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Nigel Coutts

The rewards of highly collaborative teams - The Learner's Way - 2 views

thelearnersway.net/...-of-highly-collaborative-teams

collaborative teams learner

shared by Nigel Coutts on 24 Jul 16 - No Cached
  • Nigel Coutts on 24 Jul 16
     
    Not that long ago I was a writer of interesting and engaging educational programmes. Fortunately, that is no longer the case. The programmes that I wrote and shared with a team of teachers were generally well accepted and the feedback offered was always politely positive. I enjoyed writing these programmes but in recent times I have enjoyed even more stepping away from this process and in doing so empowering the team of teachers that I learn with. The programmes that this team produces far exceed the quality I could ever have hoped to produce but more importantly the students are benefiting from their experience of highly engaged and thus engaging teachers.
Javier E

A New Measure for Classroom Quality - NYTimes.com - 84 views

www.nytimes.com/...01bausell.html

education instruction research efficiency

shared by Javier E on 03 May 11 - No Cached
  • Test scores are an inadequate proxy for quality because too many factors outside of the teachers’ control can influence student performance from year to year — or even from classroom to classroom during the same year.
  • there’s a far more direct approach: measuring the amount of time a teacher spends delivering relevant instruction — in other words, how much teaching a teacher actually gets done in a school day.
  • Thirty years ago two studies measured the amount of time teachers spent presenting instruction that matched the prescribed curriculum, at a level students could understand based on previous instruction. The studies found that some teachers were able to deliver as much as 14 more weeks a year of relevant instruction than their less efficient peers.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • There was no secret to their success: the efficient teachers hewed closely to the curriculum, maintained strict discipline and minimized non-instructional activities, like conducting unessential classroom business when they should have been focused on the curriculum.
  • A focus on relevant instructional time also implies several further reforms: Lengthening the school day, week and year; adopting a near-zero-tolerance policy for disruptive behavior, which classroom cameras would help police; increasing efforts to reduce tardiness and absenteeism; and providing as much supplementary and remedial tutoring (the most effective instructional model known) as possible.
Roland Gesthuizen

What does John Hattie think about education? | David Didau: The Learning Spy - 6 views

www.learningspy.co.uk/...john-hattie-think-education

education JohnHattie TeachingStandards LearingSpy

shared by Roland Gesthuizen on 25 Aug 14 - No Cached
  • Roland Gesthuizen on 25 Aug 14
     
    "Hattie is very clear that the biggest difference made in education is teacher quality and expertise:"It really comes down to expertise, teacher expertise… How teachers think; how they make daily decisions and judgements. It's not necessarily what they do, it's not necessarily who they are; it's how they think.""
Roland Gesthuizen

AASA :: Feature: Quality and Equity in Finnish Schools (Sahlberg) - 1 views

www.aasa.org/content.aspx

equity Finland school education testing performance teachertraining

shared by Roland Gesthuizen on 03 Sep 12 - No Cached
  • teachers and administrators had designed a curriculum that suggests this school invests heavily in ensuring all students have access to effective instruction and individualized help
  • Finland invests 30 times more funds in the professional development of teachers and administrators than in evaluating the performance of students and schools, including testing. In testing-intensive education systems, this ratio is the opposite, with the majority of funding going to evaluation and standardized testing
  • Finnish schools use two strategies to enhance equity in schooling: (1) school-based curricula that give teachers and administrators the power to define values, purpose and overall educational goals for their school; and (2) emphasis on and access to professional development to help schools reach these goals.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • all children, regardless of family background or personal conditions, have a good school in their community. Because Finnish educators and policymakers believe schools can change the course of children’s lives, these schools must address the health, nutrition, well-being and happiness of all children in a systematic and equitable manner
  • research demonstrates that investing as early as possible in high-quality education for all students and directing additional resources toward the most disadvantaged students as early as possible produces the greatest positive effect on overall academic performance
  • Standardized testing that compares individuals to statistical averages, competition that leaves weaker students behind and merit-based pay for teachers jeopardize schools’ efforts to enhance equity. None of these factors exists in Finland
  • Roland Gesthuizen on 03 Sep 12
     
    "A Finnish education ambassador shares how his country's school system ensures all students have access to quality instruction, sans constant testing"
Sigrid Murphy

