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Creating a Culture of Inquiry | Edutopia - 78 views

  • Inquiry
  • creating a culture of inquiry takes constant work. Teachers need to establish it from the first day in the classroom, and work to keep it vital throughout the year. Here are some important things to know about creating that culture, and some ideas that you might consider.
  • Culture
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  • Questioning
  • When we make a change or set an expectation for how a classroom will operate, we begin to affect the climate. It takes time for something to become a part of the culture
  • culture of inquiry
  • Scaffold
  • A culture of inquiry will not happen overnight, but the right climate for it is much easier to establish.
  • Teachers should use a variety of strategies, such as structured protocols and question starters and stems, to support students in asking effective questions.
  • One great tool for building a culture of inquiry is essential questions that drive learning.
  • Rather than focusing on the answer, they should focus on the process of inquiry that begins when the question is asked.
  • we have to make sure that our assignments also mirror and honor inquiry
  • Do our assignments focus on complexity and justification? Do we honor student voice and choice in these assignments? Are students allowed choice in what they produce and voice in what the assignment will look like? Do we create assignments and assessments that allow students to investigate their own questions aligned to the content that we want them to learn?
  • A culture of inquiry can only become the classroom norm if there is commitment from all stakeholders -- parents, students, teachers, administration, and more. Simply saying that we are an inquiry-based classroom and doing an occasional inquiry-based activity is not indicative of a culture of inquiry.
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Mid-continent Research for Education and Learning - School Improvement Reform Report on... - 15 views

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    Stupski Fndtn staff + McREL researchers ask 2 questions: (1) How can teachers adapt the principles of effective pedagogy to differentiate instruction and meet the needs of all learners in order to help Our Kids be challened, motivated, and successful? (2) How can teachers create structured, challenging, yet nurturing classroom environments to ensure that Our Kids are engaged and successful learners? KEY FINDINGS: adaptive and differentiated instruction (theory and methodologies) in culturally relevant classroom that allows for student "role fluidity" + teacher skill in finding gaps in knowledge/skills + motivating students through engaging projects and targeted instruction (academically rigorous and nurturing) PLUS fac devt must be supported by and inclusive of school leadership. a Design Collaborative might act on 5 options: (1) Support teachers to better utilize methods and theories of culturally relevant pedagogy and differentiated instruction, (2) Implement a pedagogical program based on the notion of "role fluidity" to give students a central voice in the classroom, (3) Use technology to engage students and enhance pedagogy, (4) Guide teachers in creating academically rigorous and positive classroom learning environments, (5) Implement pedagogical programs based on developing higher order thinking and subject-specific skills. Report by Kerry Englert, Helen Apthorp, Matthew Seebaum. Dated Oct 2009
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Five Best Practices for the Flipped Classroom | Edutopia - 186 views

  • It doesn't solve anything. It is a great first step in reframing the role of the teacher in the classroom. It fosters the "guide on the side" mentality and role, rather than that of the "sage of the stage." It helps move a classroom culture towards student construction of knowledge rather than the teacher having to tell the knowledge to students.
  • We must first focus on creating the engagement and then look at structures, like the flipped classroom, that can support.
  • If the flipped classroom is truly to become innovative, then it must be paired with transparent and/or embedded reason to know the content.
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  • One of the best way to create the "need to know" is to use a pedagogical model that demands this.
  • Will you demand that all students watch the video, or is it a way to differentiate and allow choice
  • Will you allow or rely on mobile learning for students to watch it?
  • Lack of technology doesn't necessarily close the door to the flipped classroom model, but it might require some intentional planning and differentiation.
  • you must build in reflective activities to have students think about what they learned, how it will help them, its relevance
  • Students need metacognition to connect content to objectives
  • The focus should be on teacher practice, then tools and structures.
  • Ok, I'll be honest. I get very nervous when I hear education reformists and politicians tout how "incredible" the flipped classroom model (1), or how it will "solve" many of the problems of education. It doesn't solve anything. It is a
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Constructing a positive classroom culture - The Learner's Way - 60 views

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    How might we shape that culture and how will we understand the many forces at work? Understanding the culture of class or perhaps even a school is an important element of our teaching but realising the complexity of this task must come first.
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How Can Teachers Create a Learner-Centered Environment? - Leading From the Classroom - ... - 119 views

