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"AUTHOR: ISSIE LAPOWSKY. ISSIE LAPOWSKY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 05.04.15. 05.04.15 TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM. 7:00 AM INSIDE THE SCHOOL SILICON VALLEY THINKS WILL SAVE EDUCATION Click to Open Overlay Gallery Students in the youngest class at the Fort Mason AltSchool help their teacher, Jennifer Aguilar, compile a list of what they know and what they want to know about butterflies. CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK/WIRED SO YOU'RE A parent, thinking about sending your 7-year-old to this rogue startup of a school you heard about from your friend's neighbor's sister. It's prospective parent information day, and you make the trek to San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. You walk up to the second floor of the school, file into a glass-walled conference room overlooking a classroom, and take a seat alongside dozens of other parents who, like you, feel that public schools-with their endless bubble-filled tests, 38-kid classrooms, and antiquated approach to learning-just aren't cutting it. At the same time, you're thinking: this school is kind of weird. On one side of the glass is a cheery little scene, with two teachers leading two different middle school lessons on opposite ends of the room. But on the other side is something altogether unusual: an airy and open office with vaulted ceilings, sunlight streaming onto low-slung couches, and rows of hoodie-wearing employees typing away on their computers while munching on free snacks from the kitchen. And while you can't quite be sure, you think that might be a robot on wheels roaming about. Then there's the guy who's standing at the front of the conference room, the school's founder. Dressed in the San Francisco standard issue t-shirt and jeans, he's unlike any school administrator you've ever met. But the more he talks about how this school uses technology to enhance and individualize education, the more you start to like what he has to say. And so, if you are truly fed up with the school stat

The guideposts are a useful assessment tool based on how individual guides integrate the Four Roles/Resources of the Reader. The guidepost indicators may be used to monitor student learning. However, use the guideposts flexibly. While the guideposts do cover each of the Four Roles/Resources of the Reader, teachers may choose to focus on one or two roles or fewer indicators for each role. Teachers may also find that there are other learning outcomes which they would like to focus on and which reflect the particular needs of their students.

Abstract only is available here - go to MLibrary to get the whole thing -------- Abstract This study seeks to fill a gap in the literature by examining the perceptions of current administrators toward four domains and their associated skill sets needed to fulfill the library's instructional role. Hundreds of Library Directors/Deans/Associate Deans/Heads in academic libraries of all sizes across the United States were surveyed to determine to what extent they value the skill sets associated with the four selected instructional skill domains: two traditional-teaching and presentation-and two more recently adopted by librarians-instructional design and educational technology. The findings of this research indicate that library administrators value the traditional skill sets more than the newer nontraditional skills. The results and possible implications, as well as 

Asa Spencer of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute writes in the Education Gadfly Weekly: "Traditionalists cringe, tech buffs rejoice: This latest NAEP writing assessment for grades eight and twelve marks the first computer-based appraisal (by the "nation's report card") of student proficiency in this subject. It evaluates students' writing skills (what NAEP calls both academic and workplace writing) based on three criteria: idea development, organization, and language facility and conventions. Results were predictably bad: Just twenty-four percent of eighth graders and 27 percent of twelfth graders scored proficient or above. Boys performed particularly poorly; half as many eighth-grade males reached proficiency as their female counterparts. The use of computers adds a level of complexity to these analyses: The software allows those being tested to use a thesaurus (which 29 percent of eighth graders exploited), text-to-speech software (71 percent of eighth graders used), spell check (three-quarters of twelfth graders), and kindred functions. It is unclear whether use of these crutches affected a student's "language facility" scores, though it sure seems likely. While this new mechanism for assessing kids' writing prowess makes it impossible to track trend data, one can make (disheartening) comparisons across subjects. About a third of eighth graders hit the NAEP proficiency benchmark in the latest science, math, and reading assessments, compared to a quarter for writing. So where to go from here? The report also notes that twelfth-grade students who write four to five pages a week score ten points higher than those who write just one page a week. Encouraging students to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) is a start."

important for all us educators to remember: knowledge and extractive industries do not mix. "Across all U.S. metros, the share of workers in resource and extractive industries had no correlation whatsoever to four key measures of regional development: economic output per capita, average wages per capita, income, or median household income (the correlations range from -.08 to .09, none being statistically significant). Conversely, the share of workers employed in idea-based knowledge and creative industries was strongly associated with all four regional development measures (with correlations ranging from .53 to .74). In line with the resource curse hypothesis, the share of employment in resource and extractive industries was negatively associated with share of employment in knowledge industries and also with the share of adults with college degrees, a key measure of skill and human capital which economists uniformly find to be a key driver of short and long-run economic prosperity."

