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Chema Falcó

Eric Mazur on new interactive teaching techniques - 19 views

  • “Some people talk in their sleep. Lecturers talk while other people sleep.”
  • they create the illusion of teaching for teachers, and the illusion of learning for learners
  • Sitting passively and taking notes is just not a way of learning. Yet lectures are 99 percent of how we teach!
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  • Websites and laptops have been around for years now, but we haven’t fully thought through how to integrate them with teaching so as to conceive of courses differently.
  • “In the standard approach, the emphasis in class is on the first, and the second is left to the student on his or her own, outside of the classroom
  • you have to flip that, and put the first one outside the classroom, and the second inside
  • We have to train people to tackle situations they have not encountered before. Most instructors avoid this like the plague, because the students dislike it. Even at Harvard, we tend to keep students in their comfort zone. The first step in developing those skills is stepping into unknown territory.
  • hey’d much rather sit there and listen and take notes. Some will say, ‘I didn’t pay $47,000 to learn it all from the textbook. I think you should go over the material from the book, point by point, in class.’
  • It’s no accident that most elementary schools are organized that way.
    • Steve Ransom
       
      Sadly, many aren't
  • But ultimately, learning is a social experience.
  • Perhaps the key is to coax students not only out of their rooms, but into each other’s minds.
  •  
    Great article that brings added depth to the notion of flipped classroom and what we've always know to be great teaching/pedagogy/andragogy
Della Gordon

argumentintherealworld - home - 25 views

  •  
    Resources for Argument in the Real World Kristen Hawley Turner and Troy Hicks Published by Heinemann, November 2016 Welcome to the companion wiki for our upcoming Heinemann book, Argument in the Real World. You will find here links to resources that are mentioned in the book, as well as additional tools to help you and your students develop their argument skills. We also hope that you will connect with us on Twitter @teachKHT and @hickstro). ~ Kristen and Troy Chapter 1: The Nature of Argument in a Digital World Chapter 2: Analyzing Arguments that are Born Digital Chapter 3: The Moves of Argument in Web-based Text Chapter 4: The Moves of Argument in Infographics Chapter 5: The Moves of Argument in Video Chapter 6: The Moves of Argument in Social Media Chapter 7: Coaching Students' Work with Digital Arguments
Megan Anderson

Doomed or Lucky? Predicting the Future of the Internet Generation | MindShift - 64 views

    • Megan Anderson
       
      I already see kids in high school and junior high lacking social skills, they communicate via text and even then they use abbreviations of words.
  • 77% have cell phones
  • “How we can help today’s kids to prepare for the world they will actually live in and help to create—instead of the world we are already nostalgic for.
Peter Beens

PIPEDREAMS - Seeing with New Eyes - International Perspectives on Trust and Regulation ... - 16 views

  • This year, I was asked to attend as a Canadian Teacher Representative, along with Ontario Ministry Officer, Colette Ruduck and our Ontario Deputy Minister of Education, George Zegarac.
  • the theme of “Trust and Regulation”
  • my Canadian values of equality, diversity, safety and choice
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  • high degree of trust for teachers, administrators and district decision makers
  • Our regulations are meant to encourage equality and diversity, choice, opportunity, innovation – fundamental values in our society.
  • In contrast to many of the other countries represented, our Canadian context was unique in that the regulations (organizations, federations, policies, curriculum) imposed actually tie in Trust and Relationship building and partnerships as key factors to increase capacity building with a wide range of stakeholders.
  • We need our profession to be respected, which includes paying us well, treating us fairly, supporting us with resources, nurturing our learning and leadership opportunities
  • systems of education can achieve and can be highly ranked without the use of formalized testing
  • We need to feel safe to make mistakes because we too are learners, especially in a profession that is changing so drastically in the 21st Century
  • We need to feel trusted and with that, we want our skills, our education, our talents and our passions to be respected so we -together – can become the creators of our own pedagogies
  • these passionate and experienced leaders agreed that such tests don’t work when used to rate, or punish teachers
  • can even sometimes do more harm then good
  • such tests are not always authentic
  • First and foremost, teacher voice needs to be heard and respected
  • As principals, we need to empower our teachers and community
  • the importance of the teacher/principal relationship came up over and over and over
  • Trust – allows me to teach in my style, developing my own curriculum
  • I wonder if there is a correlation between that supportive, trusting principal and the fact that we have incredibly dynamic teachers here, at Van Leer from all over the globe
  • We too need to think different because change can start with us
  • We need to make our voices heard by be socially active
  • By sharing and reflecting our learning openly and even by sometimes being vulnerable and asking for help and challenging the status quo
  • we need to recognize that our learning environments are changing and are very different from how we were once trained and educated
  • We need to remind our leaders that we are not just teachers of academics but we teach the whole person
  • Many of us struggle, without supports – to help impoverished families, students with mental health disabilities, learning disabilities, students that speak a different language, large class sizes, violence, inequalities
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    The conference in Jerusalem, Israel that Van Leer hosts each year  is intended to encourage professional dialogue among educators, academics, representatives of the Third Sector, and policymakers from diverse areas and places in Israel and abroad.    This year, I was asked to attend as a Canadian Teacher Representative, along with Ontario Ministry Officer, Colette Ruduck and our Ontario Deputy Minister of Education, George Zegarac. With the theme of "Trust and Regulation" at the center of our discussions, it did not take long to realize that my context, as a Canadian Educator, a parent, and a student -  was one of privilege and opportunity.
Louisa Guest

