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Maureen Greenbaum

How Clear Expectations Can Inhibit Genuine Thinking in Students | MindShift | KQED News - 45 views

ww2.kqed.org/...t-genuine-thinking-in-students

teaching learning grit

shared by Maureen Greenbaum on 15 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • to understand better how expectations operate as a cultural force in learning groups, we have to make a distinction between two types of expectations: directives and beliefs.
  • very clear standards for students about points, grades, and keeping score, one sees a belief that school is about work and that students must be coerced or bribed into learning through the use of grades
  • one sees the belief that learning algebra is primarily about acquiring knowledge of procedures rather than developing understanding, and that memorization and practice are the most effective tools for that job. This theory of action, “One learns through memorization and practice,” made it hard for Karen to bring out and facilitate students’ thinking. Instead, thinking existed as an add-on to the regular rhythm of the class, something she did as an “extra” to the regular work of the class. Through her strong focus on grades and passing the course, even if one is “no good at mathematics,” Karen sent the message that our abilities are largely fixed and that “getting by” was all that some could hope to accomplish. One might not understand algebra, but with effort one could at least pass the course. Finally, in her efforts to promote order and control, certainly worthwhile and important goals in any classroom, Karen tilted the balance toward students’ becoming passive learners who were dependent on her.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • five belief sets are as follows: • Focusing students on the learning vs. the work • Teaching for understanding vs. knowledge • Encouraging deep vs. surface learning strategies • Promoting independence vs. dependence • Developing a growth vs. a fixed mindset
  • Maureen Greenbaum on 15 Oct 16
     
    Share
Peter Beens

Teacher Magazine: Stepping Aside: The Art of Working With Student-Teachers - 1 views

www.teachermagazine.org/...tln_norton_student_teach.html

education student teacher

shared by Peter Beens on 14 Sep 09 - Cached
  • Peter Beens on 14 Sep 09
     
    Stepping Aside: The Art of Working With Student-Teachers\n\nTeacher Leaders Network Although traditional teacher-education programs rely on veteran educators to invite student- or "practice-" teachers into their classrooms, many skilled professionals can be heard expressing some reluctance about sharing instructional responsibilities with green recruits. They may be concerned about their ability to mentor an inexperienced colleague effectively, or simply hesitant to relinquish control of instruction in an atmosphere of high-stakes accountability.\n\nIn a recent post to the Teacher Leaders Network Forum daily discussion group, veteran teacher Vicky expressed some reservations of her own about working with a student-teacher and asked for help.\n\nI may be getting the opportunity to work with a student-teacher. I was wondering about your ideas for starting the year off right, helping the student-teacher, and balancing the load of mentoring the student teacher and teaching the students myself. I'm excited about the possibility, but I'm also a pretty hands-on control freak kind of person, so I want to alternately challenge and excite the intern but not be unfair or scary. Tips?\n\nNancy, a veteran K-12 music teacher, replied:\n\nGreat questions, Vicky. My first suggestion would be adopting the perspective that you will learn as much as the novice teacher-about yourself, your beliefs, and your practice. The first step is probably building a relationship in which the novice teacher trusts you enough to share real information and opinion (and vice-versa).\n\nCreate a safe space to communicate honestly, in both directions. A student teacher who feels comfortable enough to share fears, anxieties, confusion, and frustration-and knows that he or she is not being judged, but honored as a learner by a veteran teacher who also has fears and frustrations-will be a student teacher who can grow.\n\nMy second thought is that from your students' perspective there should be two experts
Tony Baldasaro

Wheatley, Margaret J. Turning to One Another: Simple Conversations to - 1 views

74.125.93.132/search

change education

shared by Tony Baldasaro on 15 Aug 09 - Cached
  • Our willingness to have our beliefs and ideas challenged by what others think.
  • only find those answers by admitting we don’t know
  • We no longer live in those sweet, slow days when life felt predictable, when we actually knew what to do next.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Curiosity is what we need. We don’t have to let go of what we believe, but we don need to be curious about what someone else believes.
  • might be essential to our survival
  • When so many interpretations are available, I can’t understand why we would be satisfied with superficial conversations where we pretend to agree with one another
  • I hope you’ll begin a conversation, listening for what’s new. Listen as best you can for what’s different, for what surprises you. See if this practice helps you learn something new.
  • how many unique ways there are to be human
  • curious rather than certain
  • We can’t be creative if we refuse to be confused
  • Tony Baldasaro on 15 Aug 09
     
    As we work together to restore hope to the future, we need to include a new and strange ally-our willingness to be disturbed. Our willingness to have our beliefs and ideas challenged by what others think. No one person or perspective can give us the answers we need to the problems of today. Paradoxically, we can only find those answers by admitting we don't know. We have to be willing to let go of our certainty and expect ourselves to be confused for a time
Paul Klym

How Black Students Tend to Learn Science - The Atlantic - 47 views

www.theatlantic.com/...2

students science atlantic beliefs+practices

shared by Paul Klym on 05 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • limits students’ sense of isolation and fosters communal feeling among classmates
  • active learning limits students’ sense of isolation and fosters communal feeling among classmates.
  • active learning limits students’ sense of isolation and fosters communal feeling among classmates
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • So why are students relegated to lectures when it’s proven that active learning can significantly enhance the educational experience?
    • Matt Renwick
      Matt Renwick on 05 Dec 14
       
      Simple. They don't have instructional beliefs that they all agree upon. These teachers work as independent contractors, and take any criticism of their practice personally. But they forget that it is not about them. It's about the students.
    • Paul Klym
      Paul Klym on 08 Dec 14
       
      I think that you have forgot to include a lack of professional development (training) to demonstrate successful educational strategies.  Telling someone (a teacher) they must change is just like a lecture.  Showing them how they can change their practice to make a difference is needed as well.
anonymous