  • publishers will need to collaborate more with teachers to be able to create more relevant and meaningful products to support teachers
  • Paper doesn't cut it. A learner centered environment requires technology.
  • Will the public demand this cultural shift in teaching and learning?
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    "The Alliance for Excellent Education recently released Culture Shift: Teaching in a Learner-Centered Environment Powered By Digital Learning. The report advocates that a culture shift to a learner centered classroom environment is needed to prepare students to meet the challenges and demands of a global economy"
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Learning vs Work in a Culture of Thinking - The Learner's Way - 36 views

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    Earlier this year a group of teachers I work with explored the 'Eight Cultural Forces' identified by Ron Ritchhart of Harvard's Project Zero. In doing so we decided to focus on our use of the term learning instead of the word work. Our goal was to bring our language choices into the spotlight and explore how a more deliberate focus on learning might alter the culture of our classrooms. Two terms later this focus persists and it is worth reflecting on the effect that this has had.
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"Can't We Just Change the Words?": EBSCOhost - 1 views

  • The idea of wanting to be true to the music of a culture, to the people of that culture, and to one's students in teaching is at the heart of the discussion of authenticity.
  • However, teaching music without attention to its cultural context is a problem in several respects: it risks misrepresenting the musical practice being studied, it fails to take advantage of the potential benefits of culturally infused music teaching, and it promotes a conception of music as isolated sonic events rather than meaningful human practices.2 Discussion about this struggle to balance accurate performance practice with accessibility has focused on the concept of authenticity
  • The definitions of authenticity represented in the music education literature fall into four models: the continuum model; the twofold historical/personal model; the threefold reproduction, reality, and relevance model; and the moving-beyond-authenticity model.
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  • how does each author use authenticity as a strategy for making or justifying decisions in music education?
  • authenticity enhances an aesthetic experience; for others, authentic musical encounters enhance student motivation
  • since the original loses some of its essential qualities in a simplification.5
  • His view of historical authenticity calls for knowing the intentions of the composer, the performance practice of the time, using period instruments, and being musically creative within the boundaries of the composer's intentions
  • Peter Kivy's twofold model of authenticity. Focusing on historical authenticity in performance, Kivy explores two main aspects of authenticity: historical (attention to the intent, sound, and practice of the original) and personal (interpretation and expression of the performer).
  • Swanwick writes: "'Authentic' musical experience occurs when individuals make and take music as meaningful or relevant for them"
  • Swanwick's emphasis on the importance of personal relevance yields different choices for a music teacher than Palmer's position does.
  • Another example is found in the work of music educator and researcher Kay Edwards, who also reached the conclusion that attention to authenticity increases student response to learning. In her qualitative study of the response of children to a unit on Native American music, she found that the group using instruments of the Navajo, Hopi, Apache, and Yaqui peoples generated more journal responses overall (her criterion measure) and more responses about instrument playing than the groups with the inauthentic (traditional music room) instruments.
  • Using indigenous instruments, original languages, and involving culture bearers in instruction benefits student involvement and interest as well as helps them develop musical skills. Connecting the story of a piece of music to students' own experiences and encouraging students to create new music in the style of music being studied help facilitate meaningful experiences for students.
  • "World music pedagogy concerns itself with how music is taught/transmitted and received/learned within cultures, and how best the processes that are included in significant ways within these cultures can be preserved or at least partially retained in classrooms and rehearsal halls.
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Three Reasons Students Should Own Your Classroom's Twitter and Instagram Accounts - EdS... - 51 views

  • Three Reasons Students Should Own Your Classroom’s Twitter and Instagram Accounts
  • We must think more critically about how we communicate via social media.
  • 1. Genuine Digital Citizenship Opportunities
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  • 2. Publishing for the World (and the Classroom Across the Hall) is Powerful
  • 3. Establishing Your Classroom Brand
  • According to educators Joe Sanfelippo and Tony Sinanis, branding can be defined as “the marking practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products.” Within the past few years, this idea of branding our schools/classrooms has become extremely valuable, as it promotes transparency by painting an accurate, live picture of what is taking place. Yet, in reality, the majority of the time the educators are the ones telling these stories. While this certainly has its place, ultimately what matters most is how students feel about their experiences. Social media has allowed my students to share our classroom happenings through their eyes. It has allowed my students the opportunity to both establish and share the culture of our classroom and our school, and ultimately create our “brand”.
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    Steve- do your students run your Twitter and Instagram accounts? How many students contribute regularly? any problems with parents?
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Creating More Compassionate Classrooms | Edutopia - 32 views