Harvard Education Letter - 27 views

    • Louisa Guest
       
      get print friendly version for staff
  • Learning to see all behavior as a form of communication, for example, is a key principle that helps when teachers are frustrated or confused by how students are acting. Even though students’ behavior can look bizarre or disruptive, their actions are purposeful and are their attempts to solve a problem.
  • About 10 percent of the school population—or 9–13 million children—struggle with mental health problems. In a typical classroom of 20, chances are good that one or two students are dealing with serious psychosocial stressors relating to poverty, domestic violence, abuse and neglect, or a psychiatric disorder. There is also growing evidence that the number of children suffering the effects of trauma and those with autism-related social deficits is also on the rise.
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  • If teachers are supported to set up classrooms to promote success, these students (and other challenging students who have similar behaviors but may not have individualized education plans, or IEPs) can improve their performance in school and in life.
  • Making positive attention more predictable in the classroom can help break the cycle of negative attention-seeking behaviors. Putting one-on-one time on the student’s personal visual schedule (even if it’s only a couple minutes to read a student’s favorite page in a book) or setting a timer for 10 minutes and telling the student that’s when you will be back are just two strategies that can help.
  • Teachers who work with challenging students need support from administrators and others in the school. It is very stressful to have a student in class who is constantly disruptive. In order to make the necessary investment, the teacher needs substantive support from administrators to avoid frustration and burnout and to garner the energy to provide effective interventions. When administrators delegate some of the teacher’s responsibilities to other people in the building, the teacher can devote more time to finding solutions. Regularly meeting with consultants (e.g., special educators, mental health professionals, and behavior analysts) can be essential for designing how the student progresses, but it also takes up the teacher’s prep time. If possible, the administrator can arrange coverage so that the teacher can meet with consultants at times other than lunch and prep. Support staff can instruct small groups of children while the teacher works with the student with behavior challenges. And since there are usually so many people involved with a struggling student, delineating a clear coordination plan is also critical. It can be helpful, as a team, to make a list of responsibilities and indicate who is responsible for what.
  • The more intensely the student is taught the underdeveloped skills, and the more the environment is changed to encourage appropriate behavior, the more quickly the student’s behavior is likely to change.
Sarah Schaller Welsh

Freakonomics » What Should Be Done About Standardized Tests? A Freakonomics Q... - 42 views