What are the Disadvantages of Online Schooling for Higher Education? - 18 views

study.com/...ling_for_Higher_Education.html

online disadvantages

shared by anonymous on 23 Oct 16 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 23 Oct 16
     
    "hat Are the Disadvantages of Online Schooling for Higher Education? Today, online schooling for higher education is prevalent across many fields. While there are several benefits to online schooling, such as flexibility and convenience, there are also real and perceived disadvantages. Explore some of the potential drawbacks of online learning. View 10 Popular Schools » Online Schooling In 2012, about a quarter of undergraduate college students were enrolled in distance education courses as part -- if not all -- of their studies, according to a 2014 report from the National Center for Education Statistics. That same data found that 29.8% of graduate students in this country are enrolled in some or all distance learning classes as well. A 2013 report from Babson Survey Research Group and Quahog Research Group, LLC, pointed out that approximately 86.5% of higher education institutions offer distance learning classes. Clearly, online schooling is commonplace. Disadvantages: Student Perspective Despite advantages, online schooling is not the right fit for every student. Taking online courses is generally believed to require more self-discipline than completing a degree on campus, a belief that is supported by SCHEV -- the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Because online schooling options often allow students to complete much of the coursework at their own pace, students must be motivated to stay on schedule and manage their time accordingly. Other potential disadvantages from a student's viewpoint may include the following: Less Instructional Support Although instructors are available to students via e-mail, telephone, Web discussion boards and other online means, some students may see the lack of face-to-face interaction and one-on-one instruction as a challenge. A lack of communication or miscommunication between instructors and students may frustrate students who are struggling with course materials. That could be exacerbated by the casual nature
mspayton68

Hispanic Culture - Latin American Culture - Spanish Culture - 14 views

www.explore-hispanic-culture.com/hispanic-culture.html

shared by mspayton68 on 15 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • efer to the set of values, standards, beliefs, art, music, and practices shared by a particular group.
  • Thus, Mexico, Central and South America, and the Spanish-speaking Caribbean countries are referred to as Hispanic America.
  • Hispanic or Latino culture encompasses the traditions, language, idioms, religious beliefs and practices, legends, arts, music, literature, cuisine, history, social and family values of the Hispanic people.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • The different "Hispanic cultures" share many things in common, including these religious observances.Navidad (Christmas)Like in many other cultures – Christmas is one of the most important religious celebrations among Hispanics. A unique characteristic of a "Latino" Christmas is the prominent role of the "nacimiento" (the nativity scene). La Semana Santa (Holy Week) This is another important and deeply religious Hispanic holiday. The Holy Week is the last week of Lent and the week before Easter. Not surprisingly, some of the most notable celebrations of the Holy Week occur in Latin American countries, including: Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, and Perú.
  • May 1 - Día del Trabajo May 5 - Cinco de MayoMay - Día de las MadresSep 15 - Oct 15 - Hispanic Heritage Month
Hobbes W

Dealing with organizational hubris and humility - Jeffrey Braithwaite - 27 views

www.jeffreybraithwaite.com/...nizational-hubris-and-humility

hubris humility education university organization business Braithwaite news research

shared by Hobbes W on 07 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • Hobbes W on 07 Jul 14
     
    "Maybe this ego-driven reporting of one's capabilities only happens among American college professors? Hardly. You do not have to stretch your observational powers too far to see that most of those at the helm of big companies, political parties, prestigious legal practices, or accounting and consulting groups have large doses of self-belief. It's only a small step to hubris."
meghankelly492

Project MUSE - Learning from Masters of Music Creativity: Shaping Compositional Experie... - 7 views

