 62 views

    • Justin Shorb
       
      How many members of the Diigo Ed group are using this forum? I don't want to be overwhelmed by too many social networking groups that I become inundated with too much information to be a truly participating member of any of them. I like the Diigo Ed group, so far!
    • Monika King
       
      I enjoy reading the items in the Forum, but I have yet to contribute.
    • Meredith Johnson
       
      I find the two forums match very well for what my interests are in education.
    • Deb White Groebner
       
      While I am new to the Diigo Ed group (and like it so far), I joined CR 2.0 a year and a half ago and have thoroughly enjoyed the conversations, info, and (especially) the webinars! Lots of good sharing all around.
    • Antwon Lincoln
       
      Just a wonderful resource for all who are in to connecting classrooms with technology!
    • Phil Taylor
       
      I also belong to Diigo in Education as well as four of EDTech type groups, as well as one that I have created for my school.
    • Gerald Carey
       
      I also can see different uses for these two forums.
    • Susan Wanke
       
      I've been using Diigo and the group Diigo in Education for quite some time, but Classroom 2.0 is active with tons of ideas for all of us.
  • social network for those interested in Web 2.0 and Social Media in education
  • Classroom 2.0 is a free, community-supported network. We especially hope that those who are "beginners" will find this a supportive comfortable place to start being part of the digital dialog. Because of spammers, we have to approve all memberships here. While your membership is pending you are still welcome to peruse the site or attend any events!
    • Molly Hinkle
       
      I'm wondering how the value of this will balance with the time required to do it right!
    • Karen Polstra
       
      Me too.  I just joined.  We will see.
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    Online social networking at its best. This Ning page is centered around using online resources in today's classrooms. Excellent group!
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    The community for educators using Web 2.0 and collaborative technologies!
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    I've been using it the last 3 weeks. There is a large group of educators there and usefull shared information.
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    I just joined the Classroom 2.0 ning about a week ago. It appears to have some valuable information. I am new to social networking, but am looking forward to the experience. I am very interested in Web 2.0 technologies so the ning seemed like a good place to start.
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    This is an interesting website with a great collection of tools for use in e-learning, blended classrooms and traditional teaching.
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    This is an interesting website with a great collection of tools for use in e-learning, blended classrooms and traditional teaching.
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    web 2,  classroom practice
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    This is an interesting website with a great collection of tools for use in e-learning, blended classrooms and traditional teaching.
Wayne Holly

Should You Flip Your Classroom? | Edutopia - 207 views

  • different forms of instructional video published online for students
  • primarily by Salman Khan's TED talk
  • obtaining core content prior to coming to class
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  • classroom space was then used for critical thinking and group problem solving.
  • spend more time in the classroom focused on collaboration and higher-order thinking
  • lecture is still a poor mode of information transfer
  • Eric Mazur's talk Confessions of a Converted Lecturer
  • hype
  • Good teaching, regardless of discipline, should always limit passive transfer of knowledge in class, and promote learning environments built on the tenants of inquiry, collaboration and critical thinking
  • pedagogical skills
  • The science teacher in me is deeply committed to the process of inquiry, and arming my students with the skills needed to construct and test their own ideas. The AP teacher in me fears sending my students off to their examination in May having covered only a portion of all the content required
  • inquiry learning cycle.
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    I like this concept - read more. Works against teacher as delivery system to be ignored.
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    At its core, "flipped instruction" refers to moving aspects of teaching out of the classroom and into the homework space. With the advent of new technologies, specifically the ability to record digitally annotated and narrated screencasts, instructional videos have become a common medium in the flipped classroom. Although not limited to videos, a flipped classroom most often harnesses different forms of instructional video published online for students.
Karen Balnis

