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Javier E

'There's Something Very Exciting Going On Here' - Jordan Weissmann - The Atlantic - 20 views

  • One effort I started in June was to announce a seed grant program to support individual faculty and small teams that wanted to try different ways of teaching their course. So the internal funding helps support students or assistants or web developers or other people to help faculty recraft all or part of their course in order to see if new approaches really help.
  • here isn't an actual fixed fund. We got about 40 applicants. Maybe 20 of those things we funded. Each one was up to $25,000. I think I'd like to continue that on a quarterly basis. And really, we're new at all this. So the scale of this effort will depend on the faculty input and the outcome of how effective we find this to be.
  • We now have the ability for individual faculty or programs on campuses to produce appealing online content with relatively low effort and distribute that wide
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  • we'd like to see a number of things tried so we can have a good discussion that's informed by rational experiment and collected data. Beyond these individual experiments, one class at a time, I think it would be great to have one or two departments really try to integrate an online experience into their core curriculum so we can understand how that works, so we can provide students more options
  • Many of these first round of MOOCs were produced with a webcam by an individual instructor using a tablet PC. That's on the order of a thousand dollars worth of equipment. Maybe. Certainly, it's extremely inexpensive compared with a laptop 5 years ago. So the cost of the technology is lower. There's good software for editing video -- we're in an era where producing video is similar to word processing. And everyone is used to interacting with people online in different ways than were prevalent 10 to 15 years ago. The kind of discussion you can have online is more sophisticated. People understand social conventions for how to contribute constructively to an online discussion. Those factors really contribute to the effectiveness of a MOOC or a smaller scale online course.
  • I think we'll see an evolution of a range of different ways of using technology, and probably some expansion of the set of options that a student has. Instead of going off to college, maybe some students will live in their parents' homes or elsewhere and take a first year or two online. Or they'll spend two years in college and finish two years online as they work. There will be different, in effect, educational programs coming out of this phenomenon that offer credit, certification, job placement, and other things beyond the self learning that MOOCs provide. So I think we really are going to see a transformation in the way teaching and learning are developed and delivered
Roland Gesthuizen

Twelve Things You Were Not Taught in School About Creative Thinking | The Creativity Post - 6 views

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    Aspects of creative thinking that are not usually taught.
Greg Clinton

iPad Academic - Animating and Explaining Meiosis with iPads - 3 views

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    Great use of multiple apps to get students thinking in creative ways about meiosis. Has potential to be applied in a number of different settings - I'm thinking about drama to show dramatic power of movement, or in interesting digital story-telling applications. High School level.
Bochi 23

FV #28 - Facilitating Critical Thinking By Using Visualizations - 10 views

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    How one teacher uses data visualizations to get students thinking!
anonymous

Shift to the Future: Why BYOT? - 6 views

    • anonymous
       
      When learning moves to higher order and more critical thinking levels, students tend to internalize information and knowledge more and it "sticks" with them for longer - so it is more likely to become something that is applicable to other situations or to be generalized and applied.
    • anonymous
       
      Isn't it interesting how we put limits on the learning of students and we don't even realize we are doing so?
    • anonymous
       
      Right now, too many teachers are using technology in this more simplified, lower level way.  Instead, we need to be pushing students more to make predictions and take their thinking a step further.  I wonder if we, teachers, are pushing ourselves when it comes to thinking or are we simply teaching the same old, same old in the ways we learned eons ago...
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    • anonymous
       
      Why is it so hard to raise our expectations that students WILL have this technology?  If we consistently expect it, they will - we expect them to have a pencil...
    • anonymous
       
      key words:  integrated extension
    • anonymous
       
      Change has to happen.  If we keep doing the same thing, we will continually have the same results.  Do we want different results?  YES!
    • anonymous
       
      I was meeting with a teacher this week who had a wonderful lesson using a few websites to ID European countries and find information about each country.  There was a wee bit of critical thinking added into the mix of the assignment but I was still 'hungry for more' and feeling the need to nudge him and his students to the next level.  The green highlighted information is sort of what I was looking for to nudge him onward with in his lesson.  
Glenn Hervieux