muse.jhu.edu/224140

world Music

shared by meghankelly492 on 22 Jul 19 - No Cached
  • n contrast to others who are not as prone to divulge their feelings about their creative process
  • "Variation in style may have historical explanation but [End Page 94] no philosophical justification, for philosophy cannot discriminate between style and style."3
  • The testimonies of the composers concerned bear on questions about (a) the role of the conscious and the unconscious in music creativity, (b) how the compositional process gets started, and (c) how the compositional process moves forward
  • ...39 more annotations...
  • It is hoped that the themes that emerge by setting twentieth and twenty-first century professional composers' accounts of certain compositional experiences or phases of their creative processes against one another will provide a philosophical framework for teaching composition.
  • Furthermore, the knowledge of how professional composers compose offers the potential of finding the missing link in music education; that is, the writing of music by students within the school curriculum
  • Such involvement may deepen their understanding of musical relationships and how one articulates feelings through sounds beyond rudimentary improvisational and creative activities currently available
  • raw philosophical implications for music composition in schools from recognized composers' voices about their individual composing realities
  • It is hoped that the direct access to these composers' thoughts about the subjective experience of composing Western art music in the second half of the twentieth and the beginning of the twenty-first century may also promote the image of a fragmented culture whose ghettoization in music education is a serious impediment to the development of a comprehensive aesthetic education.
  • n other words, there is a striking unanimity among composers that the role of the unconscious is vital in order to start and/or to complete a work to their own satisfaction.
  • I need . . . to become involved, to come into a state where I do something without knowing why I do i
  • This is a complex problem and difficult to explain: all that one can say is that the unconscious plays an incalculable rol
  • Nonetheless, these self-observations about the complementary roles of the unconscious and conscious aspects of musical creativity do not cover the wide range of claims in psychological research on creativity
  • I strongly believe that, if we cannot explain this process, then we must acknowledge it as a mystery.25 Mysteries are not solved by encouraging us not to declare them to be mysteries
  • When Ligeti was commissioned to write a companion piece for Brahms' Horn Trio, he declared, "When the sound of an instrument or a group of instruments or the human voice finds an echo in me, in the musical idea within me, then I can sit down and compose. [O]therwise I canno
  • Extra-musical images may also provide the composer with ideas and material and contribute to musical creativity.
  • ome composers need to have something for it to react against.38 Xenakis, however, asserted that "all truly creative people escape this foolish side of work, the exaltation of sentiments. They are to be discarded like the fat surrounding meat before it is cooked."
  • as, as these examples show, dreams can also solve certain problems of the creative process.
  • In other words, to compose does not mean to merely carry out an initial idea. The composer reserves the right to change his or her mind after the conception of an idea.
  • n sum, self-imposed restrictions or "boundary conditions"55 seem to provide composers with a kind of pretext to choose from an otherwise chaotic multitude of compositional possibilities that, however, gradually disappears and gets absorbed into the process of composition which is characterized by the composers' aesthetic perceptions and choices.
  • Therefore, it is not surprising that influences from the musical world in which the composer lives play an important role in the creative process
  • Thereby the past is seen as being comprised by a static system of rules and techniques that needs to be innovated and emancipated during the composers' search for their own musical identity.
  • I strongly suggest that we play down basics like who influenced whom, and instead study the way the influence is transformed; in other words: how the artist made it his own.
  • Nothing I found was based on the "masterpiece," on the closed cycle, on passive contemplation or narrowly aesthetic pleasure.61
  • Furthermore, for some composers the musical influence can emerge from the development of computer technology.
  • In sum, the compositional process proceeds in a kind of personal and social tension. In many cases, composers are faced with the tensive conflict between staying with tradition and breaking new ground at each step in the process. Thus, one might conclude that the creative process springs from a systematic viewpoint determined by a number of choices in which certain beliefs, ideas, and influences—by no means isolated from the rest of the composer's life—play a dominant role in the search for new possibilities of expression.
  • If a general educational approach is to emerge from the alloy of composers' experiences of their music creativity, it rests on the realization that the creative process involves a diversity of idiosyncratic conscious and unconscious traits.
  • After all, the creative process is an elusive cultural activity with no recipes for making it happen.
  • n this light, the common thread of composers' idiosyncratic concerns and practices that captures the overall aura of their music creativity pertains to (a) the intangibility of the unconscious throughout the compositional process,68 (b) the development of musical individuality,69 and (c) the desire to transgress existing rules and codes, due to their personal and social conflict between tradition and innovation.70
  • In turn, by making student composers in different classroom settings grasp the essence of influential professional composers' creative concerns, even if they do not intend to become professional composers, we can help them immerse in learning experiences that respect the mysteries of their intuitions, liberate their own practices of critical thinking in music, and dare to create innovative music that expresses against-the-prevailing-grain musical beliefs and ideas.
  • Therefore, it is critical that the music teacher be seen as the facilitator of students' compositional processes helping students explore and continuously discover their own creative personalities and, thus, empowering their personal involvement with music. Any creative work needs individual attention and encouragement for each vision and personal experience are different.
  • After all, the quality of mystery is a common theme in nearly every composer's accoun
  • Failing this, musical creativity remains a predictable academic exercise
  • Music teachers need to possess the generosity to refuse to deny student composers the freedom to reflect their own insights back to them and, in turn, influence the teachers' musical reality
  • Indeed, it is important that music teachers try to establish students gradually as original, independent personalities who try to internalize sounds and, thus, unite themselves with their environment in a continuous creative process.
  • Music teachers, therefore, wishing student composers to express and exercise all their ideas, should grant them ample time to work on their compositions,
  • n sum, music knowledge or techniques and the activation of the student composers' desire for discovery and innovation should evolve together through balanced stimulation.
  • While music creativity has been a component of music education research for decades, some of the themes arising from professional composers' experiences of their creativity, such as the significance of the unconscious, the apprehension towards discovering ones' own musical language, or the personal and social tension between tradition and innovation, among others, have not been adequately recognized in the literature of music education
  • By doing this, I strongly believe that musical creativity in general and composing in particular run the risk of becoming a predictable academic exercise
  • which merely demands problem-solving skills on the part of the student composers (or alleged "critical thinkers").
  • . On the other hand, only few music educators appear to draw their composer students' attention to the importance of the personal and social conflict between staying within a tradition or code, even if it is the Western popular music tradition, and breaking new ground at each step in the creative process and, possibly, shaping new traditions or codes.
  • Culture is a precious human undertaking, and the host of musics, arts, languages, religions, myths, and rituals that comprise it need to be carefully transmitted to the young and transformed in the process."85
  • Nevertheless, further research is needed in which women's voices can be heard that may offer an emancipatory perspective for the instruction of composition in education which will "challenge the political domination of men."
Nigel Coutts

What it takes for deep learning in primary education? - The Learner's Way - 7 views

thelearnersway.net/...-learning-in-primary-education

deep learning primary education teaching

shared by Nigel Coutts on 27 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • Nigel Coutts on 27 Oct 19
     
    Our goal might be to support Deep versus Surface Learning, but what does this mean in practical terms. What are the beliefs and dispositions which support teaching for deep learning, and what are the implications of this in terms of the pedagogy we adopt?
Rafael Morales_Gamboa

Contemplating the consequences of Constructivism - The Learner's Way - 21 views

thelearnersway.net/...consequences-of-constructivism

constructivism teaching learning

shared by Rafael Morales_Gamboa on 10 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • learning is a process which occurs within the mind of the individual as they process stimuli arriving from their sensory buffer from their environment (broadly speaking), into working memory and onward into long-term memory. 
    • Rafael Morales_Gamboa
      Rafael Morales_Gamboa on 11 Sep 17
       
      The emphasis does not have to be on the individual, as is common. The social group learns by means of individual, but joined and synchronized, learning.
  • self-guided learning or self-initiated learning
    • Rafael Morales_Gamboa
      Rafael Morales_Gamboa on 11 Sep 17
       
      Not in the case of social constructivism.
  • what is significant
    • Rafael Morales_Gamboa
      Rafael Morales_Gamboa on 11 Sep 17
       
