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Jennie Snyder

Elizabeth English: Why So Many Schools Remain Penitentiaries of Boredom - 80 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...y-schools-remai_b_2412120.html

schools reform learning education

shared by Jennie Snyder on 20 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Instead, educators must become designers of doing.
  • eaching is a highly skilled craft, requiring not only explicit objectives, but a beautifully designed and irresistible learning experience that asks students think critically, solve a problem, create a product.
  • Educational leaders have to have the courage to reinvent our schools for real this time. And our teachers must be teachers of children as well as teachers of their subject area. This means possessing pedagogical knowledge -- the tools in the tool belt to design a lesson for the students of the present and the problems of the future.
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  • Our schools and teaching have to be worthy of a student's attention.
  • And here's where our schools become relevant once more: in teaching our children to evaluate and use that information in ways that are important and meaningful and to satisfy their fundamental human desire to construct solutions for the world full of engaging and pressing problems they will inherit.
Nigel Coutts

Making as Problem Based Learning - 56 views

thelearnersway.net/...king-as-problem-based-learning

resources learning making

shared by Nigel Coutts on 15 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Nigel Coutts on 15 Nov 15
     
    Recently many of our Year Six students have been involved in projects that require them to utilise the brain of a maker. Facing challenges involving the exploration of how everyday objects are manufactured and while responding to their 'Genius Hour' ambitions they are facing a new set of problems and discovering the joy that comes from solving these with their hands as much as their brains.
Maughn Gregory

How to Fix Our Math Education - NYTimes.com - 63 views

www.nytimes.com/...to-fix-our-math-education.html

education math ed_aims ed_content applied

shared by Maughn Gregory on 25 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • the assumption that there is a single established body of mathematical skills that everyone needs to know to be prepared for 21st-century careers. This assumption is wrong. The truth is that different sets of math skills are useful for different careers, and our math education should be changed to reflect this fact.
  • Today, American high schools offer a sequence of algebra, geometry, more algebra, pre-calculus and calculus (or a “reform” version in which these topics are interwoven). This has been codified by the Common Core State Standards, recently adopted by more than 40 states. This highly abstract curriculum is simply not the best way to prepare a vast majority of high school students for life.
  • A math curriculum that focused on real-life problems would still expose students to the abstract tools of mathematics, especially the manipulation of unknown quantities. But there is a world of difference between teaching “pure” math, with no context, and teaching relevant problems that will lead students to appreciate how a mathematical formula models and clarifies real-world situations.
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  • For instance, how often do most adults encounter a situation in which they need to solve a quadratic equation? Do they need to know what constitutes a “group of transformations” or a “complex number”? Of course professional mathematicians, physicists and engineers need to know all this, but most citizens would be better served by studying how mortgages are priced, how computers are programmed and how the statistical results of a medical trial are to be understood.
  • Imagine replacing the sequence of algebra, geometry and calculus with a sequence of finance, data and basic engineering.
  • Traditionalists will object that the standard curriculum teaches valuable abstract reasoning, even if the specific skills acquired are not immediately useful in later life. A generation ago, traditionalists were also arguing that studying Latin, though it had no practical application, helped students develop unique linguistic skills. We believe that studying applied math, like learning living languages, provides both useable knowledge and abstract skills.
  • In math, what we need is “quantitative literacy,” the ability to make quantitative connections whenever life requires (as when we are confronted with conflicting medical test results but need to decide whether to undergo a further procedure) and “mathematical modeling,” the ability to move practically between everyday problems and mathematical formulations (as when we decide whether it is better to buy or lease a new car).
Martin Burrett

Maths Thinking Blocks - Model & Solve Math Word Problems - 73 views

www.mathplayground.com/...g_blocks_modeling%20_tool.html

whiteboard resources blocks maths numeracy

shared by Martin Burrett on 24 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • Martin Burrett on 24 Aug 11
     