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    Good tips for building a positive classroom culture.
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Relationship Building Through Culturally Responsive Classroom Management | Edutopia - 29 views

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    School behavior problems often originate outside of the classroom. For example, asthma is the number one cause of absenteeism. When asthmatics are unable to sleep at night, they miss class or arrive at school so sleep drunk and irritable that disruptive behavior ensues, getting them tossed out of class. Consequently, they fall more behind in classwork, which increases academic struggle. More outbursts and further truancy results.
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Five Ideas for Using Pop Culture to Inspire Elementary Students | Edutopia - 2 views

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    Excerpt: "I'm not sure if we can successfully connect with our students without dabbling in their after school activities. I'm not saying you have to sing along with Justin Bieber (I like to rile up my girls by calling him "Justin Beaver") or even enjoy SpongeBob's silly antics. But you absolutely have to acknowledge the fact that your students value this, love it even. It gets them up in the morning, pulls them through the day. It's their life. And if you don't care about it, they know. And it definitely influences the culture of the classroom."
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http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/Advocacy/Top_Ten_in_10.htm - 87 views

  • Establish technology in education as the backbone of school improvement
  • Leverage education technology as a gateway for college and career readiness
  • Ensure technology expertise is infused throughout our schools and classrooms.
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  • Continuously upgrade educators' classroom technology skills as a pre-requisite of "highly effective" teaching
  • Home Advocacy Top Ten in '10: ISTE's Education Technology Priorities for 2010 Through a common focus on boosting student achievement and closing the achievement gap, policymakers and educators alike are now reiterating their commitment to the sorts of programs and instructional efforts that can have maximum effect on instruction and student outcomes. This commitment requires a keen understanding of both past accomplishment and strategies for future success. Regardless of the specific improvement paths a state or school district may chart, the use of technology in teaching and learning is non-negotiable if we are to make real and lasting change.  With growing anticipation for Race to the Top (RttT) and Investing in Innovation (i3) awards in 2010, states and school districts are seeing increased attention on educational improvement, backed by financial support through these grants. As we think about plans for the future, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has identified 10 priorities essential for making good on this commitment in 2010: 1. Establish technology in education as the backbone of school improvement . To truly improve our schools for the long term and ensure that all students are equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve in the 21st century, education technology must permeate every corner of the learning process. From years of research, we know that technology can serve as a primary driver for systemic school improvement, including school leadership, an improved learning culture and excellence in professional practice. We must ensure that technology is at the foundation of current education reform efforts, and is explicit and clear in its role, mission, and expected impact. 2. Leverage education technology as a gateway for college and career readiness . Last year, President Obama established a national goal of producing the highest percentage of college graduates in the world by the year 2020. To achieve this goal in the next 10 years, we must embrace new instructional approaches that both increase the college-going rates and the high school graduation rates. By effectively engaging learning through technology, teachers can demonstrate the relevance of 21st century education, keeping more children in the pipeline as they pursue a rigorous, interesting and pertinent PK-12 public education. 3. Ensure technology expertise is infused throughout our schools and classrooms.  In addition to providing all teachers with digital tools and content we must ensure technology experts are integrated throughout all schools, particularly as we increase focus and priority on STEM (science-technology-engineering-mathematics) instruction and expand distance and online learning opportunities for students. Just as we prioritize reading and math experts, so too must we place a premium on technology experts who can help the entire school maximize its resources and opportunities. To support these experts, as well as all educators who integrate technology into the overall curriculum, we must substantially increase our support for the federal Enhancing Education Through Technology (EETT) program.  EETT provides critical support for on-going professional development, implementation of data-driven decision-making, personalized learning opportunities, and increased parental involvement. EETT should be increased to $500 million in FY2011. 4. Continuously upgrade educators' classroom technology skills as a pre-requisite of "highly effective" teaching . As part of our nation's continued push to ensure every classroom is led by a qualified, highly effective teacher, we must commit that all P-12 educators have the skills to use modern information tools and digital content to support student learning in content areas and for student assessment. Effective teachers in the 21st Century should be, by definition, technologically savvy teachers. 5. Invest in pre-service education technology
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Moving beyond technology in designing online learning - 70 views