      To others...
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • independent practice
    • Rafael Morales_Gamboa
      Rafael Morales_Gamboa on 11 Sep 17
       
      and social practice
  • the research on what produces effective learning supports this
    • Rafael Morales_Gamboa
      Rafael Morales_Gamboa on 11 Sep 17
       
      Of course, that depends on what exactly is evaluated.
  • This desire is evident when we expect our learners to be scientists, historians, geographers, researchers and problem solvers/finders.
    • Rafael Morales_Gamboa
      Rafael Morales_Gamboa on 11 Sep 17
       
      As well as critical citizens.
  • We teach the skills of inquiry, problem solving and experimentation and then provide opportunities for independent practice.
    • Rafael Morales_Gamboa
      Rafael Morales_Gamboa on 11 Sep 17
       
      Can you imagine anything a better explanation of "knowledge transfer"?
  • we have previously instructed them in
  • The gradual release of responsibility model of instruction suggests that cognitive work should shift slowly and intentionally from teacher modeling, to joint responsibility between teachers and students, to independent practice and application by the learner
    • Rafael Morales_Gamboa
      Rafael Morales_Gamboa on 11 Sep 17
       
      Does not sounds like the classroom is empty? Classmates? Who cares about them?
  • It is not always the case that learning is best served when the process begins with direct instruction.
  • Schools provide a rich environment within which such learning may occur
    • Rafael Morales_Gamboa
      Rafael Morales_Gamboa on 11 Sep 17
       
      It is not always the case, and I would rather say that is not often the case, if our cultural legacy that depicts the school in literature and films.
  • best model can be to begin with an independent exploration of new content even when this produces failure
  • schools maximise their impact on the learning that occurs
  • constructivism urges teachers to ensure that the learner is at least as involved in the process as their teachers are
    • Rafael Morales_Gamboa
      Rafael Morales_Gamboa on 11 Sep 17
       
      I would call that "teacher-centred constructivism".
  • Nigel Coutts on 10 Sep 17
     
    Constructivism is one of those ideas we throw around in educational circles without stopping to think about what we mean by it. They are the terms that have multiple meanings, are at once highly technical and common usage and are likely to cause debate and disagreements. Constructivism in particular carries a quantity of baggage with it. It is a term that is appropriated by supporters of educational approaches that are in stark contrast to the opposing view; constructivism vs didactic methods or direct instruction. The question is what are the origins of constructivism and does a belief in this as an approach to understanding learning necessitate an abandonment of direct instruction or is this a false dichotomy?
Roland Gesthuizen

Habits and Habitats: Rethinking Learning Spaces for the 21st Century - 92 views

www.ryanbretag.com/blog

learningspaces design education teaching learning

shared by Roland Gesthuizen on 28 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • The question is how will you change the school from a collection of classrooms to a robust multidimensional learning space capable of fostering well-educated, 21st Century citizens?
  • As Sir Ken Robinson stated, “If we are looking for new pedagogical practices, we have to have facilities that will enable those to happen.”
  • Roland Gesthuizen on 29 Nov 10
     
    In many classrooms, the picture is all too familiar: desks in rows, a clear front of the classroom, podium off-center in the front, etc.. Does this image speak to the beliefs we state about 21st Century Learning? Are these spaces best capable of fostering the development of our vision for a well-educated global citizen? Have the spaces been intentionally designed in a way that supports learning and teaching?
Jennie Snyder

Lydia Dobyns: A '21st Century' Education Is SO Last Century - 34 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...tury-education-_b_2441252.html

deeperlearning edleader21 change 21stcentury learning

shared by Jennie Snyder on 27 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • We can't know what the classroom will look or feel like. We do know, however, that most school districts are organized to deliver education that inhibits rather than encourages innovation. That needs to change.
  • like "Deeper Learning" as a way to convey both the acquisition of knowledge and the transference/application of knowledge along with developing skills employers find valuable -- collaboration, communications and critical thinking
  • t's time to move on and work together to develop education systems that meet students where they live and provide a relevant education to develop cognitive and non-cognitive skills
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Of course, schools and classroom practices need to be current -- what teacher or district leader would say that we should continue to teach the way we did back in the "good ol' days?" Can you show me a successful organization or business that prides itself on keeping things exactly the way they were?
  • We need to believe the adults delivering education services are capable of being innovative, adaptive and collaborative and welcome being accountable for student outcomes. Then we need to invest in this belief by providing both the professional development and the infrastructure to make this belief a reality for all students and all teachers.
  • Ultimately, it is about delivering core education in today's world by today's standards of success.
  • I believe this is the basic approach: Education needs to be more relevant and rigorous for students. Educational institutions need to be more engaging and empowering for teachers. A high school diploma needs to be more directly applicable and valued in the economy. These are attainable goals; all education investments should be measured against these objectives.
  • Jennie Snyder on 27 Jan 13
     
    Lydia Dobyns: A '21st Century' Education Is SO Last Century http://t.co/fieSUgnj #deeperlearning #edleader21
Mr. Eason

Educational Leadership:Teaching for the 21st Century:21st Century Skills: The Challenge... - 119 views