Five U.S. innovations that helped Finland's schools improve but that American reformers... - 64 views

pasisahlberg.com/-american-reformers-now-ignore

Finland

shared by Sigrid Murphy on 27 Aug 14 - No Cached
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 27 Aug 14
       
      Interesting Top Five
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 27 Aug 14
       
      Answer explanation is almost as important as mathematic problem solving.  If we really want to know if a student understands ANY concept, we need to ask him/her to write their explanation.  Sometimes the understanding comes from the thinking required to do the writing - writing to make it make sense!
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 27 Aug 14
       
      Why don't we consider relating almost every lesson to everyday life?  Seems like an obvious thing to do to me!
  • ...16 more annotations...
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 27 Aug 14
       
      Wow!  I think the concept of doing less of something in order to make time for experimentation is a fabulous idea!  Do you mean there are different aspects of student assessment and testing beyond a bubble sheet?  :)
  • Most of them have studied psychology, teaching methods, curriculum theories, assessment models, and classroom management researched and designed in the United States
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 27 Aug 14
       
      Finland's successful practices are something they learned here in the U.S.  So, why aren't our teachers here in the U.S. employing those same practices successfully?
  • Professional development and school improvement courses and programs often include visitors from the U.S. universities to teach and work with Finnish teachers and leaders.
  • in an ideal classroom, pupils speak more than the teacher
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 27 Aug 14
       
      Hooray!
  • the entire Finnish school system looks like John Dewey’s laboratory school in the U.S.
  • cooperative learning has become a pedagogical approach that is widely practiced throughout Finnish education system
  • Finnish teachers believe that over 90 percent of students can learn successfully in their own classrooms if given the opportunity to evolve in a holistic manner.
  • After abolishing all streaming and tracking of students in the mid-1980s, both education policies and school practices adopted the principle that all children have different kinds of intelligences and that schools must find ways how to cultivate these different individual aspects in balanced ways.
  • it is ironic that many of these methods were developed at U.S. universities and are yet far more popular in Finland than in the United States. These include portfolio assessment, performance assessment, self-assessment and self-reflection, and assessment for learning methods.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 27 Aug 14
       
      Alternative assessments!  Performance, portfolio, self-assessment, self-reflection, and assessment of learning methods...
  • Peer coaching—that is, a confidential process through which teachers work together to reflect on current practices, expand, improve, and learn new skills, exchange ideas, conduct classroom research and solve problems together in school
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 27 Aug 14
       
      Working together and reflecting on current practices - Reflection helps to expand, improve, and provides an opportunity to learn and exchange ideas to solve problems
  • the work of the school in the United States is so much steered by bureaucracies, test-based accountability and competition that schools are simply doing what they must do
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 27 Aug 14
       
      Sadness Abounds!  We are teaching folks what works best.  Then, they enter the classroom and get wrapped up in bureaucracies and test-based accountability to the point that teachers are just going through the motions instead of facilitating quality learning
  • Sigrid Murphy on 28 Aug 14
     
    Pasi Sahlberg Blog Finnish education reform Originally published in Washington Post, 24 July 2014 An intriguing question whether innovation in education can be measured has an answer now. The Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development in its recent report "Measuring Innovation in Education: A New Perspective, Educational Research and Innovation" measures Innovation in Education in 22 countries and 6 jurisdictions, among them the U.S.
amberdewire

Educational Leadership:Feedback for Learning:Seven Keys to Effective Feedback - 87 views