    Great multipurpose maths thinking blocks. Add different colour blocks, change their size and break into fractions. Click the 'problems' button and give lots of maths questions to work out with the blocks. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths
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
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  • 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.
dmassicg

Elementary Math Websites To Practice Mixed Operations/Story Problems - A Listly List - 4 views

list.ly/...mixed-operationsstory-problems

math websites

shared by dmassicg on 19 Nov 12 - No Cached
  • A list of websites to help students practice using their problem solving skills to practice mixed operation equations. The list was compiled by Cindy Lawrence, 3rd grade teacher, at Barton Creek Elementary School. The list accompanies unit 8 of the 3rd Grade Everyday Math Curriculum.
Frederick Eberhardt

Powerful Learning: Studies Show Deep Understanding Derives from Collaborative Methods |... - 85 views

www.edutopia.org/uiry-project-learning-research

Collaborative Learning Powerful Student as Researcher

shared by Frederick Eberhardt on 03 Oct 09 - Cached
  • In essence, students must learn how to learn, while responding to endlessly changing technologies and social, economic, and global conditions.
  • students learn more deeply if they have engaged in activities that require applying classroom-gathered knowledge to real-world problems.
  • developing inquiring minds
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  • Studies of problem-based learning suggest that it is comparable, though not always superior, to more traditional instruction in teaching facts and information. However, this approach has been found to be better in supporting flexible problem solving, reasoning skills, and generating accurate hypotheses and coherent explanations.
  • design challenges need to be carefully planned, and they emphasized the importance of dynamic feedback.
  • When students have no prior experience with inquiry learning, they can have difficulty generating meaningful driving questions and logical arguments and may lack background knowledge to make sense of the inquiry.
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 03 Oct 09
       
      Absolutely true. I discovered this when I used inquiry-based methods with my students in Qatar who were used to rote learning. They truly did not know where to start. They first needed to learn *how* to be inquisitive.
  • Requiring students to track and defend their thinking focused them on learning and connecting concepts in their design work
  • All the research arrives at the same conclusion: There are significant benefits for students who work together on learning activities.
  • groups outperform individuals on learning tasks and that individuals who work in groups do better on later individual assessments.
  • In successful group learning, teachers pay careful attention to the work process and interaction among students.
  • "It is not enough to simply tell students to work together. They must have a reason to take one another's achievement seriously.
  • She and her colleagues developed Complex Instruction, one of the best-known approaches, which uses carefully designed activities requiring diverse talents and interdependence among group members.
    • Adrienne Michetti
      Adrienne Michetti on 03 Oct 09
       
      Interesting... worth checking out.
  • They require changes in curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices -- changes that are often new for teachers and students.
  • Adrienne Michetti on 03 Oct 09
     
    A scholarly article with tremendous real-world practical implications and suggestions. Love this.
  • Adrienne Michetti on 03 Oct 09
     
    A scholarly article with tremendous real-world practical implications and suggestions. Love this.
  • Frederick Eberhardt on 06 Oct 11
     
    Vocational Education meets Research in the dynamic classroom of Linda Darling-Hammond, 2008. The students are doing the research, teaching and learning. They control their own destiny and they are taking the world by storm! They are not waiting to be taught, they are teaching each other and themselves as teams of researchers. Darling-Hammond, L. (2008). Powerful learning: what we know about teaching for understanding. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
anonymous

Futures Channel - Common Core and Educational Technology blog - 137 views

www.ccedtech.com

math STEM science writing video resources lessonplans commoncore common core edtech

shared by anonymous on 21 Feb 13 - No Cached
  • anonymous on 21 Feb 13
     
    This is a nice site that includes real-world problems covering a wide range in Math, Science, and more. Lesson plans included. Please take a look at ourCommon Core and Ed Tech blog. Would like any feedback or ideas you may have about what you'd like to see.
Maureen Greenbaum