Five Characteristics of Learner-Centered Teaching | Faculty Focus - 86 views

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    On the Teaching Professor blog, the author starts with: "In May I finished a second edition of my Learner-Centered Teaching book. Revising it gave me the chance to revisit my thinking about the topic and look at work done since publication of the first edition ten years ago. It is a subject about which there is still considerable interest." And that it is. Check out the five characteristics of Learner-Centered Teaching helped me to think about my own thoughts of Learner-Centered engagement as a Tech. Coordinator who loves teachers and teaching.
Deborah Baillesderr

Fantasy Geopolitics - 56 views

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    "Think "fantasy football for social studies, literacy standards, and world news". I think my students are going to love this!
Nigel Coutts

An Introduction to Design Thinking (Part Two) - 115 views

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    In the constructivist-learning model, engagement and experience combine with immersive environments and self-organisation of knowledge to establish a context in which learning occurs naturally. Constructivism has since the time of Dewey become closely affiliated with Project Based Learning and yet despite years of efforts to refine the process the result does not always match the promise. Design thinking might be the answer.
Steve Kelly

What would an exceptional middle and high school computer science curriculum include? -... - 48 views

  • What would an exceptional middle and high school computer science curriculum include?
  • This isn't a complete answer, but one thing the very first introductory classes should require is that the students turn off all their electronic computers and actually learn to walk through  algorithms with a computer that exists only on paper. (Or, I suppose, a whiteboard or a simulator.) This exercise would give the students a grounding in what is going on inside the computer as a very low level.My first computer programming class in my Freshman year of high school was completely on paper. Although it was done because the school didn't have much money, it turned out to be very beneficial.Another class I had in high school, that wouldn't normally be lumped into a Computer Science curriculum but has been a boon to my career, was good old Typing 101.
  • If you followed the CS Unplugged curriculum your students would know more about CS than most CS grads:http://csunplugged.orgIt's a really great intro to basic computer science concepts and very easy for students to understand.  Best of all you don't even need a computer per student if your school doesn't have the budget,
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  • For younger students, I think that the ability to make something professional-looking, like a real grown-up would, is paramount.  Sadly, I think this means that LOGO and BASIC aren't much use any more*.
  • So, we have a few choices.  You can try to write phone apps that look just like real phone apps, design interactive websites that look just like real interactive websites, or do something with embedded systems / robotics.  Avoid the temptation to make these things into group projects; the main thing every student needs to experience is the process of writing code, running it, debugging it, and watching the machine react to every command.
  • It is important to consider what an 11 to 18-year old is familiar with in terms of mathematics and logical thinking. An average 11-year old is probably learning about fractions, simple cartesian geometry, the concept of units, and mathematical expressions. By 15, the average student will be taking algebra, and hopefully will have the all-important concept of variables under his/her belt. So much in CS is dependent on solid understanding that symbols and tokens can represent abstract concepts, values, or algorithms. Without it, it's still possible to teach CS, but it must be done in a very different way (see Scratch).
  • At this point, concepts such as variables, parenthesis matching, and functions (of the mathematical variety) are within easy reach. Concepts like parameter passing, strings and collections, and program flow should be teachable. More advanced concepts such as recursion, references and pointers, certain data structures, and big-O may be very difficult to teach without first going through some more foundational math.
  • I tend to agree strongly with those that believe a foundational education should inspire interest and enforce concepts and critical thinking over teaching any specific language, framework, system, or dogma.
  • The key is that the concepts in CS aren't just there for the hell of it. Everything was motivated by a real problem, and few things are more satisfying than fixing something you really want to work with a cool technique or concept you just learned.
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    Great resource for teachers (especially those of us not initially trained in Computer Science) about what should 'count' as Computer Science.  Worth the read!
Marjorie Shepard

Get Students Thinking: The Blue Slips Approach | Faculty Focus - 110 views

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    Fun way to handle participation points; builds rapport with students; creative thinking.
Patrick Higgins

More Educator Luddites Please | The Compass Point - 44 views

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    "Technology is always disruptive: Think of the introduction of the printing press, or the combine harvester, or the typewriter. Think of the mechanical looms and the factory system of the industrial revolution that destroyed a way of life for cottage industry weavers. Some of them took to frame breaking and gave us the unfairly derisive term of "luddite" for those who resist technological change"
Tony Baldasaro

As Classrooms Go Digital, Textbooks May Become History - NYTimes.com - 1 views

  • And throughout the district, a Beyond Textbooks initiative encourages teachers to create — and share — lessons
    • Tony Baldasaro
       