www.ascd.org/...eys-to-Effective-Feedback.aspx

feedback assessment teaching formative UBD Wiggins

shared by amberdewire on 03 Oct 12 - No Cached
  • Whether the feedback was in the observable effects or from other people, in every case the information received was not advice, nor was the performance evaluated. No one told me as a performer what to do differently or how "good" or "bad" my results were. (You might think that the reader of my writing was judging my work, but look at the words used again: She simply played back the effect my writing had on her as a reader.) Nor did any of the three people tell me what to do (which is what many people erroneously think feedback is—advice). Guidance would be premature; I first need to receive feedback on what I did or didn't do that would warrant such advice.
  • Decades of education research support the idea that by teaching less and providing more feedback, we can produce greater learning (see Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Hattie, 2008; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2001).
  • Feedback Essentials
  • ...25 more annotations...
  • Goal-Referenced
  • Tangible and Transparent
  • Actionable
  • User-Friendly
  • Timely
  • Ongoing
  • Consistent
  • Progress Toward a Goal
  • But There's No Time!"
  • remember that feedback does not need to come only from the teacher, or even from people at all. Technology is one powerful tool—part of the power of computer-assisted learning is unlimited, timely feedback and opportunities to use it.
  • learners are often unclear about the specific goal of a task or lesson, so it is crucial to remind them about the goal and the criteria by which they should self-assess
  • I recommend that all teachers videotape their own classes at least once a month. It was a transformative experience for me when I did it as a beginning teacher.
  • research shows that less teaching plus more feedback is the key to achieving greater learning.
  • Even if feedback is specific and accurate in the eyes of experts or bystanders, it is not of much value if the user cannot understand it or is overwhelmed by it.
  • Adjusting our performance depends on not only receiving feedback but also having opportunities to use it.
  • Clearly, performers can only adjust their performance successfully if the information fed back to them is stable, accurate, and trustworthy. In education, that means teachers have to be on the same page about what high-quality work is. Teachers need to look at student work together, becoming more consistent over time and formalizing their judgments in highly descriptive rubrics supported by anchor products and performances.
  • Score student work in the fall and winter against spring standards, use more pre-and post-assessments to measure progress toward these standards, and do the item analysis to note what each student needs to work on for better future performance.
  • Effective supervisors and coaches work hard to carefully observe and comment on what they observed, based on a clear statement of goals. That's why I always ask when visiting a class, "What would you like me to look for and perhaps count?"
  • . Less teaching, more feedback. Less feedback that comes only from you, and more tangible feedback designed into the performance itself.
  • how we are doing in our efforts to reach a goal.
  • get another opportunity to receive and learn from the feedback.
  • computer games
  • quickly adapt
  • ack, do you have some ideas about how to improve?" This approach will build greater autono
  • ck, do you have some ideas about how to improve?" This approach will build greater autono
  • Mark Gleeson on 03 Oct 12
     
    Wiggins Advice, evaluation, grades-none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback-and how can it improve learning? Who would dispute the idea that feedback is a good thing? Both common sense and research make it clear: Formative assessment, consisting of lots of feedback and opportunities to use that feedback, enhances performance and achievement. Yet even John Hattie (2008), whose decades of research revealed that feedback was among the most powerful influences on achievement, acknowledges that he has "struggled to understand the concept" (p. 173). And many writings on the subject don't even attempt to define the term. To improve formative assessment practices among both teachers and assessment designers, we need to look more closely at just what feedback is-and isn't.
  • amberdewire on 05 Aug 15
     
    Effective Feedback - Grant Wiggins
Robert Alford

The Atlantic Online | January/February 2010 | What Makes a Great Teacher? | Amanda Ripley - 82 views

www.theatlantic.com/...good-teaching

education teachers

shared by Robert Alford on 30 Jan 10 - Cached
  • embodies the most stunning finding to come out of education research in the past decade: more than any other variable in education—more than schools or curriculum—teachers matter.
  • Parents have always worried about where to send their children to school; but the school, statistically speaking, does not matter as much as which adult stands in front of their children. Teacher quality tends to vary more within schools—even supposedly good schools—than among schools
  • The results are specific and surprising. Things that you might think would help a new teacher achieve success in a poor school—like prior experience working in a low-income neighborhood—don’t seem to matter. Other things that may sound trifling—like a teacher’s extracurricular accomplishments in college—tend to predict greatness.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Great teachers, he concluded, constantly reevaluate what they are doing.
  • What did predict success, interestingly, was a history of perseverance—not just an attitude, but a track record
  • Meanwhile, a master’s degree in education seems to have no impact on classroom effectiveness.
  • Robert Alford on 30 Jan 10
     