What It Takes to Move From 'Passive' to 'Active' Tech Use in K-12 Schools - Education Week - 51 views

www.edweek.org/...akes-to-move-from-passive.html

active education digital divide

shared by Maureen Greenbaum on 25 Jun 16 - No Cached
  • U.S. Department of Education's new National Education Technology Plan, which places a premium on closing the so-called "digital-use divide." In the modern era, the plan says, schools must ensure "all students understand how to use technology as a tool to engage in creative, productive, lifelong learning rather than simply consuming passive content."
  • In other words, students should be making things and connecting with others and exploring the world, rather than staring at screens.
  • "In my class, each child decides what it is they want to work on,"
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  • values and beliefs embedded in Craft's classroom projects—student agency, real-world problem solving, hands-on building and experimentation and creation, collaboration with peers and others, working for an audience outside their own classroom, and using technology as a means rather than an end—are what the experts are looking for.
  • students should be creating something, not consuming something.
  • ow educators can make that happen, South said, is by offering students choices in how they get to show what they know.
  • what does passive technology use look like? Why is it a problem
  • "digital divide" emerging, one that is more about how education technology is used than about who has access to it.
Dan Bench

Process vs Product in Maker-centered Learning - The Learner's Way - 42 views

thelearnersway.net/...uct-in-maker-centered-learning

creativity lifelong learning expansion instruction

shared by Dan Bench on 06 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • by ‘Making Thinking Visible’ (MTV) can help here. MTV strategies offer two advantages to teachers and learners. Importantly they provide structure to thinking and encourage a deeper engagement with concepts and ideas. They also allow the thinking that is occurring to be made visible and thus a part of the assessment process
  • mastery of the process that students are utilising as they solve the problems they encounter in their making. How do they deal with obstacles? How did they plan their solution? How effectively do they collaborate? What did they do to understand the problem and how did they monitor their progress?  
  • Students move through phases of thinking that include empathy, needs analysis, ideation, planning, prototyping and evaluation in patterns both linear and non-linear as needs require.
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  • Failing is a part of the process and failing disrupts output based assessments. At the core of the maker philosophy is a process of ideation, iteration and emergence.
  • their Personal Passion Projects. Many of the projects fit neatly into the description of maker-centered learning. These are the projects where the students have identified a need and the solution is a product which they design and then prototype.
  • Nigel Coutts on 06 Nov 16
     
    The maker movement and with it maker-centered learning brings new possibilities and challenges into the classroom. It has spawned makerspaces and students are busy designing and making products. The danger with all this frenzied making is that it is very easy to miss the point, to focus on the product and not the journey.  
Louisa Guest

Harvard Education Letter - 27 views

www.hepg.org/534

education behaviour

shared by Louisa Guest on 08 Sep 12 - No Cached
    • Louisa Guest
      Louisa Guest on 08 Sep 12
       
      get print friendly version for staff
  • Learning to see all behavior as a form of communication, for example, is a key principle that helps when teachers are frustrated or confused by how students are acting. Even though students’ behavior can look bizarre or disruptive, their actions are purposeful and are their attempts to solve a problem.
  • About 10 percent of the school population—or 9–13 million children—struggle with mental health problems. In a typical classroom of 20, chances are good that one or two students are dealing with serious psychosocial stressors relating to poverty, domestic violence, abuse and neglect, or a psychiatric disorder. There is also growing evidence that the number of children suffering the effects of trauma and those with autism-related social deficits is also on the rise.
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  • If teachers are supported to set up classrooms to promote success, these students (and other challenging students who have similar behaviors but may not have individualized education plans, or IEPs) can improve their performance in school and in life.
  • Making positive attention more predictable in the classroom can help break the cycle of negative attention-seeking behaviors. Putting one-on-one time on the student’s personal visual schedule (even if it’s only a couple minutes to read a student’s favorite page in a book) or setting a timer for 10 minutes and telling the student that’s when you will be back are just two strategies that can help.
  • Teachers who work with challenging students need support from administrators and others in the school. It is very stressful to have a student in class who is constantly disruptive. In order to make the necessary investment, the teacher needs substantive support from administrators to avoid frustration and burnout and to garner the energy to provide effective interventions. When administrators delegate some of the teacher’s responsibilities to other people in the building, the teacher can devote more time to finding solutions. Regularly meeting with consultants (e.g., special educators, mental health professionals, and behavior analysts) can be essential for designing how the student progresses, but it also takes up the teacher’s prep time. If possible, the administrator can arrange coverage so that the teacher can meet with consultants at times other than lunch and prep. Support staff can instruct small groups of children while the teacher works with the student with behavior challenges. And since there are usually so many people involved with a struggling student, delineating a clear coordination plan is also critical. It can be helpful, as a team, to make a list of responsibilities and indicate who is responsible for what.
  • The more intensely the student is taught the underdeveloped skills, and the more the environment is changed to encourage appropriate behavior, the more quickly the student’s behavior is likely to change.
Rafael Morales_Gamboa