The question of what learning matters most to our students is one that I return to regularly. A fascinating range of models are available each with similar elements but presented in a slightly different manner. Most could be summarised by the 'Four C's' model outlined in 'Most Likely to Succeed' by Tony Wagner and Ted Dintersmith. Critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity are vital and each plays an important role in allowing us to manage the complexity of modern day life. Beyond being relevant to success in the classroom the Four C's are the foundations of life-long learning but I question if alone they are enough. I believe we must include a fifth; compassion.

The Four Rooms of Change is a theory that deals with change, with what happens with people and organizations in change and transition and how they can influence their own and others change processes.

Can four-year-olds be taught programming concepts? A research project at MIT is examining just that question. The researchers in MIT's Media Lab are creating a system that lets children aged four to eight control a robot by showing it stickers they've placed on laminated sheets of paper.

2017 has the potential to be a volatile year in higher education, and that was the case even before Donald Trump took office. Regulatory uncertainty, continued economic and demographic headwinds, and shifts in both domestic and international student enrollment trends are just a few of the rapids that higher-ed leaders will need to navigate. At Academic Impressions, as we review current research and much of the best current thinking on paths forward for colleges and institutions, we want to draw your attention to four stats that are likely to have an immediate impact in 2017-but that not many are paying heed to.

People experience the world using four principal psychological functions-sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking-according to Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung, the founder of analytic psychology. Based on Jung's concepts of introversion and extroversion and his theory of personality types, US mother and daughter team Myers and Briggs created the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test based on the following sets of four dichotomies: Introvert (I)/Extrovert (E) Intuitive (N)/Sensory (S) Thinking (T)/Feeling (F) Judging (J)/Perceiving (P)

" SAMR model is a system which you can use to measure your application of technology, or its level of use. This system consists of four levels: Redefinition, Modification,Augmentation,  and Substitution. Let us now have a look at what these terms mean starting with the least important and moving up to the most important "

mattrenwick.com

Meograph is a free, easy multimedia storytelling tool. Students can quickly combine videos, audio, pictures, text, maps, timelines, and links to create what the developers call "four-dimensional storytelling." No registration is required and an education version is available.  You have to play around with it to get the concept before introducing it to students.

New report from Center on Education and the Workforce, Georgetown University, September 2012, by Anthony P. Carnevale, Tamara Jayasundera, Andrew R. Hanson - Daniela Fairchild of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute writes in The Education Gadfly Weekly: "At 31 percent, the United States currently ranks second among OECD nations-behind Norway-for the percentage of its workforce with a four-year college education. That's the good news. The bad news is that we rank sixteenth for the percentage of our workforce with a sub-baccalaureate education (think: postsecondary and industry-based certificates, associate's degrees). Yet a swath of jobs in America calls for just that sort of preparation, which often begins in high school. Dubbed "middle jobs" in this report by the Center on Education and the Workforce, these employment opportunities pay at least $35,000 a year and are divided among white- and blue-collar work. Yet they are largely ignored in our era of "college for all." In two parts, this report delineates five major categories of career and technical education (CTE), then lists specific occupations that require this type of education. It's full of facts and figures and an excellent resource for those looking to expand rigorous CTE in the U.S. Most importantly, it presents this imperative: Collect data on students who emerge from these programs. By tracking their job placements and wage earnings, we can begin to rate CTE programs, shutter those that are ineffective, and scale up those that are successful. If CTE is ever to gain traction in the U.S.-and shed the stigma of being low-level voc-tech education for kids who can't quite make it academically-this will be a necessary first step."

"After six years of study, more than 3,000 student surveys, nearly 40 interviews, close to 700 anonymous written responses, and numerous observations of students in classes across four disciplines, Dr. Angel Hoekstra knows a thing or two about how to use clickers in the classroom."

I was recently invited to attend the Intel education Summit in Sweden. This blog posting cites the four best presentations from my point of view on teaching and learning.

"CAMPBELL Walsh was sick of waiting for his NAPLAN test results. ''I wanted to know how I'd done. It had already been about four months and I still hadn't got the results,'' says the year 5 student from Aitken Creek Primary in the outer Melbourne suburb of Craigieburn. "