www.ascd.org/...lls@-The-Challenges-Ahead.aspx

21stcenturyskills teaching

shared by Mr. Eason on 11 May 12 - Cached
  • the skills students need in the 21st century are not new.
  • Critical thinking and problem solving, for example, have been components of human progress throughout history
  • What's actually new is the extent to which changes in our economy and the world mean that collective and individual success depends on having such skills
  • ...27 more annotations...
  • Many reform efforts, from reducing class size to improving reading instruction, have devolved into fads or been implemented with weak fidelity to their core intent. The 21st century skills movement faces the same risk.
  • some of the rhetoric we have heard surrounding this movement suggests that with so much new knowledge being created, content no longer matters; that ways of knowing information are now much more important than information itself. Such notions contradict what we know about teaching and learning and raise concerns that the 21st century skills movement will end up being a weak intervention for the very students—low-income students and students of color—who most need powerful schools as a matter of social equity.
  • First, educators and policymakers must ensure that the instructional program is complete and that content is not shortchanged for an ephemeral pursuit of skills
  • Second, states, school districts, and schools need to revamp how they think about human capital in education—in particular how teachers are trained
  • inally, we need new assessments that can accurately measure richer learning and more complex tasks
  • Skills and knowledge are not separate, however, but intertwined.
  • In some cases, knowledge helps us recognize the underlying structure of a problem.
  • At other times, we know that we have a particular thinking skill, but domain knowledge is necessary if we are to use it.
  • if skills are independent of content, we could reasonably conclude that we can develop these skills through the use of any content. For example, if students can learn how to think critically about science in the context of any scientific material, a teacher should select content that will engage students (for instance, the chemistry of candy), even if that content is not central to the field. But all content is not equally important to mathematics, or to science, or to literature. To think critically, students need the knowledge that is central to the domain.
  • The importance of content in the development of thinking creates several challenges
  • first is the temptation to emphasize advanced, conceptual thinking too early in training
  • Another curricular challenge is that we don't yet know how to teach self-direction, collaboration, creativity, and innovation the way we know how to teach long division.
  • But experience is not the same thing as practice. Experience means only that you use a skill; practice means that you try to improve by noticing what you are doing wrong and formulating strategies to do better. Practice also requires feedback, usually from someone more skilled than you are.
  • We must plan to teach skills in the context of particular content knowledge and to treat both as equally important.
  • education leaders must be realistic about which skills are teachable. If we deem that such skills as collaboration and self-direction are essential, we should launch a concerted effort to study how they can be taught effectively rather than blithely assume that mandating their teaching will result in students learning them.
  • teachers don't use them.
  • Even when class sizes are reduced, teachers do not change their teaching strategies or use these student-centered method
  • these methods pose classroom management problems for teachers.
  • These methods also demand that teachers be knowledgeable about a broad range of topics and are prepared to make in-the-moment decisions as the lesson plan progresses.
  • constant juggling act
  • greater collaboration among teachers.
  • But where will schools find the release time for such collaboration?
  • professional development is a massive undertaking.
  • Unfortunately, there is a widespread belief that teachers already know how to do this if only we could unleash them from today's stifling standards and accountability metrics. This notion romanticizes student-centered methods, underestimates the challenge of implementing such methods, and ignores the lack of capacity in the field today.
  • The first challenge is the cost.
  • measures that encourage greater creativity, show how students arrived at answers, and even allow for collaboration.
  • When students first encounter new ideas, their knowledge is shallow and their understanding is bound to specific examples. They need exposure to varied examples before their understanding of a concept becomes more abstract and they can successfully apply that understanding to novel situations.
Matt Renwick

Common Core Reading: Difficult, Dahl, Repeat : NPR Ed : NPR - 42 views

www.npr.org/...-reading-difficult-dahl-repeat

core reading npr beliefs+practices

shared by Matt Renwick on 18 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • Ms. Wertheimer warms them up with a text-dependent question: "Are all of these native peoples nomadic?"
    • Matt Renwick
      Matt Renwick on 18 Nov 14
       
      "Warms them up" - That is not the descriptor I would use for that question.
  • "On page 6, paragraph 2," he says, "the first sentence: 'The Haida and Tlingit of the Northwest built permanent wooden homes called longhouses.' "
    • Matt Renwick
      Matt Renwick on 18 Nov 14
       
      How is this any different than the outdate practice of call and answer?
  • seems to engage the kids
    • Matt Renwick
      Matt Renwick on 18 Nov 14
       
      Because the hands shot up?
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • tiring work for the kids
    • Matt Renwick
      Matt Renwick on 18 Nov 14
       
      Why is it tiring? Shouldn't it be invigorating?
  • dives into the packet
    • Matt Renwick
      Matt Renwick on 18 Nov 14
       
      An oxymoron if I every saw one.
  • It's a way of labeling books based on the skill needed to read them.
    • Matt Renwick
      Matt Renwick on 18 Nov 14
       
      Or a way of labeling students, at least indirectly.
  • kids here have leveled libraries
  • counterbalance to the tough stuff
    • Matt Renwick
      Matt Renwick on 18 Nov 14
       
      Kids will challenge themselves, when the text invites learners to challenge it. The requires provocative reading.
  • seems to engage the kids
  • d. Or, to
Marianne Hart

The Creativity Crisis - Newsweek - 48 views

www.newsweek.com/...the-creativity-crisis.html

shared by Marianne Hart on 13 Jul 10 - Cached
  • there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.
  • “Creativity can be taught,”
  • it’s left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative: there’s no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of all children
    • Brian C. Smith
      Brian C. Smith on 26 Jul 10
       
      Students are labeled as "creative" if they display a knack for art or music, and sometimes in writing, however, they are rarely recognized as creative in math or science where a lot of creativity is not only needed, but excellent for learning within those very two disciplines.
    • Bill Genereux
      Bill Genereux on 23 Aug 10
       