  • Some loved them, some hated them, and few were indifferent.
    • Matt Claxon
       
      This is just like my students with the screencasts.  Look for a way to give the TV-haters more options and relevant learning media.
  • At the time (and for many years afterwards) researchers such as Richard Clark (1983) argued that ‘proper’, scientific research showed no significant difference between the use of different media. In particular, there were no differences between classroom teaching and other media such as television or radio or satellite. Even today, we are getting similar findings regarding online learning (e.g. Means et al., 2010).
  • different media can be used to assist learners to learn in different ways and achieve different outcomes. In a sense, researchers such as Clark were right: the teaching methods matter, but different media can more easily support different ways of teaching than others
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  • Thus requiring the television program to be judged by the same assessment methods as for the classroom lecture unfairly measures the potential value of the TV program. In this example, it may be better to use both methods: didactic teaching to teach understanding, then a documentary approach to apply that understanding. (Note that a television program could do both, but the classroom lecture could not.)
  • many media are better than one.
  • The use of different media also allows for more individualization and personalization of the learning, better suiting learners with different learning styles and needs.
  • technology on its own does not lead to the transfer of meaning.
  • This of course is what we do with technology in education. We try either to incorporate new technology into old formats, as with clickers and lecture capture, or we try to create the classroom in virtual space, as we do with learning management systems. What we are still developing but not yet clearly recognizing are formats, symbols systems and organizational structures that exploit the unique characteristics of the Internet as a medium.
  • Given the need to create and interpret meaning when using media, trying to use computers to replace or substitute for humans in the education process is likely to be a major mistake, at least until computers have much greater facility to recognize, understand and apply semantics, value systems, and organizational factors,
  • it is equally a mistake to rely only on the symbol systems, cultural values and organizational structures of classroom teaching as the means of judging the effectiveness or appropriateness of the Internet as an educational medium.
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    Defines the difference between technology and media and provides information (based on academic experience) about how to most effectively create online lessons and media.
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When Technology and Classrooms Collide…by @JMcKay1972 - 9 views

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    "Development of technology within the classroom can aide the identification of contextual factors that may or may not contribute to effective use of technology in enhancing quality learning experiences. Factors such as organisational culture, teacher self-efficacy and their confidence and experience in utilising technology, resources and learner engagement all have to be considered to allow for an integrated approach."
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Book Review: Living Contradiction by @Sean_S_Warren & @StephenBigger - 2 views

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    PROS: An important book that questions an authoritarian school culture. The book grapples with both the philosophical and the pragmatic aspects of school culture. A resonatory self-examination of teacher identity and a significant contribution to the debate about how schools and classrooms are run. A survey of a wide range of related research that challenges the status quo on the effectiveness of punishment and authoritarianism as approaches to behaviour management."
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Building the Culture of an Empowered Mindset Towards Technology Innovation | The Princi... - 23 views

  • In this work, I have realized how truly important the role of principal is in building, not only in creating a positive culture, but an innovative one.  
  • Often times, as the principal goes, so does the culture of the school.
  • It is unlikely for an entire school to be “pushing the edge” if the principal or administrative team is not helping to pave the way for their community as they learn alongside of them.
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  • o create a visual that discusses the correlation of the school mindset on technology innovation in learning, and the alignment it has with administrator support, professional development, and the corresponding hardware/infrastructure within the school/classroom.  
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Intersections: History and New Media: Wiki in the History Classroom - 5 views

  • Students did not agree on the merits of the wiki. Some were deeply offended when other students eliminated or modified their contributions. Others found the chance to pick apart other’s words and conclusions exhilarating. Regardless, most students seemed to grasp the important lesson I hoped to share: that history is the conversation we have about the past. History is about the authorial choices scholars make. History is about the evidence included and the evidence excluded. By asking students to participate in a joint-writing exercise, they were compelled to pay attention to the language others used, the phrasings and structure employed, the anecdotes emphasized, the facts obscured. I told them the story of an undergraduate English professor I had who spent an entire class session discussing why Shakespeare began Macbeth with the word “when”. Words matter. Words shape arguments. They determine meaning, and they form our view of the world around us, including our view of the history of the world around us. Students also came to appreciate that history was not a bag of facts we historians force them to memorize. Instead, as Appleby, Hunt, and Jacob suggest, history is the product of that collective effort of truth seeking.
  • I still caution students about using Wikipedia. But I think the wiki can help our students see themselves as part of that democratic conversation so important to our profession. Throwing their ideas into the ring for others to challenge forces students to defend their ideas, modify their conclusions, and reconsider their assumptions. The wiki, while not perfect, may help us change the way our students think about history. It may help them be more attentive to language and argument. Importantly, it may help them value civil discourse as a civic virtue. These are good lessons for history students and for their professors. —Kevin B. Sheets is associate professor of history at the State University of New York, College at Cortland and project director of the “American Dream Project,” a Teaching American History grant-based project in upstate New York. He regularly teaches courses in historical methods and American intellectual and cultural history.
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    Great description of the merits of using a wiki in a classroom.
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CITE Journal - Language Arts - 94 views

