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

Teachers in tertiary education need new strategies to communicate with students of the net generation and to shape enticing educational experiences for them. The use of new approaches such as video-recorded lectures to communicate directly and individually with all students has been the preserve of technology-savvy educators. However, a recent technological advance - the Apple iPad - has the potential to change this situation, offering access to effective and efficient pedagogy in an easy and intuitive way. This paper is a report on the use of the iPad in teaching activities over the past 15 months, showing how it can be used to enhance engagement with learning for tertiary students, both those studying live on campus and those studying at a distance.

Curation

Teachers in Catholic settings can get $6000 scholarships towards certificates in Computational Thinking and Coding, Digital Video, Culturally Responsive Pedagogy, Literacy Leadership, STEM, Technology Integration, or Special Education for General Education Teachers. Teachers in traditional settings can get scholarships for the same for up $2500 for certificates or $5000 towards MAED.

Virtual worlds in social media are now helpful for education K-12 and in the schools of Graduate Study in Education. Social media can manage courses effectively with little strain on students and faculty alike. This is the way to revolutionize education according to Teacher and Researcher, Claire Fontaine. Fontaine, C. (2009). Social Media Practices and Pedagogy. NY, NY: CUNY. http://web.gc.cuny.edu/itp/docs/student_work/CORE%20I/claire_fontaine.pdf

Great article on how pedagogy has shifted and the emergence of modern skills and literacies.   Dr. Gil Perl:" It's the teacher - whether new to the profession or seasoned veteran - who recognizes that the world is changing and that teachers ought to be on the forefront of understanding that change. It's the teacher who has a burning desire to learn more and do more, while being open to reflection and redirection. It's the teacher who encourages his students to take intellectual and emotional risks and models such by extending himself beyond his own comfort zone. It's the educator who embraces the idea that her job is not to teach, but to help students learn"

Originally posted on  What makes you a good instructor in the classroom - does not necessarily translate to good pedagogy in an online learning environment. Online Learning Environments are becomin...

The debate over the most effective method of instruction continues as ever and where one stands on the topic is largely influenced by the purposes one attaches to education. Analysing a series of research articles reveals the nature of the debate between advocates of direct instruction compared to those who support a problem based learning methodology.

"Some of the most dynamic thinkers and doers in education today are pioneers in active learning. Their pedagogy promotes the four Cs that the National Education Association (NEA) deems necessary "for success in college, career, and citizenship in the 21st century": critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration."

The book 'Non Obvious' by Rohit Bhargava present an intriguing exploration of how careful observation and thought can reveal emerging trends and as the subtitle suggest 'predict the future'. For educators the ability to identify the trends which will deliver the best outcomes for our students from the noise of fads is alluring. While the talk of new technologies, of learner centric pedagogies and teaching for lifelong learning play the part of the obvious trends in education identifying the non-obvious trend is a more challenging endeavour. 

This year is the fiftieth birthday of Harvard's Project Zero, a research project designed to explore the nature of thinking and learning and from this suggest pedagogies which align with what we know about the mind. For its birthday celebration Project Zero shared insights from its five decades of research with presentations from Howard Gardner, David Perkins, Shari Tasman, Steve Seidel and Daniel Wilson. The presentations revealed the changing nature of the work of Project Zero from its early days and focus on arts education to its current position as a research organisation with broad interests across education but with a focus on thinking, understanding and the workings of the mind.

Steve Wheeler of the University of Plymouth explores the concept of new learning forms that don't simply place old forms on new digital platforms, but reconsider those forms.

"The series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation."

"Pedagogically I needed a way to describe the diversity of pedagogical approaches and how they could all have a place within the practice of a teacher. It certainly lead to a lot of thinking and reflection .."

"If the right-wing billionaires and apostles of corporate power have their way, public schools will become "dead zones of the imagination," reduced to anti-public spaces that wage an assault on critical thinking, civic literacy and historical memory. Since the 1980s, schools have increasingly become testing hubs that de-skill teachers and disempower students."

The framework is expressed as eight interconnected pedagogies involving narrative-driven learning, visualised learning plans, hands-on/reflective techniques, use of symbols/metaphors, land-based learning, indirect/synergistic logic, modelled/scaffolded genre mastery, and connectedness to community. But these can change in different settings.

In the contemporary classroom, there is much greater consideration of what the learner does in partnership with their teacher so that they develop the capacity to learn. Classroom routines and structures are designed to engage the learner in a rich process of dialogical learning. 

How we see ourselves, how we describe ourselves reveals a great deal about how we see 'others'. In May of this year, speaking to the audience of the International Conference on Thinking, Bruno Della Chiesa invited us to consider how we might approach the question of "who we are?". In responding to such a question, what list of affiliations do we invoke to define ourselves?