The underlying inequality of MOOCs | OEB Newsportal - 26 views

www.online-educa.com/...moocs-the-hidden-inequality

shared by Rafael Morales_Gamboa on 03 Sep 13 - No Cached
  • There are a variety of mitigating factors that limit access to MOOCs, many of which are the same as those that also exclude disadvantaged groups from traditional educational models and stem from financial, geographical and educational disparity.
    • Rafael Morales_Gamboa
      Rafael Morales_Gamboa on 03 Sep 13
       
      Of course they are! Whoever is expecting MOOCs to solve the inequality problems created by thousands of years of human culture has a serious mental problem. 
  • often form a core part of MOOC resources
    • Rafael Morales_Gamboa
      Rafael Morales_Gamboa on 03 Sep 13
       
      Often does not mean it has to be that way. So it is an argument against a particularly common type of MOOC, but not the only (neither the best) one.
Thieme Hennis

MOOCs: The cutting announcement of the wrong revolution | betrokken wetenschap - 27 views

hmjvandenbosch.com/...cement-of-the-wrong-revolution

mooc learning education work competencies knowledge-management knowledge theory teaching research

shared by Thieme Hennis on 06 Jul 13 - No Cached
  • A critical assessment of mainstream of higher education reveals that universities spent most energy on delivery of knowledge. Application of knowledge is dominated by ‘near transfer’, which means that students learn to give practical examples of theoretical concepts. ‘Far transfer’ originates from the analysis and solving of real problems, without prior exposure to cues regarding relevant knowledge. It occurs in Schools that deploy problem- or project-based learning. Exchange of codified and practical knowledge is absent in general. It might take place during internships, but projects outside the university are better and moreover, they offer opportunity for integration with other learning processes.
  • A balanced and integrated approach of the three learning processes mentioned above is occurring in only few universities. Elsewhere, students learn (and forget) lots of knowledge, have only limited experience with the application of knowledge and are ignorant of the clash between codified and practical knowledge. Consequently, the majority of our universities are disavowing their main goal, the development of ‘readiness for society’. It is this verdict that justifies a revolution in higher education.
  • Thieme Hennis on 06 Jul 13
     
    interesting comments about different types of transfer, and the role of MOOCs.
Dimitris Tzouris

Techne » Mobile Computing and Education - What are the Conditions for Innovat... - 8 views

blogs.nitle.org/...-the-conditions-for-innovation

techne mobile nitle innovation education technology

shared by Dimitris Tzouris on 25 Jun 10 - Cached
  • We use new technologies in innovative ways to solve problems. The bigger the problem, the more creative and innovative we need to be. It’s like the United State space program in the 1960’s and 70’s. The huge advancements in fuel cells, integrated circuits, or even freeze-dried foods were not the results of research units considering how space travel might work; rather, they were the results of a national imperative to put a person on the moon within a decade.
  • When we have a working, effective systems – like liberal education – new technologies like mobile computing find less context for innovation.
Casey Finnerty