  • Gaston Caperton
  • Standardized tests have much in common with French fries. Both of them differ in composition as well as quality. French fries are available in numerous incarnations, including straight, curly, skins-on, skins-off, and, in recent years, with sweet potatoes. Regarding quality, of course, the taste of French fries can range substantially – from sublime to soggy. It’s really the same with standardized tests.
  • Take the No Child Left Behind Act, for instance, a federal accountability law requiring scads of standardized tests to be used in evaluating schools. Do you know that almost all of the standardized tests now being employed to judge school quality are unable to distinguish between well taught and badly taught students?
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  • all schools – kindergarten through college – should employ exit exams allowing us to determine what students have actually learned. We owe it to our students to make sure that they’ve been properly taught.
  • Then there are the questions of what to do with the results. I have actually sat through an extended discussion of how we could use regression analysis to parse out the contribution different teachers made to a group of students’ performance on a set of standardized tests. The answer was, yes it was possible, and could in fact be used to award merit pay increases. But nobody left the room feeling very comfortable that there would be any gain in what we knew made for good teaching.
  • Roughly half of the nation’s students are taking tests under NCLB that are completely free of open-ended questions.
  • educators have a strong incentive to “teach to the test.” In this case, that means teaching low level skills at the expense of the more demanding material that everyone says students need to master in today’s complicated world.
  • But is it fair to give students what amounts to a counterfeit passport to college or work? And do such tests spur high school teachers and principals to aim high with their students? To both questions, the answer is, “No.” In most states today, high school exit tests serve the same role as the standardized tests mandated by NCLB: they try to jack up the floor of student achievement in the nation’s schools. The best high school exit tests would be end-of-course exams akin to the “comprehensive” exams that many colleges and universities require students to pass in their majors before graduation – tests, that is, that would raise the ceiling of student achievement.
  • High-stakes testing has narrowed and dumbed down curricula; eliminated time spent on untested subjects like social studies, art, and even recess; turned classrooms into little more than test preparation centers; reduced high school graduation rates; and driven good teachers from the profession. Those are all reasons why FairTest and other experts advocate a sharp reduction in public school standardized testing and a halt to exit exams.
  • igh school grade
  • point average is a better predictor of college success than either the SAT or the ACT.
Mark Swartz

Role and Function of Theory in Online Education Development and Delivery - 3 views