      Makes me wonder of textbooks inhibit collaboration by teachers.
  • digitally nimble
  • And they think of knowledge as infinite
    • Tony Baldasaro
       
      This is a powerful quote. Thinking back to my schooling, it could probably be said that I thought of knowledge as finite, only limited to what my teacher and textbook said.
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  • With California in dire straits, the governor hopes free textbooks could save hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
    • Tony Baldasaro
       
      Too bad it took an economic crises to spur this movement.
  • “I don’t believe that charters and vouchers are the threat to schools in Orange County,” he said. “What’s a threat is the digital world — that someone’s going to put together brilliant $200 courses in French, in geometry by the best teachers in the world.”
    • Tony Baldasaro
       
      Wow! He is absolutely right on. Why take a course with based on a rigid time and place when one can learn at a place and pace that makes sense to them?
  • “We believe that the world is going digital, but the jury’s still out on how this will evolve,” said Wendy Spiegel, a Pearson spokeswoman. “We’re agnostic, so we’ll provide digital, we’ll provide print, and we’ll see what our customers want.”
    • Tony Baldasaro
       
      This is where I think textbooks companies need to lead. Customers typically only want more of the same, more of what has worked in the past, more of what has a track record. They dont' necessarily think beyond and/or have the luxury of being visionaries.
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    At Empire High School in Vail, Ariz., students use computers provided by the school to get their lessons, do their homework and hear podcasts of their teachers' science lectures. Down the road, at Cienega High School, students who own laptops can register for "digital sections" of several English, history and science classes. And throughout the district, a Beyond Textbooks initiative encourages teachers to create - and share - lessons that incorporate their own PowerPoint presentations, along with videos and research materials they find by sifting through reliable Internet sites.
Tony Baldasaro

NetGen Teachers? | Not So Distant Future - 0 views

  • they expect to choose where and when they work; they use technology to escape traditional office space and hours; and they integrate their home and social lives with work life. 
  • want to be able to work in places other than an office
  • I wonder if we are losing the “creative set” of teachers from the classroom, as young Net Geners, (or older ones of us) who thrive on this sort of play, creativity, flexibility–but are still intensely committed employees–seek other opportunities.
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  • we are seeing Net Gen employees in our new(and sometimes in our experienced) staff as well.
    • Tony Baldasaro
       
      One of my frustrations with education is that it doesn't necessarily allow for flexibility in where we work. Because the kids come to school, we are still tied to a location. Hopefully, virtual schools and extended learning opportunities will allow this to change.
  • It’s something we should be thinking about–because not only are we teaching Net Gen students, who crave this kind of flexible, playful, time shifting environment in our schools/classrooms, but we are employing Net Geners who crave these same things.  And don’t we want them to stay?
  • It’s something we should be thinking about–because not only are we teaching Net Gen students, who crave this kind of flexible, playful, time shifting environment in our schools/classrooms, but we are employing Net Geners who crave these same things.  And don’t we want them to stay?
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    I've been thinking a lot about Tapscott's comments about this particular expectation of Net Gen workers, because I believe that not only are we seeing Net Gen students in our classrooms and libraries, we are seeing Net Gen employees in our new(and sometimes in our experienced) staff as well.
Todd Finley

Hacking Education | Union Square Ventures: A New York Venture Capital Fund Focused on E... - 0 views

  • dana boyd reminded us that "technology does not determine practice" Just shoving broadband into a group of kids, just giving them an iPhone, we can think of a gazillion designs that are valuable ... but, if you don't have a culture embedded in it, [it] becomes just another toy you can text your friends with... I've become so infinitely frustrated with... "let's just dump a bunch of laptops into a population and see what they do with it"... That doesn't work... We've watched students rip out the batteries and use them for everything else under the sun.... I don't think we can just think about the technology.... We have to think about it in a broader system.
    • Todd Finley
       