Wired Up: Tuned out | Scholastic.com - 0 views

www2.scholastic.com/...article.jsp

education

shared by Casey Finnerty on 24 Aug 09 - No Cached
  • Compared to us, I believe their brains have developed differently," says Sheehy. "If we teach them the way we were taught, we're not serving them well."
    • Tony Baldasaro
      Tony Baldasaro on 24 Aug 09
       
      Whether their brains have developed differently or not, we still need to teach our students differently than we were taught. They are living in different times with different demands and expectations. If we teach to the demands and expectations of our childhood would not meet our students needs.
  • children were much more likely to have connections between brain regions close together while older subjects were more likely to feature links between parts of the brain that are physically farther apart.
  • "media multi-tasking."
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  • Recent reports from the Pew Internet and American Life Project show that 93 percent of youth ages 12 to 17 go online. Of those kids, 55 percent use social-networking sites (like Facebook and MySpace), and 64 percent are creating their own original content (such as blogs and wikis)
    • Tony Baldasaro
      Tony Baldasaro on 24 Aug 09
       
      Is this all happening outside of the classroom?
  • Unlike watching television, using the Internet allows young people to take an active role; this move from consumption to participation affects the way they construct knowledge, develop their identity, and communicate with others.
  • "It's a shift from how to memorize and retrieve data in one's mind to how to search for and evaluate information out in the world
  • "Computers give you different ways to solve problems, the opportunity to run and test simulations, and a way to offload processing. . . . We need kids to think about problems in innovative and creative ways. We need to change the emphasis of education to focus on higher-order kinds of thinking."
  • Even if we're duplicating a real-life scenario in a virtual environment, the fact that students are engaged with technology and performing through a semblance of anonymity lends itself to a deeper level of discourse.
    • Tony Baldasaro
      Tony Baldasaro on 24 Aug 09
       
      Why do we need anonymity to get to a deeper level of discourse?
  • "If we fail to do so, our kids are going to look at what they're learning in schools and see that it is irrelevant to the future they see before them."
  • Davis says today's teachers are seeking information when they need it instead of waiting for more formal professional development workshops.
    • Casey Finnerty
      Casey Finnerty on 25 Aug 09
       
      Sounds like a quick learner. Does this 15 minute approach really work?
  • Tony Baldasaro on 24 Aug 09
     
    acob is your average American 11-year-old. He has a television and a Nintendo DS in his bedroom; his family also has two computers, a wireless Internet connection, and a PlayStation 3. His parents rely on e-mail, instant messaging, and Skype for daily communication, and they're avid users of Tivo and Netflix. Jacob has asked for a Wii for his upcoming birthday. His selling point? "Mom and Dad, we can use the Wii Fit and race Mario Karts together!"
Michele Brown

Stephen R. Covey: Our Children and the Crisis in Education - 61 views

www.huffingtonpost.com/...ren-and-the-cris_b_545034.html

education leadership

shared by Michele Brown on 21 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Employers and business leaders need people who can think for themselves -- who can take initiative and be the solution to problems. They need people who can build trust and get along with others, and solve complex challenges in teams without much supervision.
  • "Partnerships between schools and parents in educating the whole child, which includes developing both the character strength and the competencies required to really succeed in the 21st Century."
  • A.B. Combs Elementary School in Raleigh, North Carolina
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Seven Habits of Highly Effective People -- a set of universal, timeless, self-evident principles common to every enduring, prospering society, organization, or family. I take no credit for these principles. I simply organized, sequenced and articulated them. These principles include 1) taking personal responsibility and initiative, 2) getting clear about what's important to you and setting goals, 3) putting those priorities first and being disciplined, 4) seeking mutual benefit in all interactions with others -- the golden rule, 5) seeking to understand others from their perspective first before making your point, 6) valuing differences and creating third-alternative solutions to problems that are better than "my way" or "your way," and 7) taking care of and renewing yourself in all four areas of life -- body, mind, heart and spirit.
  • The approach is inside-out, with the teachers and administrators learning, living and modeling the principles themselves first, and then, at the most basic level, integrating the principles into their teaching every day. There is no new curriculum. The principles of effectiveness are creatively woven by teachers into every subject -- reading, math, history, science, social studies, art, etc. From the moment they walk into the school each day until the final bell rings, the children soak in their adult leaders' belief that they are leaders of their own lives, have unique talents, and can make a difference.
  • We don't define leadership as becoming the CEO or the few percent who will end up in big leadership positions. We are talking about leading your own life, being a leader among your friends, being a leader in your own family. Leadership, as one school put it, is doing the right thing even when no one is looking.
  • The world has moved into one of the most profound eras of change in human history.
April Johnson

