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Nigel Coutts

Encouraging Metacognition for Learning - 89 views

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    A critical component of learning is the ability to reflect on one's learning and the processes that occur while we are engaged in learning. If we are to develop independent, empowered learners then we need to build the skills required for metacognition both directly through the provision of suitable strategies and indirectly via the modeling of effective learning that we provide.
Tim Cooper

30 years of collaboration towards empowering children to be creative thinkers on Vimeo - 9 views

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    Great video about Seymour Papert, the Media Lab, Lego Mindstorms and the development of both the Mindstorms robot platform, Scratch and inspiring learning. A little feel good for Lego and MIT but the overall history is correct and inspiring.
meghankelly492

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

  • 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
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  • 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."
Jennie Snyder

Digital Literacy and Citizenship Classroom Curriculum | Common Sense Media - 32 views

  • Common Sense Media offers this FREE Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum to help educators empower their students and their school communities to be safe, responsible, and savvy as they navigate this fast-paced digital world. NO COST to your school.
    • Eric Arbetter
       
      I wonder how we could incorporate this into our current curriculum.  Would it help with CCSS?
    • E. Grysko
       
      As my school is implementing iPads into the classrooms this year, I will probably use some of these lesson plans to teach digital citizenship!
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    FREE Digital Literacy and Citizenship Curriculum.  
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    Free curriculum, aligned to NETS, for digital literacy and digital citizenship
anonymous

Purposeful Professional Learning (Professional Learning That Shifts Practice- Part 1) -... - 10 views

  • allow learners to solve relevant issues that matter to them
    • anonymous
       
      If it doesn't seem to matter to the learners, it will be wasted time for them. Sometimes teachers are only in a PD session for the hours. In such cases, it is the responsibility of the facilitator to make sure there is at least one nugget of info that matters to them.
  • the team determined a specific goal that they wanted to accomplish by the end of the day
    • anonymous
       
      Good practice to ask what individuals hope to gain but also should ask what hope to gain via collaborative efforts. Maybe should ask them to share their top three strengths to give us a place for building upon.
  • To guide the work time, we observed some classrooms and discussed what we noticed. Based on our goals, we set clear targets and some time boundaries to check in on progress.
    • anonymous
       
      We do this with teachers as we begin work with them. Maybe we need to be more transparent and have this in writing as well for them to reference- menu.
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  • each teacher shared what they had learned, what they had created, and their actionable next steps.
    • anonymous
       
      Probably the most important step of the day!
  • The more you empower learners, the more they will be invested in the work.
    • anonymous
       
      Profound statement!
  • society evolves and schools work to meet the needs of learners
    • anonymous
       
      I think one of the keys here is to acknowledge that society is evolving and we need to evolve to meet the needs of society - for example, just because research shows that, for some things, handwriting helps people remember something better or reading a hard copy is easier for comprehension than a digital copy - just because research at this point confirms these concepts, that doesn't mean we don't need to provide opportunities for practice and teach learners to recall digitally written info or comprehend digital text. If that is the trend the world is moving toward, we have to move in that direction as well - or be left behind.
  • purposeful
    • anonymous
       
      We know that when learning is purposeful, students are more engaged and grasp more. So, why wouldn't we want professional learning to be the same?
Melissa Ebeling

Google For Educators - 14 views

  • 7/9/2009Google Apps Tips, Tricks and Even Lesson PlansWant to learn the best ways to use Google Apps in your classroom?  Visit our new Education Community Site, where you can learn tips and tricks on using Gmail, Calendar, Docs and Sites, join our education forum and read news all about Google Apps.  Or check out standardized lesson plans at the new Google Apps Resource Center - for classroom use of our tools across K-12.
  • 7/9/2009Sites for TeachersCheck out the new Sites for Teachers page to see how teachers, students and administrators are using Google Sites to create their class sites, organize school trips, and run school projects. 7/9/2009Books, Books, BooksGoogle has reached an agreement with authors and publishers that will make millions of books more accessible in the U.S.  You can view full pages from and purchase complete access to millions of in-copyright, out-of-print books  or your school can purchase institutional subscriptions to offer your students and teachers complete access to millions of  books.
  • At Google, we support teachers in their efforts to empower students and expand the frontiers of human knowledge. That’s why we’ve assembled the information and tools you’ll find on this
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    Homepage for Google for Educators. Here are links to many of the tools and applications availbable for educational use.
Jennie Snyder

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

  • 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
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  • 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.
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    Lydia Dobyns: A '21st Century' Education Is SO Last Century http://t.co/fieSUgnj #deeperlearning #edleader21
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