Another Look at the Weaknesses of Online Learning - Innovations - The Chronicle of High... - 86 views

shared by Karen Balnis on 28 Jul 11 - No Cached
  • have been lucky enough to have taught the full range of our freshman / sophmore undergraduate offerings as both an onsite and online instructor. While I have thoroughly enjoyed both formats - and very much so - I must admit that my experiences online have been *much* more positive than onsite instruction. Let me try and elucidate:1. While in the onsite classroom you have the opportunity to think on your feet and challenge and be experiential on your feet to reactions to the students who speak, in the online classroom, you are able to meet *every* class member and challenge their minds and ideas. The students who would normally be lost in a classroom of 35-40 are met and developed each day or week at their level and pushed to consider ideas they might not have considered. 2. I am able to reach the entire class through multimedia exhibits in each of the weekly units - journal articles, non-copyrighted film clips (and many from our university's purchased collection under an agreement for both onsite classroom and online classroom use), photography, art, patents, etc, that the students would not see - or would otherwise ignore - in an onsite classroom. We incorporate this information into our discussions and make it part of the larger whole of history.3. Each student and I - on the phone during office hours or in e-mail - discuss the creation of their term papers - and discuss midterm and final "anxiety" issues - and as they are used to the online format, and regular communication with me through the discussion boards, they respond much more readily than onsite students, whom I have found I have to pressure to talk to me. 4. I am able to accommodate students from around the country - and around the world. I have had enrolled in my class students from Japan, Indonesia, India, England - and many other countries. As a result, I have set up a *very* specific Skype address *only* for use of my students. They are required to set up the time and day with me ahead of time and I need to approve that request, but for them (and for some of my students scattered all over the state and US), the face time is invaluable in helping them feel "connected" - and I am more than happy to offer it. 5. As the software upgrades, the possibilities of what I can offer become more and more amazing, and the ease of use for both me - and for the students -  becomes astronomically better. Many have never known the software, so they don't notice it - but those who have taken online courses before cheer it on. Software does not achieve backwards. As very few of these issues are met by the onsite classroom, I am leaning more and more toward the online classroom as the better mode of instruction. Yes, there are times I *really* miss the onsite opportunities, but then I think of the above distinctions and realize that yes, I am where I should be, and virtually *ALL* the students are getting far more for their money than they would get in an onsite classroom. This is the wave of the future, and it holds such amazing promise. Already I think we are seeing clear and fruitful results, and if academics receive effective - and continuing - instruction and support from the very beginning, I cannot imagine why one would ever go back. The only reason I can think of *not* doing this is if the instructor has his or her *own* fear of computers. Beyond that - please, please jump on the bandwagon, swallow your fears, and learn how to do this with vigor. I don't think you will ever be sorry.PhD2BinUS
  • have been lucky enough to have taught the full range of our freshman / sophmore undergraduate offerings as both an onsite and online instructor. While I have thoroughly enjoyed both formats - and very much so - I must admit that my experiences online have been *much* more positive than onsite instruction. Let me try and elucidate:
  • While I have thoroughly enjoyed both formats - and very much so - I must admit that my experiences online have been *much* more positive than onsite instruction. Let me try and elucidate:
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    I am a graduate student at Sam Houston State University and before I started grad school I never had taken an online course before. My opinion then was that online courses were a joke and you couldn't learn from taking a course online. Now my opinion has done a complete 180. The teachers post numerous youtube videos and other helpful tools for each assignment so that anyone can successfully complete the assignment no matter what their technology skill level is. I do not see much difference between online and face-to-face now because of the way the instructors teach the courses.
Jim Daly

Using Technology as Our Teacher - US News and World Report - 0 views

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    But how can we identify a potentially good teacher? How can average teachers become better teachers? The secretary's special funding could make a crucial difference by financing a national program exploiting the electronic miracles of the Internet and video. We could escape geography by using the technology to have the best teachers appear in hundreds of thousands of disparate classrooms. This is a force multiplier. The classrooms would be equipped with a large, flat-screen monitor with whiteboards on either side; the monitor would be connected to a school server that contains virtually all of the lessons for every subject taught in the school, from kindergarten through 12th grade. The contents would use animation, video, dramatization, and presentation options to deliver complete lessons, to convey ideas in unique ways that are now unavailable in conventional classrooms. The classroom teachers would play the role of enhancers, answering questions and helping students better understand the material covered electronically; they'd pause the presentation to ask questions and to prompt critical thinking. The whiteboard would be the platform for student involvement.
Jason Finley