Defining Active Learning | Faculty Focus - 40 views

www.facultyfocus.com/...defining-active-learning

learning engagement

shared by April Johnson on 09 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Most faculty know that active learning is important even though many still lecture pretty much exclusively.
  • Steve Ransom on 09 Feb 11
     
    Words Matter: "The process of having students engage in some activity that forces them to reflect upon ideas and how they are using those ideas. Requiring students to regularly assess their own degree of understanding and skill at handling concepts or problems in a particular discipline. The attainment of knowledge by participating or contributing. The process of keeping students mentally, and often physically, active in their learning through activities that involve them in gathering information, thinking and problem solving."
  • April Johnson on 11 Feb 11
     
    This has interesting points about active learning!
Ann Darling

NAEP Gets It One-Third Right -- THE Journal - 15 views

thejournal.com/...our-space.aspx

shared by Ann Darling on 24 Oct 09 - Cached
  • gets, the more the debate will stir and positive things can come of all this.
  • 9 Gail Desler California I look forward to following this discussion! Currently many school districts have the same keyboarding + MS Office requirement for tech proficiency shared above by Interested Parent. I think to continue with that model well into the 21st century is really the train wreck waiting to happen. I've read through the NAEP draft. as well as some of their referenced documents from ISTE, http://www.21stcenturyskills.org/ DOT , and the http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/2 DOT 1stcentdefinition and am hopeful that the NAEP framework will promote the integration of technology literacy across the curriculum. Thanks for starting the conversation.
  • Wed, Sep 9, 2009 Dick Schutz http://ssrn.com/author=1199505 The framework defines technology as "any modification of the natural or designed world done to fulfill human needs or desires." I can't think of any human action that wouldn't fall under that definition The definition of technological literacy is "the capacity to use, understand, and evaluate technology as well as to apply concepts and processes to solve problems and reach one’s goals. It encompasses the three areas of Technology and Society, Design and Systems, and Information and Communications Technology." That's pretty much universal expertise. This is to be measured with a 50 minute test starting at Grade 4. The specs for the tests at Grades 8 and 12 merely get more detailed and more abstract. By the time this gets run through the Item Response Theory wringer we'll have results that are sensitive to racial/SES differences but not to instructional differences. I'll look forward to your forthcoming explanations of how this came to happen.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The problem? Namely, this: With no established federal definition of technological literacy, most states have chosen to follow the National Educational Technology Standards (NETS) established by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), and to create their curricula and assessments accordingly.
  • gical literacy that is very different from anything any state or No Child Left Behind (NCLB) envisioned. From the draft document: "In recent decades the meaning of technological literacy has taken on three quite different… forms in the United States. These are the science, technology, and society approach, the technology education approach, and the information and communications technology approach. In recognition of the importance, educational value, and interdependence of these three approaches, this framework includes all three under its broad definition of technological literacy."
  • Geoffrey H. Fletcher is the editorial director of 1105 Media's Education Group. He can be reached at gfletcher@1105media.com. Comments
D. S. Koelling