      This is precisely why creativity education is important. It is needed everywhere, not just in the arts. Those teaching outside of arts education need to start recognizing the importance of creative thinking as well.
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • When faculty of a major Chinese university asked Plucker to identify trends in American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing. “After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud,” Plucker says. “They said, ‘You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.’ ”
  • The argument that we can’t teach creativity because kids already have too much to learn is a false trade-off. Creativity isn’t about freedom from concrete facts. Rather, fact-finding and deep research are vital stages in the creative process.
  • When you try to solve a problem, you begin by concentrating on obvious facts and familiar solutions, to see if the answer lies there. This is a mostly left-brain stage of attack. If the answer doesn’t come, the right and left hemispheres of the brain activate together. Neural networks on the right side scan remote memories that could be vaguely relevant. A wide range of distant information that is normally tuned out becomes available to the left hemisphere, which searches for unseen patterns, alternative meanings, and high-level abstractions. Having glimpsed such a connection, the left brain must quickly lock in on it before it escapes. The attention system must radically reverse gears, going from defocused attention to extremely focused attention. In a flash, the brain pulls together these disparate shreds of thought and binds them into a new single idea that enters consciousness. This is the “aha!” moment of insight, often followed by a spark of pleasure as the brain recognizes the novelty of what it’s come up with. Now the brain must evaluate the idea it just generated. Is it worth pursuing? Creativity requires constant shifting, blender pulses of both divergent thinking and convergent thinking, to combine new information with old and forgotten ideas. Highly creative people are very good at marshaling their brains into bilateral mode, and the more creative they are, the more they dual-activate.
  • those who diligently practice creative activities learn to recruit their brains’ creative networks quicker and better
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 23 Jul 10
       
      Surely, "more quickly"?
  • Creativity has always been prized in American society, but it’s never really been understood. While our creativity scores decline unchecked, the current national strategy for creativity consists of little more than praying for a Greek muse to drop by our houses. The problems we face now, and in the future, simply demand that we do more than just hope for inspiration to strike. Fortunately, the science can help: we know the steps to lead that elusive muse right to our doors.
    • Brian C. Smith
      Brian C. Smith on 26 Jul 10
       
      Likely because it was out of necessity and the hardships of life. Not that we don't have hardships and necessities, but innovation has solved a lot of problems and automation has made skills and tasks easy.
  • What’s common about successful programs is they alternate maximum divergent thinking with bouts of intense convergent thinking, through several stages. Real improvement doesn’t happen in a weekend workshop. But when applied to the everyday process of work or school, brain function improves.
    • Brian C. Smith
      Brian C. Smith on 26 Jul 10
       
      Everyday process of work or school... over time, consistent and non-prescriptive.
  • kids demonstrated the very definition of creativity: alternating between divergent and convergent thinking, they arrived at original and useful ideas. And they’d unwittingly mastered Ohio’s required fifth-grade curriculum—from understanding sound waves to per-unit cost calculations to the art of persuasive writing. “You never see our kids saying, ‘I’ll never use this so I don’t need to learn it,’ ” says school administrator Maryann Wolowiec. “Instead, kids ask, ‘Do we have to leave school now?’ ” Two weeks ago, when the school received its results on the state’s achievement test, principal Traci Buckner was moved to tears. The raw scores indicate that, in its first year, the school has already become one of the top three schools in Akron, despite having open enrollment by lottery and 42 percent of its students living in poverty.
  • project-based learning
  • highly creative adults frequently grew up with hardship. Hardship by itself doesn’t lead to creativity, but it does force kids to become more flexible—and flexibility helps with creativity.
  • When creative children have a supportive teacher—someone tolerant of unconventional answers, occasional disruptions, or detours of curiosity—they tend to excel. When they don’t, they tend to underperform and drop out of high school or don’t finish college at high rates. They’re quitting because they’re discouraged and bored, not because they’re dark, depressed, anxious, or neurotic. It’s a myth that creative people have these traits. (Those traits actually shut down creativity; they make people less open to experience and less interested in novelty.) Rather, creative people, for the most part, exhibit active moods and positive affect. They’re not particularly happy—contentment is a kind of complacency creative people rarely have. But they’re engaged, motivated, and open to the world.
  • solutions emerge from a healthy marketplace of ideas, sustained by a populace constantly contributing original ideas and receptive to the ideas of others
  • The age-old belief that the arts have a special claim to creativity is unfounded.
  • When scholars gave creativity tasks to both engineering majors and music majors, their scores laid down on an identical spectrum, with the same high averages and standard deviations. Inside their brains, the same thing was happening—ideas were being generated and evaluated on the fly.
  • The lore of pop psychology is that creativity occurs on the right side of the brain. But we now know that if you tried to be creative using only the right side of your brain, it’d be like living with ideas perpetually at the tip of your tongue, just beyond reach
  • those who diligently practice creative activities learn to recruit their brains’ creative networks quicker and better. A lifetime of consistent habits gradually changes the neurological pattern.
  • The home-game version of this means no longer encouraging kids to spring straight ahead to the right answer
  • The new view is that creativity is part of normal brain function.
  • “As a child, I never had an identity as a ‘creative person,’ ” Schwarzrock recalls. “But now that I know, it helps explain a lot of what I felt and went through.”
  • In China there has been widespread education reform to extinguish the drill-and-kill teaching style. Instead, Chinese schools are also adopting a problem-based learning approach.
  • fact-finding
  • problem-finding
  • Next, idea-finding
  • there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.
  • Christian Howd on 13 Jul 10
     
    For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. What went wrong-and how we can fix it.
meghankelly492

The rise of creative youth development: Arts Education Policy Review: Vol 118, No 1 - 3 views