    What matters most GRIT!
reanea wilson

Teachers and Librarians: Collaborative Relationships. ERIC Digest. - 56 views

www.ericdigests.org/...librarians.html

shared by reanea wilson on 31 Jul 10 - Cached
    • reanea wilson
      reanea wilson on 31 Jul 10
       
      a great professional goal to strive for
  • The study concludes that test scores increase as school librarians spend more time collaborating with and providing training to teachers, providing input into curricula, and managing information technology for the school
  • Collaboration is based on shared goals, a shared vision, and a climate of trust and respect
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • comprehensive planning is required
  • leadership, resources, risk, and control are shared;
  • and the working relationship extends over a relatively long period of time
  • Additional benefit
  • include more effective use of both resources and teaching time,
  • integration of educational technologies, and a reduced teacher/student ratio
  • team planning is encouraged by the principal
  • Administrators who ask how teachers are using the resources of the media center and the expertise of the library media specialist create an atmosphere where collaboration is more likely to occur
  • Library media specialists are often viewed as storytellers and providers of resources
  • rather
  • co-teachers who share common goals
  • change this
  • by serving on curriculum committees, attending planning meetings, and sharing ideas for integrating the media center into the curriculum
  • initiative, confidence, communication skills, leadership qualities,
  • willingness to take risks.
  • qualities of a library media specialist
  • equire time- perhaps two to five years-
Shelley Hull

Microsoft Word - BlockingSchedules.rtf - CAREI BlockingSchedules.pdf - 25 views

conservancy.umn.edu/...CAREI%20BlockingSchedules.pdf

shared by Shelley Hull on 02 Dec 14 - No Cached
    • Shelley Hull
      Shelley Hull on 02 Dec 14
       
      " Early advocates of bloc scheduling identified the block schedule as the ca talyst, or vehicle, for bringing about desired changes in secondary education (Carroll, 1990; Canady and Rett ig, 1995)"
  • Research examining student achievement in block-scheduled schools compared to traditional schools showed mixed and inconclusive results
  • Most research about block scheduling and classroom instruction, as with research on school climate, used student, teacher, and parent questionnaires and surveys.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The levels of engagement were much better in the first year under the block schedule, while in the second year the ratings were the same as under the traditional schedule.
  • Students reported “thinking hard about ideas” and “having indepth discussion” significantly more often under block schedules.
  • his may also be supported by Bexell (1998) who found teachers on block schedules using teaching strategies requiring more interaction than teachers on a traditional schedule
  • It would seem that the small amount of change in the way teachers teach after switching to a block schedule would be disappointing to block scheduling advocates
  • Important questions hover over these findings. What is an effective amount of teacher lecture? Or group work? Or individual work?
  • One thing that is missing from the observation instrument used in this study is any judgment about the quality of a lecture, quality and depth of a discussion, or the complexity of group or individual work
Brianna Crowley

Education Week: Interpretations Differ on Common Core's Nonfiction Rule - 0 views

www.edweek.org/...19nonfiction_ep.h32.html

Common_Core literature standards english_classroom curriculum

shared by Brianna Crowley on 31 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Ideally, she said, teachers are working in cross-disciplinary teams to decide how to balance those shared responsibilities in a solid curriculum.
  • And Ms. Highfill has not found the guidance on shared, cross-curricular responsibility to be translating into classroom reality. In her district, she said, "there still seems to be more of a focus on English teachers' using nonfiction in classrooms than the other content areas stepping up to the plate."
  • such titles are meant for classes other than English, and seeing them as texts that displace works like The Catcher in the Rye takes titles out of context and ignores the messages of the standards document as a whole.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • teachers and local administrators are the ones who must decide how to share responsibility for the increased emphasis on nonfiction. "If a lot of good, close reading of high-quality, challenging texts is going on in science and history classes," she said, "then English/language arts teachers need to carry less of that responsibility."
  • It is English/language arts teachers who will be held accountable for the results, which will drive what happens in their classrooms week to week, he said.
Mr. Eason

Educational Leadership:Reading: The Core Skill:The Challenge of Challenging Text - 131 views