Font Size May Not Aid Learning, but Its Style Can, Researchers Find - NYTimes.com - 110 views

www.nytimes.com/...19mind.html

education undergraduate Learning font

shared by D. S. Koelling on 19 Apr 11 - No Cached
  • Is it easier to remember a new fact if it appears in normal type, like this, or in big, bold letters, like this?
  • Font size has no effect on memory, even though most people assume that bigger is better. But font style does.
  • New research finds that people retain significantly more material — whether science, history or language — when they study it in a font that is not only unfamiliar but also hard to read.
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  • “So much of the learning that we do now is unsupervised, on our own,” said Robert A. Bjork, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles, “that it’s crucial to be able to monitor that learning accurately; that is, to know how well we know what we know, so that we avoid fooling ourselves.”
  • “Studying something in the presence of an answer, whether it’s conscious or not, influences how you interpret the question,” Dr. Bjork said. “You don’t appreciate all of the other things that would have come to mind if the answer weren’t there. “Let’s say you’re studying capitals and you see that Australia’s is Canberra. O.K., that seems easy enough. But when the exam question appears, you think: ‘Uh oh, was it Sydney? Melbourne? Adelaide?’ ” That’s why some experts are leery of students’ increasing use of online sites like Cramster, Course Hero, Koofers and others that offer summaries, step-by-step problem solving and copies of previous exams. The extra help may provide a valuable supplement to a difficult or crowded course, but it could also leave students with a false sense of mastery. Even course outlines provided by a teacher, a textbook or other outside source can create a false sense of security, some research suggests. In one experiment, researchers found that participants studying a difficult chapter on the industrial uses of microbes remembered more when they were given a poor outline — which they had to rework to match the material — than a more accurate one.
  • a cognitive quality known as fluency, a measure of how easy a piece of information is to process.
  • On real tests, font size made no difference and practice paid off, the study found.
  • And so it goes, researchers say, with most study sessions: difficulty builds mental muscle, while ease often builds only confidence.
  • To test the approach in the classroom, the researchers conducted a large experiment involving 222 students at a public school in Chesterland, Ohio. One group had all its supplementary study materials, in English, history and science courses, reset in an unusual font, like Monotype Corsiva. The others studied as before. After the lessons were completed, the researchers evaluated the classes’ relevant tests and found that those students who’d been squinting at the stranger typefaces did significantly better than the others in all the classes — particularly in physics. “The reason that the unusual fonts are effective is that it causes us to think more deeply about the material,” a co-author of the study, Daniel M. Oppenheimer, a psychologist at Princeton, wrote in an e-mail. “But we are capable of thinking deeply without being subjected to unusual fonts. Think of it this way, you can’t skim material in a hard to read font, so putting text in a hard-to-read font will force you to read more carefully.” Then again, so will raw effort, he and other researchers said. Concentrating harder. Making outlines from scratch. Working through problem sets without glancing at the answers. And studying with classmates who test one another.
  • D. S. Koelling on 19 Apr 11
     
    Students' raw effort improves learning [No surprise there, huh?]
Sharin Tebo

Why Curiosity Enhances Learning | Edutopia - 40 views

www.edutopia.org/...nces-learning-marianne-stenger

thinking curiosity learning edutopia literacy inquiry

shared by Sharin Tebo on 11 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • It's no secret that curiosity makes learning more effective and enjoyable. Curious students not only ask questions, but also actively seek out the answers.
  • While it might be no big surprise that we're more likely to remember what we've learned when the subject matter intrigues us, it turns out that curiosity also helps us learn information we don't consider all that interesting or important. The researchers found that, once the subjects' curiosity had been piqued by the right question, they were better at learning and remembering completely unrelated information
  • if a student struggles with math, personalizing math problems to match their specific interests rather than using generic textbook questions could help them better remember how to go about solving similar math problems in the future.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • there is no such thing as a dumb question, because as cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham notes in his book Why Don't Students Like School?, it's the question that stimulates curiosity -- being told the answer quells curiosity before it can even get going.
  • Sharin Tebo on 11 Jan 15
     
    Curiosity's role in Students' Learning
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