Articles | What Makes Them Click - 79 views

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    What if we applied the psychology of what makes technology attractive to students...to our practices in the classroom? Using this idea, in addition to using more technology in the classroom, why not design the traditional human / face-to-face classroom experience to be more like what makes technology so engrossing to modern students? Do these principles sound familiar... Deliver information in bite sized chunks, Create mental models, Use short stories to help process information, Learning happens and is remembered through repetition, People are motivated by Progress and Mastery, Sustained attention lasts 10 minutes, and the use of Progressive Disclosure. Here are 100 little articles that could have big implications in the classroom.
Judy Robison

20 video project ideas to engage students | Ditch That Textbook - 182 views

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    Your posts are always GREAT! Please keep it up --Arkansas teacher
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    "integrating video projects into the classroom can be as simple or complex as you want. Just grab a phone, digital camera or tablet and your students are on their way. Here are some video project ideas, divided into ideas for any classroom and ideas for specific subject areas:"
Carla Wimmersberger

Learning. Your time starts… now! | Betchablog - 47 views

  • If you accept that Learning is a Conversation, and that some of the most powerful learning can take place in the process of conversing and exchanging ideas with others, then setting up ways to have as many of these conversations as possible seems like an obvious thing to do.
  • It might be easy to think that the people on the stage at conferences have the knowledge and that if we simply listen to them we will get wisdom, but the truth is that sometimes it just doesn't work like that, and even if it does, most of those ideas gather far more momentum once we start to internalise them through further conversation with others. Ideas beget ideas, one thing leads to another, and you often find some of the best, most useful ideas come to you not from what was said by a speaker, but from things that came to to you as a result of further conversation about what was said.  (by the way, the same logic applies in classrooms too!)
  • If we limit our notion of learning to the "official" channel - the teacher, the textbook, the syllabus - we miss so much. Yes, learning happens at school, but what about outside school? Yes, learning happens in the classroom, but what about outside the classroom? Yes, learning happens in the act of "being taught", but what about when we are not "being taught"?
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  • Our schools system implies that when we ring the bell to signal the start of a class, we are really saying that the learning starts... wait for it... now!  And at the end of the lesson we ring it again to say the learning now stops. Ok, school's over, you can all stop learning now. Until tomorrow.
  • if we acknowledge that creativity in education is important, then how can we teach kids to be creative if we continue to focus on just regurgitating standard answers to standard questions, year after year. Because if it's only about learning pre-defined content then you don't need creativity, and you don't need conversation. Learning in messy and there is no point extending our thinking into new and creative areas if we aren't committed to that notion, because that just muddies up all those nice clean facts we have to remember.
  • Papert said that the one really valuable skill for a 21st century learner is that of being able to "learn to learn"... To be able not just to know the answers to what you were taught in school, but to know how to find the answers to those things you were not taught in school.
  • So how do virtual communities fit into this? They are an obvious and convenient way of extending conversations with other likeminded people, no matter where (or when) in the world they might be.
  • Unfor
  • If you accept that Learning is a Conversation , and that some of the most powerful learning can take place in the process of conversing and exchanging ideas with others, then setting up ways to have as many of these conversations as possible seems like an obvious thing to do.
  • If we limit our notion of learning to the "official" channel - the teacher, the textbook, the syllabus - we miss so much. Yes, learning happens at school, but what about outside school? Yes, learning happens in the classroom, but what about outside the classroom? Yes, learning happens in the act of "being taught", but what about when we are not "being taught"?  Our schools system implies that when we ring the bell to signal the start of a class, we are really saying that the learning starts... wait for it... now!   And at the end of the lesson we ring it again to say the learning now stops. Ok, school's over, you can all stop learning now. Until tomorrow.
  •  if we acknowledge that creativity in education is important, then how can we teach kids to be creative if we continue to focus on just regurgitating standard answers to standard questions, year after year. Because if it's only about learning pre-defined content then you don't need creativity, and you don't need conversation. Learning in messy and there is no point extending our thinking into new and creative areas if we aren't committed to that notion, because that just muddies up all those nice clean facts we have to remember.
Sue Dowdell

Any Elementary Teachers using Diigo? - 101 views

I've used Diigo teacher account to set up accounts for my 105 fifth graders this past spring. I put all students in a main group (Colonial Resources) and then students studying a particular colony ...