  • Since it is through communication that we exercise our political, economic and social power, we risk contributing to the hegemonic perpetuation of class if we fail to demand equal access to newer technologies and adequately prepared teachers for all students
    • Cynthia Sarver
       
      What is being done??
  • They can benefit their students by developing and then teaching their students to develop expertise in evaluation of search engines and critical analysis of Web site credibility. Well-prepared teachers, with a deep and broad understanding of language, linguistics, literature, rhetoric, writing, speaking, and listening, can complement those talents by studying additional semiotic systems that don’t rely solely on alphabetic texts.
  • Not only will teachers need to understand “fair use” policies, they are likely to need to integrate units on ethics back into the curriculum to complement those units on rhetoric.
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  • Students should be counseled not only on the risks to their physical safety, but also on the ways that the texts they are composing today, and believe they have eliminated, often have lives beyond their computers, and may reappear in the future at a most inopportune time.
  • learn methods of critically analyzing the ways in which others are using multiple semiotic systems to convince them to participate, to buy, to believe, and to resist a wide range of appeals
  • It also implies the process of uncovering one’s own cultural, social, political and personal (e.g. age, gender) backgrounds and understanding how these backgrounds can and often do influence one’s own ways of communicating and interacting with others in virtual and face-to-face encounters.
  • nstances of anti-social behavior in online communication such as using hurtful language and discriminating among certain members of virtual communities have been reported.
  • allows their members to construct and act out identities that may not necessarily be their real selves and thus lose a sense of responsibility toward others
  • Professional development for teachers and teacher educators must be ongoing, stressing purposeful integration for the curriculum and content, rather than merely technical operation. It also needs to provide institutional and instructional support systems to enable teachers to learn and experiment with new technologies. Offering release time, coordinating student laptop initiative programs or providing wireless laptop carts for classroom use, locating computer labs in accessible places to each teacher, scheduling lab sessions acceptable for each teacher, and providing alternative scheduling for professional development sessions so that all teachers can attend, are a few examples of such systems. Finally, teachers and students must be provided with technical support as they work with technology. Such assistance must be reliable, on-demand, and timely for each teacher and student in each classroom.
  • educators must address plagiarism, ownership, and authorship in their classrooms.
  • strategies to assess the quality of information and writing on the Web
  • help students develop netiquette
  • Such netiquette is thus not only about courtesy; more importantly, it is about tolerance and acceptance of people with diverse languages, cultures, and worldviews.
  • Teachers and teacher educators must examine with students the social processes through which humans grow individually and socially, and they must expose the potentially negative consequences of one’s individual actions. In doing so, teachers and educators will be able to reinforce the concept of learning as a social process, involving negotiation, dialogue, and learning from each other, and as a thinking process, requiring self-directed learning as well as critical analysis and synthesis of information in the process of meaning-making and developing informed perceptions of the world.
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Can we change the PD culture of communication? | eSchool News | eSchool News | 2 - 45 views

    • Sharin Tebo
       
      This reminds me of the Dual Language observations each month as part of the Principal PLCs. Very powerful experience and what an awesome amount of feedback for the classroom teacher and data to start conversations about instructional practice!
  • Could we in the United States create school cultures in which instructing colleagues on how they might improve performance is not a rare and emotion-laden event, but rather an accepted and valued mechanism in the development of desirable professional practice?
    • Monica Williams-Mitchell
       
      I think RARE is part of the issue. The fact that we don't often have observers in our classrooms, and we don't often talk about the practices that are effective makes for a feeling of being singled out if criticism is offered.
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