  • According to Bonk and Reynolds (1997), to promote higher-order thinking on the Web, online learning must create challenging activities that enable learners to link new information to old, acquire meaningful knowledge, and use their metacognitive abilities; hence, it is the instructional strategy and not the technology tha
  • According to Bonk and Reynolds (1997), to promote higher-order thinking on the Web, online learning must create challenging activities that enable learners to link new information to old, acquire meaningful knowledge, and use their metacognitive abilities; hence, it is the instructional strategy and not the technology that influences the quality of learning.
  • However, it is not the computer per se that makes students learn, but the design of the real-life models and simulations, and the students' interaction with those models and simulations. The computer is merely the vehicle that provides the processing capability and delivers the instruction to learners (Clark, 2001).
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  • Online learning allows for flexibility of access, from anywhere and usually at anytime—essentially, it allows participants to collapse time and space (Cole, 2000)—however, the learning materials must be designed properly to engage the learner and promote learning.
  • Cognitive psychology claims that learning involves the use of memory, motivation, and thinking, and that reflection plays an important part in learning.
  • The development of effective online learning materials should be based on proven and sound learning theories.
  • Early computer learning systems were designed based on a behaviorist approach to learning. The behaviorist school of thought, influenced by Thorndike (1913), Pavlov (1927), and Skinner (1974), postulates that learning is a change in observable behavior caused by external stimuli in the environment (Skinner, 1974).
  • Therefore, before any learning materials are developed, educators must, tacitly or explicitly, know the principles of learning and how students learn.
  • Constructivist theorists claim that learners interpret information and the world according to their personal reality, and that they learn by observation, processing, and interpretation, and then personalize the information into personal knowledge (Cooper, 1993; Wilson, 1997).
  • The design of online learning materials can include principles from all three. According to Ertmer and Newby (1993), the three schools of thought can in fact be used as a taxonomy for learning. Behaviorists' strategies can be used to teach the “what” (facts), cognitive strategies can be used to teach the “how” (processes and principles), and constructivist strategies can be used to teach the “why” (higher level thinking that promotes personal meaning and situated and contextual learning).
  • The behaviorist school sees the mind as a “black box,” in the sense that a response to a stimulus can be observed quantitatively, totally ignoring the effect of thought processes occurring in the mind.
  • Learners should be told the explicit outcomes of the learning so that they can set expectations and can judge for themselves whether or not they have achieved the outcome of the online lesson. 2.  Learners must be tested to determine whether or not they have achieved the learning outcome. Online testing or other forms of testing and assessment should be integrated into the learning sequence to check the learner's achievement level and to provide appropriate feedback. 3.  Learning materials must be sequenced appropriately to promote learning. The sequencing could take the form of simple to complex, known to unknown, and knowledge to application. 4.  Learners must be provided with feedback so that they can monitor how they are doing and take corrective action if required.
  • Cognitivists see learning as an internal process that involves memory, thinking, reflection, abstraction, motivation, and meta-cognition.
  • Online instruction must use strategies to allow learners to attend to the learning materials so that they can be transferred from the senses to the sensory store and then to working memory.
  • Online learning strategies must present the materials and use strategies to enable students to process the materials efficiently.
  • information should be organized or chunked in pieces of appropriate size to facilitate processing.
  • Use advance organizers to activate an existing cognitive structure or to provide the information to incorporate the details of the lesson (Ausubel, 1960).
  • Use pre-instructional questions to set expectations and to activate the learners' existing knowledge structure.
  • Use prerequisite test questions to activate the prerequisite knowledge structure required for learning the new materials.
  • To facilitate deep processing, learners should be asked to generate the information maps during the learning process or as a summary activity after the lesson (Bonk & Reynolds, 1997).
  • The cognitive school recognizes the importance of individual differences, and of including a variety of learning strategies in online instruction to accommodate those differences
  • The Kolb Learning Style Inventory (LSI) (Kolb, 1984) looks at how learners perceive and process information, whereas the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Myers, 1978) uses dichotomous scales to measure extroversion versus introversion, sensing versus intuition, thinking versus feeling, and judging versus perception. In the following discussion, we consider the Kolb Learning Style Inventory.
  • Attention: Capture the learners' attention at the start of the lesson and maintain it throughout the lesson. The online learning materials must include an activity at the start of the learning session to connect with the learners. Relevance: Inform learners of the importance of the lesson and how taking the lesson could benefit them. Strategies could include describing how learners will benefit from taking the lesson, and how they can use what they learn in real-life situations. This strategy helps to contextualize the learning and make it more meaningful, thereby maintaining interest throughout the learning session. Confidence: Use strategies such as designing for success and informing learners of the lesson expectations. Design for success by sequencing from simple to complex, or known to unknown, and use a competency-based approach where learners are given the opportunity to use different strategies to complete the lesson. Inform learners of the lesson outcome and provide ongoing encouragement to complete the lesson. Satisfaction: Provide feedback on performance and allow learners to apply what they learn in real-life situations. Learners like to know how they are doing, and they like to contextualize what they are learning by applying the information in real life.
  • Online strategies that facilitate the transfer of learning should be used to encourage application in different and real-life situations.
  • Constructivists see learners as being active rather than passive.
  • it is the individual learner's interpretation and processing of what is received through the senses that creates knowledge.
  • “the process of using a prior interpretation to construe a new or revised interpretation of the meaning of one's experience in order to guide future action” (p. 12).
  • Learning should be an active process. Keeping learners active doing meaningful activities results in high-level processing, which facilitates the creation of personalized meaning. Asking learners to apply the information in a practical situation is an active process, and facilitates personal interpretation and relevance.
  • Learners should construct their own knowledge rather than accepting that given by the instructor.
  • Collaborative and cooperative learning should be encouraged to facilitate constructivist learning (H
  • When assigning learners for group work, membership should be based on the expertise level and learning style of individual group members, so that individual team members can benefit from one another's strengths.
  •   Learners should be given control of the learning process
  • Learners should be given time and opportunity to reflect.
  • Learning should be made meaningful for learners. The learning materials should include examples that relate to students, so that they can make sense of the information.
  • Learning should be interactive to promote higher-level learning and social presence, and to help develop personal meaning. According to Heinich et al. (2002), learning is the development of new knowledge, skills, and attitudes as the learner interacts with information and the environment. Interaction is also critical to creating a sense of presence and a sense of community for online learners, and to promoting transformational learning (Murphy & Cifuentes, 2001). Learners receive the learning materials through the technology, process the information, and then personalize and contextualize the information.
  • Figure 1-6. Components of effective online learning.
  • Behaviorist strategies can be used to teach the facts (what); cognitivist strategies to teach the principles and processes (how); and constructivist strategies to teach the real-life and personal applications and contextual learning. There is a shift toward constructive learning, in which learners are given the opportunity to construct their own meaning from the information presented during the online sessions. The use of learning objects to promote flexibility and reuse of online materials to meet the needs of individual learners will become more common in the future. Online learning materials will be designed in small coherent segments, so that they can be redesigned for different learners and different contexts. Finally, online learning will be increasingly diverse to respond to different learning cultures, styles, and motivations.
  • Online instruction occurs when learners use the Web to go through the sequence of instruction, to complete the learning activities, and to achieve learning outcomes and objectives (Ally, 2002; Ritchie & Hoffman, 1997).
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    From:  FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATIONAL THEORY FOR ONLINE LEARNING
westphal