Elementary intermediate

Lauren Rosen

Google Earth for Educators - 122 views

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    50 Exciting Ideas for the Classroom. Nicely grouped by grade level. Great ideas to get started with using google earth.
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    50 Exciting Ideas for the Classroom. Nicely grouped by grade level. Great ideas to get started with using google earth.
dmassicg

The Classroom Evolved: Creating an Active Learning Environment -- THE Journal - 6 views

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    the first of a new series of articles focused on classroom design, we take a look at a private high school in Florida that's borrowed ideas from two major universities to create classrooms that support interactive, hands-on learning.
Martin Burrett

Book: Wellbeing in the Primary Classroom by @AdrianBethune via @BloomsburyEd - UKEdChat - 2 views

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    "In his new book, Adrian Bethune explores different angles of the life of children who are of primary-school age. For example, in a fascinating first chapter, Bethune examines our tribal roots, tapping into our pupils' primitive social instincts and their powerful effects on wellbeing and ability to learn. Citing the work of Louis Cozolino (Click here to view The Social Neuroscience of Education: Optimizing Attachment and Learning in the Classroom by Louis Cozolino on Amazon UK - worthy of a read itself) a tribal classroom embodies tribal qualities including a tribal leader, cooperation, teamwork, equality, fairness, trust and strong personal relationships. Such qualities enable everyone to feel valued and a feeling of a big family, helping secure positive relationships - the role of the teacher in this relationship is to help pupils feel like they belong, which is fundamental to learning. Developing this tribal theme, Bethune the proceeds to share ideas to be implemented in the primary classroom to help cultivate such positive relationships, including the design of a team flag, greetings and endings, teaching social skills, and building humour and games into the setting."
Roland Gesthuizen

74 Interesting Ways to Use Google Forms in the Classroom | edte.ch - 26 views

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    The Interesting Ways series of resources continue to grow as the community add ideas from the classroom. Below is one of the most popular with over 70 ideas shared by teachers for using Google Forms in a range of different ways.
Jennifer Diaz

13 Strategies to Improve Student Classroom Discussions - 149 views

  • These 13-teacher and expert-tested strategies will strengthen your students' ability to find and use evidence from any text
  • Texts that inspire questions encourage students to return to the text and find support for their answers
  • starting with one overarching focus question
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  • Require students to have evidence ready at the start of the discussion
  • "prove it"
  • evidence will actually open up a text to different interpretations
  • The challenge is getting students to expand and explain. To get students to explain why they choose a piece of evidence, provide them with a structure that moves from evidence to interpretation. Williams' students use a graphic organizer with three columns: They write their answer in the first column, note textual evidence in the second, and explain their evidence in the third.
    • Jennifer Diaz
       
      I want to do this!
  • Use sentence starters strategically
  • In the text ... the author mentions ...
  • the author uses this evidence to ... this lets us know that ...
  • Give students enough time to flip through and find just the right piece of evidence. If other students are getting antsy, choose one of your always-ready students to share, then loop back to the student who needed time with the text
    • Jennifer Diaz
       
      Good idea to keep the pace moving, while providing enough time to find better evidence.
    • deniseahlquist
       
      And if you encourage a collaborative atmosphere, having students ALL look for evidence related to each person's idea will mean they are all engaged in searching whenever anyone makes a claim. Either choose someone who has found it, or have them mark the page and keep searching for more evidence. Then have students ALL GO to the passage cited, so they can closely follow and respond with additional or conflicting evidence.
  • "Just because there's more than one right answer," says Riley, "doesn't mean there's no wrong answer."
    • deniseahlquist
       
      Part of what students do when they all look for evidence for each idea is to learn to weigh evidence for competing ideas and sift out "weaker" or unsupported answers from "stronger" claims. Brainstorming an idea that later doesn't pan out should not e seen as bad or wrong, but more accurately as the way idea-generating and sifting actually happens in many situations.
  • According to page
  • create an anchor chart
    • Jennifer Diaz
       