www.tandfonline.com/...10632913.2015.1064051

world Music

shared by meghankelly492 on 11 Aug 19 - No Cached
  • The article describes creative youth development in the larger contexts of arts education and of education reform.
  • Lastly, the article discusses policy, funding, and research needs and opportunities and provides questions for consideration.
  • Yet these two worlds largely exist apart, failing to address the reality that youth learn and grow—or fail to reach their potential—through influences and experiences in all spheres of their lives, including home, school, and the settings where they spend time outside of schoo
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • attention due to their high levels of youth engagement that contribute to substantial learning, enhanced critical thinking
  • such as heightened confidence and sense of agency
  • Decades of research findings link adolescent engagement, efficacy, and responsibility with opportunities for immersion and mastery, connection in a community of practice, embracing youth voice, and cultivating youth leadership with adolescent engagement, and non-school settings have emerged as crucial developmental and learning environments for youth
  • Throughout the United States, teen participants in CYD programs assert that the programs saved their lives, putting them on positive trajectories and away from gangs, drug use, crime, and ennui.
  • The creative process at the center of CYD programs contributes to profound personal growth for youth participants
  • And as they experience the creative process over an extended period, they learn that they can use it to express their own identities, understand and change the world around them, and connect to the greater human experience.”
  • community of practice of youth artists and their artist mentors, the paid, professional artists who comprise the full-time faculty. SAY Sí boasts a 100% rate of graduation and pursuit of higher education in a community with a 45% dropout rat
  • hese programs had a central belief in the ability of young people to achieve and grow artistically and personally through creative expression and skill building in the arts.
  • impact of arts-based youth programs in reducing risk factors and building protective factors in a study conducted in three American cities
  • She also catalogued characteristics of effective CYD programs, such as supporting risk within a safe space (
  • Teens develop intrinsic motivation as they immerse themselves and develop competence in a topic, connect with others who share this interest, and work with educators positioned as senior collaborators—
tedmastin

Organisational Learning - The Learner's Way - 2 views

thelearnersway.net/...organisational-learning

Teaching collaboration learning organization

shared by tedmastin on 25 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • Certain conditions are critical for the establishment and success of a learning organisation and there are parallels here to the practices of effective pedagogy in an inquiry based learning environment. If our goal is to have every member of an organisation contribute to the learning that occurs then we must establish a culture that allows this to occur. Feelings of safety, acceptance of diversity and risk taking must become parts of the culture. In our classes we establish the conditions where our students feel safe sharing their ideas even when they do not conform with the majority. We establish a belief that there are often multiple correct answers and in doing so foster creativity. The same conditions are required in our learning organisations.  Nurturing a learning organisation is a little like nurturing a garden and Tim Brown echoes this sentiment ""It's about nurturing the conditions in which creativity is most likely to happen, That's really about culture, environment, rituals—the sorts of things that give people permission to explore, that encourage open-mindedness, collaboration, experimentation, and risk taking."
  • Nigel Coutts on 25 Sep 16
     
    For schools the concept of a learning organisation should make perfect sense, after all learning is our core business, or it should be. Perhaps that almost three decades after Peter Senge identified the importance of learning within organisations the idea is only now gaining traction in schools tells us something about the approach taken to learning and teaching within schools. With an increased focus on the development of professional learning communities as a response to the complex challenges that emerge from a rapidly changing society, it is worth looking at what a learning organisation requires for success.
Jennie Snyder

Atul Gawande: How Do Good Ideas Spread? : The New Yorker - 36 views

www.newyorker.com/...130729fa_fact_gawande

Innovation

shared by Jennie Snyder on 01 Aug 13 - No Cached
  • Why do some innovations spread so swiftly and others so slowly
  • Consider the very different trajectories of surgical anesthesia and antiseptics, both of which were discovered in the nineteenth century.
  • The first public demonstration of anesthesia was in 1846.
  • ...18 more annotations...
  • nsisted that he had found a gas that could render patients insensible to the pain of surgery.
  • The idea spread like a contagion, travelling through letters, meetings, and periodicals. By mid-December, surgeons were administering ether to patients in Paris and London. By February, anesthesia had been used in almost all the capitals of Europe, and by June in most regions of the world.
  • On October 16, 1846, at Massachusetts General Hospital, Morton administered his gas through an inhaler in the mouth of a young man undergoing the excision of a tumor in his jaw.
  • Four weeks later, on November 18th, Bigelow published his report on the discovery of “insensibility produced by inhalation” in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal.
  • There were forces of resistance, to be sure. Some people criticized anesthesia as a “needless luxury”; clergymen deplored its use to reduce pain during childbirth as a frustration of the Almighty’s designs.
  • Yet soon even the obstructors, “with a run, mounted behind—hurrahing and shouting with the best.” Within seven years, virtually every hospital in America and Britain had adopted the new discovery.
  • Sepsis—infection—was the other great scourge of surgery. It was the single biggest killer of surgical patients, claiming as many as half of those who underwent major operations
  • nfection was so prevalent that suppuration—the discharge of pus from a surgical wound—was thought to be a necessary part of healing.
  • In the eighteen-sixties, the Edinburgh surgeon Joseph Lister read a paper by Louis Pasteur laying out his evidence that spoiling and fermentation were the consequence of microorganisms. Lister became convinced that the same process accounted for wound sepsis.
  • Lister had read about the city of Carlisle’s success in using a small amount of carbolic acid to eliminate the odor of sewage, and reasoned that it was destroying germs. Maybe it could do the same in surgery.
  • During the next few years, he perfected ways to use carbolic acid for cleansing hands and wounds and destroying any germs that might enter the operating field.
  • The result was strikingly lower rates of sepsis and death.
  • Far from it.
  • Surgeons soaked their instruments in carbolic acid, but they continued to operate in black frock coats stiffened with the blood and viscera of previous operations—the badge of a busy practice.
  • hey reused sea sponges without sterilizing them.
  • It was a generation before Lister’s recommendations became routine and the next steps were taken toward the modern standard of asepsis—that is, entirely excluding germs from the surgical field, using heat-sterilized instruments and surgical teams clad in sterile gowns and gloves.
  • Maybe ideas that violate prior beliefs are harder to embrace. To nineteenth-century surgeons, germ theory seemed as illogica
  • The technical complexity might have been part of the difficulty. Giving Lister’s methods “a try” required painstaking attention to detail.
Matt Renwick

How and How Not to Prepare Students for the New Tests - Shanahan - 2014 - The Reading T... - 51 views

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/...full

students tests reading teacher beliefs+practices

shared by Matt Renwick on 22 Nov 14 - No Cached
  • read extensively within instruction
  • read increasing amounts of text without guidance or support.
  • rich in content and sufficiently challenging
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • explain their answers and provide text evidence
  • writing about text, not just in replying to multiple-choice questions.
Benjamin Light