Exactly What The Common Core Standards Say About Technology - 129 views

  • use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of one page in a single sitting.
  • Evaluate the advantages and disadvantages of using different mediums
  •  Integrate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, orally) in order to make informed decisions and solve problems, evaluating the credibility and accuracy of each source and noting any discrepancies among the data.
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  • Make strategic use of digital media
  • Publishing
  • Collaboration
  • Evaluation
  • Integration is a matter of design, and produces considerable cognitive load on a learner.
  • Social media professional learning networks (PLN) from linkedin to twitter, facebook to even pinterest, can be dominated by education technology discussion rather than broader concerns of how people learn , likely because those educators tending towards technology are on these digital networks to begin with.
  • rather requires learners to make complex decisions about how, when, and why to use technology–something educators must do as well.
  •  
    "@POUSDSupt: Exactly What The Common Core Standards Say About Technology http://t.co/WTRFq2LUTt via @zite #ccss #edtech" Nicely presented.
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    Tech standards in the common core
Doreen Stopczynski

20 reasons why students should blog | On an e-journey with generation Y - 181 views

  • It is FUN! Fun!….. I hear your sceptical exclamation!! However, it is wonderful when students think they are having so much fun, they forget that they are actually learning. A favourite comment on one of my blog posts is: It’s great when kids get so caught up in things they forget they’re even learning…   by jodhiay authentic audience – no longer working for a teacher who checks and evalutes work but  a potential global audience. Suits all learning styles – special ed (this student attends special school 3days per weeek, our school 2 days per week, gifted ed, visual students, multi-literacies plus ‘normal‘ students. Increased motivation for writing – all students are happy to write and complete aspects of the post topic. Many will add to it in their own time. Increased motivation for reading – my students will happily spend a lot of time browsing through fellow student posts and their global counterparts. Many have linked their friends onto their blogroll for quick access. Many make comments, albeit often in their own sms language. Improved confidence levels – a lot of this comes through comments and global dots on their cluster maps. Students can share their strengths and upload areas of interest or units of work eg personal digital photography, their pets, hobbies etc Staff are given an often rare insight into what some students are good at. We find talents that were otherwise unknown and it allows us to work on those strengths. It allows staff to often gain insight to how students are feeling and thinking. Pride in their work – My experience is that students want their blogs to look good in both terms of presentation and content. (Sample of a year 10 boy’s work) Blogs allow text, multimedia, widgets, audio and images – all items that digital natives want to use Increased proofreading and validation skills Improved awareness of possible dangers that may confront them in the real world, whilst in a sheltered classroom environment Ability to share – part of the conceptual revolution that we are entering. They can share with each other, staff, their parents, the community, and the globe. Mutual learning between students and staff and students. Parents with internet access can view their child’s work and writings – an important element in the parent partnership with the classroom. Grandparents from England have made comments on student posts. Parents have ‘adopted’ students who do not have internet access and ensured they have comments. Blogs may be used for digital portfolios and all the benefits this entails Work is permanently stored, easily accessed and valuable comparisons can be made over time for assessment and evaluation purposes Students are digital natives - blogging is a natural element of this. Gives students a chance  to show responsibility and trustworthiness and engenders independence. Prepares students for digital citizenship as they learn cybersafety and netiquette Fosters peer to peer mentoring. Students are happy to share, learn from and teach their peers (and this, often not their usual social groups) Allows student led professional development and one more…… Students set the topics for posts – leads to deeper thinking
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    Good reasons to allow student blogging Point being if it's fun they will love doing it, while enriching their knowledge at the same time.\nA great slant on multitasking.
Kathy Malsbenden