www.ascd.org/...lenge-of-Challenging-Text.aspx

teaching text complexity literacy

shared by Mr. Eason on 24 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • The new standards instead propose that teachers move students purposefully through increasingly complex text to build skill and stamina.
  • higher-order thinking in reading depends heavily on knowledge of word meanings.
  • Students' ability to comprehend a piece of text depends on the number of unfamiliar domain-specific words and new general academic terms they encounter.
  • ...16 more annotations...
  • If students are to interpret the meanings such complex sentence structures convey, they need to learn how to make sense of the conventions of text—phrasing, word order, punctuation, and language.
  • Students who are aware of the patterns authors use to communicate complex information have an advantage in making sense of text.
  • maintaining understanding across a text.
  • Students' background knowledge, including developmental, experiential, and cognitive factors, influences their ability to understand the explicit and inferential qualities of a text.
  • building skills, establishing purpose, and fostering motivation.
  • even students who have basic decoding skills sometimes struggle to deploy these skills easily and accurately enough to get a purchase on challenging text. To help these students develop reading fluency, teachers should give them lots of practice with reading the same text, as well as instruction to help them develop a stronger sense of where to pause in sentences, how to group words, and how their voices should rise or fall at various junctures when reading aloud.
  • A final determinant of text difficulty, however, depends on the reader's prior knowledge.
  • pair repeated readings of the same text with questions that require the student to read closely for detail and key ideas.
  • Ongoing, solid vocabulary instruction
  • also on general academic words.
  • also explore the connections among words,
  • In contrast, in reading history and literature, readers need to be concerned with not just the causes of events, but also the human intentions behind these causes.
  • teachers should not convey so much information that it spoils the reading or enables students to participate in class without completing the reading; rather, they should let students know what learning to expect from the reading.
  • Teachers may be tempted to try to make it easier for students by avoiding difficult texts. The problem is, easier work is less likely to make readers stronger.
  • You need to create successive successes.
  • Students experience success in the company of their teacher, who combines complex texts with effective instruction.
  • Christine Dailey on 24 Mar 12
     
    What makes text difficult and how to teach skills for successful comprehension.
Randy Schultz

The 4 Properties of Powerful Teachers - Advice - The Chronicle of Higher Education - 63 views

chronicle.com/...228483

teachers higher education

shared by Randy Schultz on 16 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Great teachers tend to be good-natured and approachable, as opposed to sour or foreboding; professional without being aloof; funny (even if they’re not stand-up comedians), perhaps because they don’t take themselves or their subject matter too seriously; demanding without being unkind; comfortable in their own skin (without being in love with the sound of their own voices); natural (they make teaching look easy even though we all know it isn’t); and tremendously creative, and always willing to entertain new ideas or try new things, sometimes even on the fly.
  • Passion. Of all the qualities that characterize great teachers, this is the most important, by far.
  • Don’t think, by the way, that students don’t pick up on the disdain. They absolutely do. And my experience with evaluating faculty members over the years suggests that the teachers who are most widely disliked are the ones who most dislike students.
Clint Heitz

