I compared my results against national data, and I began beating the averages.
The Coach in the Operating Room - The New Yorker - 37 views
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the obvious struck me as interesting: even Rafael Nadal has a coach. Nearly every élite tennis player in the world does. Professional athletes use coaches to make sure they are as good as they can be.
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They don’t even have to be good at the sport. The famous Olympic gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi couldn’t do a split if his life depended on it. Mainly, they observe, they judge, and they guide.
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Occupy Your Brain - 111 views
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One of the most profound changes that occurs when modern schooling is introduced into traditional societies around the world is a radical shift in the locus of power and control over learning from children, families, and communities to ever more centralized systems of authority.
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Once learning is institutionalized under a central authority, both freedom for the individual and respect for the local are radically curtailed. The child in a classroom generally finds herself in a situation where she may not move, speak, laugh, sing, eat, drink, read, think her own thoughts, or even use the toilet without explicit permission from an authority figure.
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In what should be considered a chilling development, there are murmurings of the idea of creating global standards for education – in other words, the creation of a single centralized authority dictating what every child on the planet must learn.
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Carol Black, creator of the documentary, "Schooling the World" discusses the conflicting ideas of centralized control of education and standardization against the so-called freedom to think independently--"what the Supreme Court has termed 'the sphere of intellect and spirit" (Black, 2012). Root questions: "who's educating us? to what end?" (Black, 2012).
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This is a must read. Carol Black echoes here many of the ideas of Paulo Freire, John Taylor Gatto and the like.
Gold Standard PBL: Essential Project Design Elements | Blog | Project Based Learning | BIE - 76 views
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Sustained
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students ask questions,
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Authenticity
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Would Gandhi Use Social Media?, by Nipun Mehta - 26 views
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but with a conscious mindfulness of their strengths and weaknesses.
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What transformation does is shift the pattern of addiction altogether; changing the habits of your heart was the true genius of these social change giants.
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The Internet, then, is great for spreading awareness and it can be quite powerful in terms of its impact as well. Where it lacks, though, is the third element -- transformation.
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Ending America's 'race to the bottom' - International Herald Tribune - 0 views
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sophisticated examinations that better measure problem-solving and critical thinking.
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Good. Devil in the detail, as always, of course.
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Interestingly, KY is looking to get rid of their sophisticated examinations because of political pressure, lack of comparibility, and $. In the 90s KY was a leader in attempting to change assessment and accountability, but for a plethora of reasons has fallen back in line. Not trying to be negative, but recognize the difficulty in the challenge and hope he's up to it.
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Once charter schools have opened, it becomes politically difficult to close them, even in cases where they are bad or worse than their traditional counterparts.
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Ed, great example of how not to structure the change. Open more charter schools, make them have a 5 year evaluation plan, have an accountability plan in place that allows the school to stay true to their ideal, make changes that they feel will help them achieve their goals, even allow them additional time if results warrant, and then HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE. If they can't show they haven't at least held their own, then close them, but make that part of the evaluation plan from the beginning. The rub of that plan is that you can't hold them accountable at a level that you aren't going to hold everybody else to. What about traditional schools that aren't working, what do you do with those schools? Isn't that one of the big knocks on NCLB that they are 'being taken over' because of some testing system?
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Congress will need to broaden and sustain those reforms in the upcoming reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act.
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Why reauthorize? Why not tear it up and write something better?
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I disagree with tearing it up and starting over, isn't that what we do in education? Try something it doesn't work (for lots of reasons, including lack of implementation), and move on to the next shiny thing. Why not analyze the program, identify the aspects that have shown efficacy, identify the aspects that haven't achieved their goals, make changes that are informed and researchable, put them in place and hold people accountable for implementing. I think NCLB was well intentioned and represented the best thinking of a group of people (in education as in many areas i don't think you can say it represents the best thinking of everyone). I just don't like the idea of letting everyone off the hook by starting over. I believe it reinforces the concept that I don't have to worry about this project because it too will pass.
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Online Education - Introducing the Microlecture Format - Open Education - 4 views
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in online education “tiny bursts can teach just as well as traditional lectures when paired with assignments and discussions.” The microlecture format begins with a podcast that introduces a few key terms or a critical concept, then immediately turns the learning environment over to the students.
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“It’s a framework for knowledge excavation,” Penrose tells Shieh. “We’re going to show you where to dig, we’re going to tell you what you need to be looking for, and we’re going to oversee that process.”
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It clearly will not work for a course that is designed to feature sustained classroom discussions. And while the concept will work well when an instructor wants to introduce smaller chunks of information, it will likely not work very well when the information is more complex.
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Final Report: Friendship | DIGITAL YOUTH RESEARCH - 1 views
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Social relations—not simply physical space—structure the social worlds of youth.
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When teens are involved in friendship-driven practices, online and offline are not separate worlds—they are simply different settings in which to gather with friends and peers
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these dynamics reinforce existing friendship patterns as well as constitute new kinds of social arrangements.
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Technology in Schools Faces Questions on Value - NYTimes.com - 70 views
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When it comes to showing results, he said, “We better put up or shut up.”
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Critics counter that, absent clear proof, schools are being motivated by a blind faith in technology and an overemphasis on digital skills — like using PowerPoint and multimedia tools — at the expense of math, reading and writing fundamentals. They say the technology advocates have it backward when they press to upgrade first and ask questions later.
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how the district was innovating.
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The Creativity Crisis - Newsweek - 48 views
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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.
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“Creativity can be taught,”
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it’s left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative: there’s no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of all children
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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.
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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.
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