Alan November Comes to Town « Ed Tech Ideas - 50 views

  • Diigo is a fantastic tool. One I’ve used for quite some time now to keep my bookmarks organized and available no matter where I am.  During the workshop, Alan said something to the effect of, “In the library, Dewey did all the tagging. Today, we have to teach kids how to do this.”
  • Ed Tech Ideas: I teach 3 different grade levels, and my different classes are always researching for one project or another. Students are always finding great sites, but at best, they bookmark it to their local computer, never to be seen by others. Now with our Diigo groups (I created one for each grade level), kids learn how to tag, organize, and share their finds with everyone else in the group. Everyone benefits from group knowledge, and the students learn an important skill that will stay with them and grow throughout their academic lives.
Cindy Rolewski

Ten Ways To Get Beyond Powerpoint With Classroom Projectors - 3 views

  • Reading/Writing.  Display images, words, or phrases for writing prompts in creative writing or poetry class. Model savvy formatting and editing skills by giving live demonstrations in your word-processing software. And put away those old flashcards—young students love singing karaoke to practice their pronunciation and identify targeted sight words. 
  • Reading/Writing. 
  • Mathematics.
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  • Science.
  • Social Studies
  • Timer, Stopwatch, Countdown
  • Games and Quizzes.
  • Board Work.
  • Graphic Organizers
  • Guest/Substitute Lectures.
  • Drama/Theater
London Jenks

The Difficulty of Discovery (Where Have All The Geniuses Gone?) | Wired Scien... - 99 views

  • In sciences and engineering, 99.4% of the 171 subfields have seen increased teamwork. Meanwhile, 100% of the 54 subfields in the social sciences, 88.9%of the 27 subfields in the humanities, and 100% of the 36 subfields in patenting have seen increased teamwork
    • London Jenks
       
      This highlights the need to teach our students to collaborate effectively and work well in teams. What skills do they need? 
  • We live in a world of such complexity that our problems increasingly exceed the possibilities of the individual mind. Collaboration is no longer an option.
  •  
    Collaboration is no longer an option.
Thomas M Absalom

Education Week: Study Finds Social-Skills Teaching Boosts Academics - 21 views

  •  
    Whole Child
Josh Flores

Using Groups Effectively: 10 Principles « The Window - 172 views

  • Having students work in groups reaps a bounty of benefits, including boosting students’ social skills and upping the number of “happy campers” in the classroom.
  • As with every aspect of teaching, using groups effectively requires mindful planning and attention to more than who works with whom.
  • Putting people into groups isn’t a magical dust that makes everyone more creative. It has to be the right kind of group, and the group has to match the task
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    • Josh Flores
       
      Really? This is something I'm guilty of. 
  • Do not appoint a group “leader.”
    • Josh Flores
       
      Also guilty
  • small
  • Think threefold
    • Josh Flores
       
      This is why I like starting with a free write
  •  
    "I recently attended a conference session featuring Keith .. an expert on the effectiveness of group efforts. His presentation focused on what has been and potentially can be accomplished through collaboration, but he hinted that just getting people into groups is not the answer. .. Though his focus is on creativity, I think Sawyer's insights apply to our use of groups to foster learning. Here are ten principles I've picked up:"
Tamara Connors

Digitally Speaking / FrontPage - 43 views

  • Our kids’ futures will require them to be: Networked–They’ll need an “outboard brain.” More collaborative–They are going to need to work closely with people to co-create information. More globally aware–Those collaborators may be anywhere in the world. Less dependent on paper–Right now, we are still paper training our kids. More active–In just about every sense of the word. Physically. Socially. Politically. Fluent in creating and consuming hypertext–Basic reading and writing skills will not suffice. More connected–To their communities, to their environments, to the world. Editors of information–Something we should have been teaching them all along but is even more important now.
  • are today's teachers prepared for the significant changes that must happen before this new vision of an educated citizen becomes a reality?
D. S. Koelling

A Perfect Storm in Undergraduate Education, Part I - Advice - The Chronicle of Higher E... - 40 views