Edu Leadership:Tech-Rich Learning:The Basics of Blended Instruction - 38 views

www.ascd.org/...cs-of-Blended-Instruction.aspx

classroom blended learning technology blended_learning edtech

shared by Clint Heitz on 23 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Blended learning, with its mix of technology and traditional face-to-face instruction, is a great approach. Blended learning combines classroom learning with online learning, in which students can, in part, control the time, pace, and place of their learning. I advocate a teacher-designed blended learning model, in which teachers determine the combination that's right for them and their students.
  • Tip 1: Think big, but start small.
  • Tip 2: Patience is a virtue when trying something new.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • Tip 3: Technology shouldn't be just a frill.
  • Tip 4: Weaving media together makes them stronger.
  • Tip 5: Students need to know where they can get online.
  • Student-centered classrooms are the goal of my teacher-designed blended learning model. Giving students control over the learning process requires that they know how to communicate, collaborate, and solve problems in groups, pairs, and individually. This work can be messy, loud, and disorganized, but in the end, the learning is much more meaningful.
  • Then I found Collaborize Classroom, a free, dynamic discussion platform. I used it to replace many of my pen-and-paper homework assignments with vibrant online debates, discussions, writing assignments, and collaborative group work.
  • Remember that mistakes lead to learning. The best resources I've designed and the most effective strategies I've developed were all born from and refined through mistakes.
  • I anticipated that students might hit some bumps as they navigated their first TED-Ed lesson, so I set up a TodaysMeet back channel so students could ask questions, make comments, and access a support network while going through the online lesson. A back-channel tool makes it possible for people to have a real-time conversation online while a live presentation or real-time discussion is taking place.
  • I asked students to reference specific details to support their assertions, as did one student who commented on the town's poverty by noting that the local doctor often took potatoes as payment for his work. She also showed how the characters nevertheless reflected the country's "cautious optimism" about its future: That same doctor was still able to support himself, she pointed out, and he enjoyed his work. Students posted their responses, complimenting strong points made, asking questions, and offering alternative perspectives.
  • I asked students to analyze examples of strong discussion posts and revise weaker posts. I also realized that I needed to embed directions into our discussion topics to remind students to respond to the questions and engage with their peers. I started requiring them to thoughtfully reply to at least two classmates' posts, in addition to posting their own response to the topic.
  • It's crucial for students to see that the work they do in the online space drives the work they do in the classroom so they recognize the value of the online conversations.
  • For example, during the To Kill a Mockingbird unit, we researched and discussed the death penalty in preparation for writing an argument essay. The students debated online such issues as cost, morality, and racial inequality and then delved into these topics more deeply face-to-face in class.
  • In the classroom, the teacher might give small groups various topics to research. Then he or she could ask students to go online to research and discuss their topic on a shared Google Doc and create a presentation using Glogster, Prezi, or Google Presentation Maker.
  • When we read Romeo and Juliet, I use this strategy to encourage students to research such topics as the monarchy, entertainment, and gender roles in Elizabethan England so they have a better understanding of the historical context in which Shakespeare wrote. Back in the classroom, each group then presents its findings through an oral presentation.
  • Compared with traditional in-class group work, which typically yields a disappointing finished product, online work provides the time necessary for students to complete quality work together.
  • Some teachers think that incorporating online work means they have to be available 24 hours a day. This is not the case. When students are connected online, they have a network of peers they can reach out to for support, and they begin to see one another as valuable resources in their class community.
  • I've embedded a Google map in my website that has pins dropped in all the locations on our campus and in our community where there are computers with public access to the Internet.
  • I even wrote the local computer recycling center to request a computer for my class.
meghankelly492

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

muse.jhu.edu/224140

world Music

shared by meghankelly492 on 22 Jul 19 - No Cached
  • 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
  • ...39 more annotations...
  • 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."
Marc Patton

Free Teacher Resources | Discovery Education - 2 views

www.discoveryeducation.com/teachers

Teacher_Resources Teaching_Ideas

shared by Marc Patton on 29 Jun 12 - No Cached
  • Marc Patton on 29 Jun 12
     
    Foster deeper engagement and opportunities for students to take charge of their own learning with high quality, engaging, relevant tools designed for today's busy teachers and parents. Explore our programs and contests, interactive games, puzzles, lesson plans, videos and more.
pjt111 taylor

Taking Yourself Seriously: Processes of Research and Engagement has been publ... - 3 views

thepumpingstation.org/...-engagement-has-been-published

processes research engagement

shared by pjt111 taylor on 03 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • pjt111 taylor on 03 Mar 12
     
    This is a "field-book of tools and processes to help readers in all fields develop as researchers, writers, and agents of change." For more details and how to purchase: http://bit.ly/TYS2012. (Printing and distribution in Australia and Europe begins end of March.) Comments on the influence of this book's approach "I was able to get engaged in a project that I was able to actually use in work, which was extremely satisfying. The whole process encouraged me, and I felt very empowered as a change agent, which could be an exhilarating feeling." a healthcare professional and story-teller "I really had not been used to thinking about my own thinking, so learning to do that also helped me to slow down and start to look away from the career path that I had been taking for granted." a biologist-turned-web designer "I found that the experience helped me to accept feedback from other professionals. I am more comfortable with listening to why my own ideas might not work or need further evaluation. This even happens to the point where I find reasons now to seek out this kind of feedback." a teacher "I had viewed research as a process of collecting information into a sort of database and reviewing it effectively. I have now revised my notions to include a more broad understanding of interconnectedness between people and ideas. An important part of research is to keep relationships going." an adult educator "One of the most useful ideas was the use of dialogue, which helps to slow down the procedures used by the company. There's a tension between management's need to make quick decisions and desire to have real dialogue around proposed changes-changes to the internal company operational procedures as well as to evaluating the quality of what the company is doing with its publications." a teacher, currently working in publishing "I was asked to pay attention to what I actually could do instead of what I could not. This enabled me to (1) step back and let go of a huge technic
Roland Gesthuizen