      Create and authentic anchor chart of student/teacher generated starters and prompts.
  • Listen for how students personalize the discussion, and encourage them to develop their own voice.
  • go back to the text
  • They answer the focus question a second time, explain whether or not they changed their answers, and reflect on how the evidence brought up during discussion impacted their thinking.
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    Great ideas for 6th grade response to literature discussion and writing.
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    I haven't taught sixth grade for 3 1/2 years now, but if I ever go back to ms, I'd incorporate this into my weekly plans. One way I get my second graders to grow their thinking is by having them respond to one another using the following prompts:  I agree with the part about…  Going back to what you said about…  One thing I noticed…  One thing I pictured…  It reminded me of…  I am not sure what you are saying. Could you say it in another way?  I agree with what you are saying because…  What you just said matches what is in my mind because…  I hear what you are saying, but I see it differently because…  If what you said is true, is it not also true that…  That is true, but… Or - That is true, and…  Could you say more?  Could you give me an example?  I would like to add on to what _________ said.  I have an example of what you just said.  I wonder why…  I was surprised to see…  Another thing that goes with that is…  So are you saying…
Roland Gesthuizen

How To Maintain Classroom Discipline - Good And Bad Methods Training Educational Video ... - 79 views

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    "Maintaining Classroom Discipline (1947). Good and bad methods of disciplining inappropriate classsroom behavior. This was a very well made instructional movie for teachers. While there are new & different problems in the modern schools, the basic ideas of this film still holds. The opening messages are exactly what the best research on classroom behaviour tells us:"
Andrew McCluskey