The Costs of Overemphasizing Achievement - 83 views

www.alfiekohn.org/...tcooa.htm

assessment grading achievement education kohn

shared by Benjamin Light on 13 May 11 - Cached
  • First, students tend to lose interest in whatever they’re learning. As motivation to get good grades goes up, motivation to explore ideas tends to go down. Second, students try to avoid challenging tasks whenever possible. More difficult assignments, after all, would be seen as an impediment to getting a top grade. Finally, the quality of students’ thinking is less impressive. One study after another shows that creativity and even long-term recall of facts are adversely affected by the use of traditional grades.
    • Deb White Groebner
      Deb White Groebner on 13 May 11
       
      SO true!
    • Terie Engelbrecht
      Terie Engelbrecht on 27 Jun 11
       
      Very true; especially the "avoiding challenging tasks" part.
  • Unhappily, assessment is sometimes driven by entirely different objectives--for example, to motivate students (with grades used as carrots and sticks to coerce them into working harder) or to sort students (the point being not to help everyone learn but to figure out who is better than whom)
  • Standardized tests often have the additional disadvantages of being (a) produced and scored far away from the classroom, (b) multiple choice in design (so students can’t generate answers or explain their thinking), (c) timed (so speed matters more than thoughtfulness) and (d) administered on a one-shot, high-anxiety basis.
  • ...36 more annotations...
  • The test designers will probably toss out an item that most students manage to answer correctly.
  • the evidence suggests that five disturbing consequences are likely to accompany an obsession with standards and achievement:
  • 1. Students come to regard learning as a chore.
  • intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation tend to be inversely related: The more people are rewarded for doing something, the more they tend to lose interest in whatever they had to do to get the reward.
  • 2. Students try to avoid challenging tasks.
  • they’re just being rational. They have adapted to an environment where results, not intellectual exploration, are what count. When school systems use traditional grading systems--or, worse, when they add honor rolls and other incentives to enhance the significance of grades--they are unwittingly discouraging students from stretching themselves to see what they’re capable of doing.
  • 3. Students tend to think less deeply.
  • 4. Students may fall apart when they fail.
  • 5. Students value ability more than effort
    • Deb White Groebner
      Deb White Groebner on 13 May 11
       
      This is the reinforcement of a "fixed mindset" (vs. (growth mindset) as described by Carol Dweck.
  • They seem to be fine as long as they are succeeding, but as soon as they hit a bump they may regard themselves as failures and act as though they’re helpless to do anything about it.
  • When the point isn’t to figure things out but to prove how good you are, it’s often hard to cope with being less than good.
  • It may be the systemic demand for high achievement that led him to become debilitated when he failed, even if the failure is only relative.
  • But even when better forms of assessment are used, perceptive observers realize that a student’s score is less important than why she thinks she got that score.
  • just smart
  • luck:
  • tried hard
  • task difficulty
  • It bodes well for the future
  • the punch line: When students are led to focus on how well they are performing in school, they tend to explain their performance not by how hard they tried but by how smart they are.
  • In their study of academically advanced students, for example, the more that teachers emphasized getting good grades, avoiding mistakes and keeping up with everyone else, the more the students tended to attribute poor performance to factors they thought were outside their control, such as a lack of ability.
  • When students are made to think constantly about how well they are doing, they are apt to explain the outcome in terms of who they are rather than how hard they tried.
  • And if children are encouraged to think of themselves as "smart" when they succeed, doing poorly on a subsequent task will bring down their achievement even though it doesn’t have that effect on other kids.
  • The upshot of all this is that beliefs about intelligence and about the causes of one’s own success and failure matter a lot. They often make more of a difference than how confident students are or what they’re truly capable of doing or how they did on last week’s exam. If, like the cheerleaders for tougher standards, we look only at the bottom line, only at the test scores and grades, we’ll end up overlooking the ways that students make sense of those results.
  • the problem with tests is not limited to their content.
  • if too big a deal is made about how students did, thus leading them (and their teachers) to think less about learning and more about test outcomes.
  • As Martin Maehr and Carol Midgley at the University of Michigan have concluded, "An overemphasis on assessment can actually undermine the pursuit of excellence."
  • Only now and then does it make sense for the teacher to help them attend to how successful they’ve been and how they can improve. On those occasions, the assessment can and should be done without the use of traditional grades and standardized tests. But most of the time, students should be immersed in learning.
  • the findings of the Colorado experiment make perfect sense: The more teachers are thinking about test results and "raising the bar," the less well the students actually perform--to say nothing of how their enthusiasm for learning is apt to wane.
  • The underlying problem concerns a fundamental distinction that has been at the center of some work in educational psychology for a couple of decades now. It is the difference between focusing on how well you’re doing something and focusing on what you’re doing.
  • The two orientations aren’t mutually exclusive, of course, but in practice they feel different and lead to different behaviors.
  • But when we get carried away with results, we wind up, paradoxically, with results that are less than ideal.
  • Unfortunately, common sense is in short supply today because assessment has come to dominate the whole educational process. Worse, the purposes and design of the most common forms of assessment--both within classrooms and across schools--often lead to disastrous consequences.
  • grades, which by their very nature undermine learning. The proper occasion for outrage is not that too many students are getting A’s, but that too many students have been led to believe that getting A’s is the point of going to school.
  • research indicates that the use of traditional letter or number grades is reliably associated with three consequences.
  • Iowa and Comprehensive Tests of Basic Skills,
    • Benjamin Light
      Benjamin Light on 19 Nov 12
       
      I wonder how the MAP test is set?
  • Rob Reynolds on 14 May 11
     
    The message of Daniel Pinks book "Drive" applies here. Paying someone more, i.e. good grades, does not make them better thinkers, problems solvers, or general more motivated in what they are doing. thanks for sharing.
  • Terie Engelbrecht on 27 Jun 11
     
    Excellent summary!
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