  • at least 45 percent of undergraduates demonstrated "no improvement in critical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills in the first two years of college, and 36 percent showed no progress in four years."
  • What good does it do to increase the number of students in college if the ones who are already there are not learning much? Would it not make more sense to improve the quality of education before we increase the quantity of students?
  • students in math, science, humanities, and social sciences—rather than those in more directly career-oriented fields—tend to show the most growth in the areas measured by the Collegiate Learning Assessment, the primary tool used in their study. Also, students learn more from professors with high expectations who interact with them outside of the classroom. If you do more reading, writing, and thinking, you tend to get better at those things, particularly if you have a lot of support from your teachers.
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  • Increasingly, undergraduates are not prepared adequately in any academic area but often arrive with strong convictions about their abilities.
  • It has become difficult to give students honest feedback.
  • As the college-age population declines, many tuition-driven institutions struggle to find enough paying customers to balance their budgets. That makes it necessary to recruit even more unprepared students, who then must be retained, shifting the burden for academic success away from the student and on to the teacher.
  • Although a lot of emphasis is placed on research on the tenure track, most faculty members are not on that track and are retained on the basis of what students think of them.
  • Students gravitate to lenient professors and to courses that are reputedly easy, particularly in general education.
  • It is impossible to maintain high expectations for long unless everyone holds the line in all comparable courses—and we face strong incentives not to do that.
  • Formerly, full-time, tenured faculty members with terminal degrees and long-term ties to the institution did most of the teaching. Such faculty members not only were free to grade honestly and teach with conviction but also had a deep understanding of the curriculum, their colleagues, and the institutional mission. Now undergraduate teaching relies primarily on graduate students and transient, part-time instructors on short-term contracts who teach at multiple institutions and whose performance is judged almost entirely by student-satisfaction surveys.
  • Contingent faculty members, who are paid so little, routinely teach course loads that are impossible to sustain without cutting a lot of corners.
  • Many colleges are now so packed with transient teachers, and multitasking faculty-administrators, that it is impossible to maintain some kind of logical development in the sequencing of courses.
  • Students may be enjoying high self-esteem, but college teachers seem to be suffering from a lack of self-confidence.
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    So many issues here to deal with. Good read.
Marti Pike

Should Personalization Be the Future of Learning? - Education Next : Education Next - 48 views

  • Effective instruction requires understanding the varying cognitive abilities of students and finding ways to impart knowledge in light of that variation
    • Marti Pike
       
      Baby/Bathwater...Use tech. to help differentiate speed.  Teacher stays in control with the help of feedback from learning programs. 
  • can be done in classrooms with students sitting in beanbags holding iPads and Chromebooks.
  • privacy
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  • They can Google but lack the skills to find the information they need or to assess the relevance or truth of what they find.
  • children are more alike than different in how they think and learn,
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    Personalisation in Education
Sharin Tebo

Guide: Using the SAMR Model to Guide Learning | That #EdTech Guy's Blog - 74 views

  • The SAMR Model (above) was developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura. It enables educators to analyse how effective their use of technology is on teaching and learning.
  • – Enhancement (Substitution and Augmentation) – technology is used just to enhance a task
  • – Transformation (Modification and Redefinition) – tasks are designed in a way which would not be possible without the use of technology
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  • Substitution – at this stage, technology is simply used as an alternative tool for completing the original task with no real change in the tasks function.
  • Example: instead of writing by hand, learners use an app like Pages to type up a report.
  • Example: once again, if students are creating a document on Pages, using the collaborative tools available on iWork for iCloud, learners can work on a document together. Peers could add feedback comments to the document in real time which could be responded to, which would improve the end product further.
  • Augmentation – here, technology is still used as a direct substitute like above, however it offers improvements in terms of the function of the task.
  • Example: again using Pages, however making use of features like spellchecking function or importing images to enhance the end product.
  • Modification – it is at this point where technology starts to enhance teaching and learning. It requires tasks to be redesigned, in order to make the most of the technology available.
  • it still does not improve the students learning experience.
  • Redefinition– this is the point at which technology really enhances the learning experience for students and has the greatest impact. Through the use of technology, educators are able to design tasks that were previously impossible.
  • Example: like before, learners may be collaborating on a document in Pages. However, this time the end product will be uploaded to a website or perhaps a class blog. Students are usually excited by the prospect of their work being on display in a classroom, so the use of a real audience is huge for them. Furthermore, this builds their literacy skills as they need to consider the audience that they’ll be writing to and adapt their work accordingly. Finally, this opens up the possibility of feedback from this global audience which they can respond to.
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    SAMR Explained with Definitions and Application Examples
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