Occupy Your Brain - 111 views

  • One of the most profound changes that occurs when modern schooling is introduced into traditional societies around the world is a radical shift in the locus of power and control over learning from children, families, and communities to ever more centralized systems of authority.
  • Once learning is institutionalized under a central authority, both freedom for the individual and respect for the local are radically curtailed.  The child in a classroom generally finds herself in a situation where she may not move, speak, laugh, sing, eat, drink, read, think her own thoughts, or even  use the toilet without explicit permission from an authority figure.
  • In what should be considered a chilling development, there are murmurings of the idea of creating global standards for education – in other words, the creation of a single centralized authority dictating what every child on the planet must learn.
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  • In “developed” societies, we are so accustomed to centralized control over learning that it has become functionally invisible to us, and most people accept it as natural, inevitable, and consistent with the principles of freedom and democracy.   We assume that this central authority, because it is associated with something that seems like an unequivocal good – “education” – must itself be fundamentally good, a sort of benevolent dictatorship of the intellect. 
  • We endorse strict legal codes which render this process compulsory, and in a truly Orwellian twist, many of us now view it as a fundamental human right to be legally compelled to learn what a higher authority tells us to learn.
  • And yet the idea of centrally-controlled education is as problematic as the idea of centrally-controlled media – and for exactly the same reasons.
  • The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution was designed to protect all forms of communication, information-sharing, knowledge, opinion and belief – what the Supreme Court has termed “the sphere of intellect and spirit” – from government control.
  • by the mid-19th century, with Indians still to conquer and waves of immigrants to assimilate, the temptation to find a way to manage the minds of an increasingly diverse and independent-minded population became too great to resist, and the idea of the Common School was born.
  • We would keep our freedom of speech and press, but first we would all be well-schooled by those in power.
  • A deeply democratic idea — the free and equal education of every child — was wedded to a deeply anti-democratic idea — that this education would be controlled from the top down by state-appointed educrats.
  • The fundamental point of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that the apparatus of democratic government has been completely bought and paid for by a tiny number of grotesquely wealthy individuals, corporations, and lobbying groups.  Our votes no longer matter.  Our wishes no longer count.  Our power as citizens has been sold to the highest bidder.
  • Our kids are so drowned in disconnected information that it becomes quite random what they do and don’t remember, and they’re so overburdened with endless homework and tests that they have little time or energy to pay attention to what’s happening in the world around them.
  • If in ten years we can create Wikipedia out of thin air, what could we create if we trusted our children, our teachers, our parents, our neighbors, to generate community learning webs that are open, alive, and responsive to individual needs and aspirations?  What could we create if instead of trying to “scale up” every innovation into a monolithic bureaucracy we “scaled down” to allow local and individual control, freedom, experimentation, and diversity?
  • The most academically “gifted” students excel at obedience, instinctively shaping their thinking to the prescribed curriculum and unconsciously framing out of their awareness ideas that won’t earn the praise of their superiors.  Those who resist sitting still for this process are marginalized, labeled as less intelligent or even as mildly brain-damaged, and, increasingly, drugged into compliance.
  • the very root, the very essence, of any theory of democratic liberty is a basic trust in the fundamental intelligence of the ordinary person.   Democracy rests on the premise that the ordinary person — the waitress, the carpenter, the shopkeeper — is competent to make her own judgments about matters of domestic policy, international affairs, taxes, justice, peace, and war, and that the government must abide by the decisions of ordinary people, not vice versa.  Of course that’s not the way our system really works, and never has been.   But most of us recall at some deep level of our beings that any vision of a just world relies on this fundamental respect for the common sense of the ordinary human being.
  • This is what we spend our childhood in school unlearning. 
  • If before we reach the age of majority we must submit our brains for twelve years of evaluation and control by government experts, are we then truly free to exercise our vote according to the dictates of our own common sense and conscience?  Do we even know what our own common sense is anymore?
  • We live in a country where a serious candidate for the Presidency is unaware that China has nuclear weapons, where half the population does not understand that Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11, where nobody pays attention as Congress dismantles the securities regulations that limit the power of the banks, where 45% of American high school students graduate without knowing that the First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees freedom of the press.   At what point do we begin to ask ourselves if we are trying to control quality in the wrong way?
  • Human beings, collaborating with one another in voluntary relationships, communicating and checking and counter-checking and elaborating and expanding on one another’s knowledge and intelligence, have created a collective public resource more vast and more alive than anything that has ever existed on the planet.
  • But this is not a paeon to technology; this is about what human intelligence is capable of when people are free to interact in open, horizontal, non-hierarchical networks of communication and collaboration.
  • Positive social change has occurred not through top-down, hierarchically controlled organizations, but through what the Berkana Institute calls “emergence,” where people begin networking and forming voluntary communities of practice. When the goal is to maximize the functioning of human intelligence, you need to activate the unique skills, talents, and knowledge bases of diverse individuals, not put everybody through a uniform mill to produce uniform results. 
  • You need a non-punitive structure that encourages collaboration rather than competition, risk-taking rather than mistake-avoidance, and innovation rather than repetition of known quantities.
  • if we really want to return power to the 99% in a lasting, stable, sustainable way, we need to begin the work of creating open, egalitarian, horizontal networks of learning in our communities.
  • They are taught to focus on competing with each other and gaming the system rather than on gaining a deep understanding of the way power flows through their world.
  • And what could we create, what ecological problems could we solve, what despair might we alleviate, if instead of imposing our rigid curriculum and the destructive economy it serves on the entire world, we embraced as part of our vast collective intelligence the wisdom and knowledge of the world’s thousands of sustainable indigenous cultures?
  • They knew this about their situation: nobody was on their side.  Certainly not the moneyed classes and the economic system, and not the government, either.  So if they were going to change anything, it had to come out of themselves.
  • As our climate heats up, as mountaintops are removed from Orissa to West Virginia, as the oceans fill with plastic and soils become too contaminated to grow food, as the economy crumbles and children go hungry and the 0.001% grows so concentrated, so powerful, so wealthy that democracy becomes impossible, it’s time to ask ourselves; who’s educating us?  To what end?  The Adivasis are occupying their forests and mountains as our children are occupying our cities and parks.  But they understand that the first thing they must take back is their common sense. 
  • They must occupy their brains.
  • Isn’t it time for us to do the same?
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    Carol Black, creator of the documentary, "Schooling the World" discusses the conflicting ideas of centralized control of education and standardization against the so-called freedom to think independently--"what the Supreme Court has termed 'the sphere of intellect and spirit" (Black, 2012). Root questions: "who's educating us? to what end?" (Black, 2012).
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    This is a must read. Carol Black echoes here many of the ideas of Paulo Freire, John Taylor Gatto and the like.
Sigrid Murphy

Five U.S. innovations that helped Finland's schools improve but that American reformers... - 64 views

    • anonymous
       
      Interesting Top Five
    • anonymous
       
      Answer explanation is almost as important as mathematic problem solving.  If we really want to know if a student understands ANY concept, we need to ask him/her to write their explanation.  Sometimes the understanding comes from the thinking required to do the writing - writing to make it make sense!
    • anonymous
       
      Why don't we consider relating almost every lesson to everyday life?  Seems like an obvious thing to do to me!
  • ...16 more annotations...
    • anonymous
       