Recognising the obviously incapable « newteachersblog - 52 views

newteachersblog.wordpress.com/...nising-the-obviously-incapable

graduate teaching performance assessment blog

shared by Roland Gesthuizen on 30 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Roland Gesthuizen on 30 Oct 11
     
    The new chief inspector for schools has indicated he intends to improve quality and standards by singling out weaker teachers - it was "pretty straightforward" to identify teachers who were "obviously incapable" he said. Is it?
Jane Trotter

BetterLesson: Share What Works | Free K-12 Lesson Plans, materials and resources - 58 views

cc.betterlesson.com

CCSS lesson plans Common Core lessonplans resources math commoncore English

shared by Jane Trotter on 28 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Garrett Kerr on 28 Jan 14
     
    A rich site full of Common Core lessons for all to use.
  • Jane Trotter on 14 May 14
     
    "Over 5,000 complete Common Core-aligned lessons from our 130 Master Teachers. Introducing CC.BetterLesson - a brand new, free resource from the BetterLesson team featuring the highest quality Common Core-aligned lessons created through our Master Teacher Project."
Martin Burrett

What Should Teachers Actually Mark? by @RichardJARogers - 22 views

ukedchat.com/...-should-teachers-actually-mark

marking grading

shared by Martin Burrett on 19 Feb 18 - No Cached
  • Martin Burrett on 19 Feb 18
     
    "As teachers, we are messing up our schedules and creating added stress because we do not ruthlessly prioritise enough. It's absolutely essential. All marking is important: every student must receive feedback and acknowledgement for their efforts. However, you may have to give your exam-preparation classes greater quality feedback that your younger classes at certain points in the year. You may also have to give it back in a more swift and timely manner too (e.g. when you've just finished the mock exams, or when you've had an end-of-unit test)."
Sarah Schaller Welsh

Freakonomics » What Should Be Done About Standardized Tests? A Freakonomics Q... - 42 views

www.freakonomics.com/...ed-tests-a-freakonomics-quorum

education

shared by Sarah Schaller Welsh on 08 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Gaston Caperton
  • Standardized tests have much in common with French fries. Both of them differ in composition as well as quality. French fries are available in numerous incarnations, including straight, curly, skins-on, skins-off, and, in recent years, with sweet potatoes. Regarding quality, of course, the taste of French fries can range substantially – from sublime to soggy. It’s really the same with standardized tests.
  • Take the No Child Left Behind Act, for instance, a federal accountability law requiring scads of standardized tests to be used in evaluating schools. Do you know that almost all of the standardized tests now being employed to judge school quality are unable to distinguish between well taught and badly taught students?
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • all schools – kindergarten through college – should employ exit exams allowing us to determine what students have actually learned. We owe it to our students to make sure that they’ve been properly taught.
  • Then there are the questions of what to do with the results. I have actually sat through an extended discussion of how we could use regression analysis to parse out the contribution different teachers made to a group of students’ performance on a set of standardized tests. The answer was, yes it was possible, and could in fact be used to award merit pay increases. But nobody left the room feeling very comfortable that there would be any gain in what we knew made for good teaching.
  • Roughly half of the nation’s students are taking tests under NCLB that are completely free of open-ended questions.
  • educators have a strong incentive to “teach to the test.” In this case, that means teaching low level skills at the expense of the more demanding material that everyone says students need to master in today’s complicated world.
  • But is it fair to give students what amounts to a counterfeit passport to college or work? And do such tests spur high school teachers and principals to aim high with their students? To both questions, the answer is, “No.” In most states today, high school exit tests serve the same role as the standardized tests mandated by NCLB: they try to jack up the floor of student achievement in the nation’s schools. The best high school exit tests would be end-of-course exams akin to the “comprehensive” exams that many colleges and universities require students to pass in their majors before graduation – tests, that is, that would raise the ceiling of student achievement.
  • High-stakes testing has narrowed and dumbed down curricula; eliminated time spent on untested subjects like social studies, art, and even recess; turned classrooms into little more than test preparation centers; reduced high school graduation rates; and driven good teachers from the profession. Those are all reasons why FairTest and other experts advocate a sharp reduction in public school standardized testing and a halt to exit exams.
  • igh school grade
  • point average is a better predictor of college success than either the SAT or the ACT.
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