      Wow!  I think the concept of doing less of something in order to make time for experimentation is a fabulous idea!  Do you mean there are different aspects of student assessment and testing beyond a bubble sheet?  :)
  • Most of them have studied psychology, teaching methods, curriculum theories, assessment models, and classroom management researched and designed in the United States
    • anonymous
       
      Finland's successful practices are something they learned here in the U.S.  So, why aren't our teachers here in the U.S. employing those same practices successfully?
  • Professional development and school improvement courses and programs often include visitors from the U.S. universities to teach and work with Finnish teachers and leaders.
  • in an ideal classroom, pupils speak more than the teacher
    • anonymous
       
      Hooray!
  • the entire Finnish school system looks like John Dewey’s laboratory school in the U.S.
  • cooperative learning has become a pedagogical approach that is widely practiced throughout Finnish education system
  • Finnish teachers believe that over 90 percent of students can learn successfully in their own classrooms if given the opportunity to evolve in a holistic manner.
  • After abolishing all streaming and tracking of students in the mid-1980s, both education policies and school practices adopted the principle that all children have different kinds of intelligences and that schools must find ways how to cultivate these different individual aspects in balanced ways.
  • it is ironic that many of these methods were developed at U.S. universities and are yet far more popular in Finland than in the United States. These include portfolio assessment, performance assessment, self-assessment and self-reflection, and assessment for learning methods.
    • anonymous
       
      Alternative assessments!  Performance, portfolio, self-assessment, self-reflection, and assessment of learning methods...
  • Peer coaching—that is, a confidential process through which teachers work together to reflect on current practices, expand, improve, and learn new skills, exchange ideas, conduct classroom research and solve problems together in school
    • anonymous
       
      Working together and reflecting on current practices - Reflection helps to expand, improve, and provides an opportunity to learn and exchange ideas to solve problems
  • the work of the school in the United States is so much steered by bureaucracies, test-based accountability and competition that schools are simply doing what they must do
    • anonymous
       
      Sadness Abounds!  We are teaching folks what works best.  Then, they enter the classroom and get wrapped up in bureaucracies and test-based accountability to the point that teachers are just going through the motions instead of facilitating quality learning
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    Pasi Sahlberg Blog Finnish education reform Originally published in Washington Post, 24 July 2014 An intriguing question whether innovation in education can be measured has an answer now. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development in its recent report "Measuring Innovation in Education: A New Perspective, Educational Research and Innovation" measures Innovation in Education in 22 countries and 6 jurisdictions, among them the U.S.
Rose Whittingham

EDED20474_2131: Academic perspectives on quality teachers and teaching - 51 views

    • Rose Whittingham
       
      This is brilliant and true. I pariticularly am witness to this, not only in my own professional practice (going from observations as a beginning teacher and then having a classroom "to myself" to a school where I had TAs in my class which changed the dynamic and in that school there was an 'open door policy' where you could expect admin to stroll through.  And now I am in PD for other staff with IT I find it hard to get my foot through their classroom doors. There is resistance to share short comings for sure! 
  • Teachers are among the most powerful influences in learning. Teachers need to be directive, influential, caring, and actively engaged in the passion of teaching and learning. Teachers need to be aware of what each and every student is thinking and knowing to construct meaning and meaningful experiences in light of this knowledge, and have proficient knowledge and understanding of their content to provide meaningful and appropriate feedback such that each student moves progressively through the curriculum levels. Teachers need to know the learning intentions and success criteria of their lessons, know how well they are attaining these criteria for all students, and know where to go next in light of the gap between students’ current knowledge and understanding and the success criteria of: “Where are you going?”, “How are you going?”, and “Where to next?”. Teachers need to move from the single idea to multiple ideas, and to relate and then extend these ideas such that learners construct and reconstruct knowledge and ideas. It is not the knowledge or ideas, but the learner’s construction of this knowledge and these ideas that is critical. School leaders and teachers need to create school, staffroom, and classroom environments where error is welcomed as a learning opportunity, where discarding incorrect knowledge and understanding is welcomed, and where participants can feel safe to learn, re-learn, and explore knowledge and understanding (Hattie, 2009, pp. 238-239).
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