      dana boyd reminds us about technologies limitations.
Tony Baldasaro

Weblogg-ed » "Tinkering Toward Utopia" - 1 views

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    During Boot Camp last week, Sheryl turned me on to Phillip Schlechty's newish book "Leading for Learning: How to Transform Schools into Learning Organizations" and I had a chance to get through a chunk of it on the cramped, smelly plane(s) to Melbourne. In it, he makes a pretty compelling case that "reform" is really not going to cut it in the face of the disruptions social Web technologies are creating and that we really do have to think more about "transform" when it comes to talking about schools. There are echoes of Sir Ken Robinson here, and I've still got Scott McLeod's NECC presentation riff on Christensen's "Disrupting Class" on my brain as well, especially the "the disruption isn't online learning; it's personalized learning" quote. And while there are others who I could cite here who are trumpeting the idea that this isn't business as usual, I think Schlechty does as good a job as I've seen of breaking down why schools in their current form as "bureaucratic" structures will end up on the "ash heap of history" if we don't get our brains around what's happening.
jodi tompkins

Tools for Reading, Writing, & Thinking - 82 views

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    Tools to help students engage in rigorous thinking, organize complex ideas, and scaffold their ineractions with texts. Not to be used simply as worksheets or activities for their own sake.
Christina Johnson

Online NewsHour: Research Indicates Teen Brains Work Differently Than Adults -- October... - 43 views

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    Do you think Shakespeare understood in some way that the adolescent brain may not be as strong at decision making as an adult brain? View the Film "Teenage Brain" Online NewsHour with Jim Leher. Think about the possible implications of this research.
Javier E

Roger Martin on integrative thinking - 64 views

  • the traditional preoccupation with what a leader does is misplaced. Instead, he says, we should look at the way leaders think and at the decisions they make.
  • great leaders have an unusual characteristic - "a predisposition to and capacity to hold in their heads two opposing ideas at once."
  • integrative thinking is where you have the capacity to create a better model, superior to both and incorporating aspects of each model, rather than choosing one model at the expense of the other.
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  • greatness will come from creating new models, and seeing yourself as a person who does that. Your job is not to choose from among the existing or presenting models, but rather to create something that's better.
Stan Golanka

Reading and the Web - Texts Without Context - NYTimes.com - 49 views

  • It’s also a question, as Mr. Lanier, 49, astutely points out in his new book, “You Are Not a Gadget,” of how online collectivism, social networking and popular software designs are changing the way people think and process information, a question of what becomes of originality and imagination in a world that prizes “metaness” and regards the mash-up as “more important than the sources who were mashed.”
    • Stan Golanka
       
      Core discussion topic? From this, I see a few discussion issues: 1. Do we prize "mash-ups" more than original work? Who is "we" in this? 2. If the answer to #1 is "yes," then the next question is: is this good or bad? 3. Finally, if the answer is "bad" to #2, what place do "mash-ups" have, and how do we help our students see the value in original work?
  • Web 2.0 is creating a “digital forest of mediocrity” and substituting ill-informed speculation for genuine expertise;
    • Stan Golanka
       
      How do teachers help students rise above this "digital forest of mediocrity"?
  • Mr. Johnson added that the book’s migration to the digital realm will turn the solitary act of reading — “a direct exchange between author and reader” — into something far more social and suggested that as online chatter about books grows, “the unity of the book will disperse into a multitude of pages and paragraphs vying for Google’s attention.”
    • Stan Golanka
       
      If Johnson's predictions are true, is this necessarily bad? How much of this concern is "nostalgia"? What would be lost from an academic p.o.v, and what migh be gained?
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  • Instead of reading an entire news article, watching an entire television show or listening to an entire speech, growing numbers of people are happy to jump to the summary, the video clip, the sound bite — never mind if context and nuance are lost in the process; never mind if it’s our emotions, more than our sense of reason, that are engaged; never mind if statements haven’t been properly vetted and sourced.
    • Stan Golanka
       
      Should teachers "fight" this, or embrace it? Can summaries/sound bites ever be appropriate for academic discussions?
  • And online research enables scholars to power-search for nuggets of information that might support their theses, saving them the time of wading through stacks of material that might prove marginal but that might have also prompted them to reconsider or refine their original thinking.
  • Digital insiders like Mr. Lanier and Paulina Borsook, the author of the book “Cyberselfish,” have noted the easily distracted, adolescent quality of much of cyberculture. Ms. Borsook describes tech-heads as having “an angry adolescent view of all authority as the Pig Parent,” writing that even older digerati want to think of themselves as “having an Inner Bike Messenger.”
    • Stan Golanka
       
      Can teachers moderate this attitude? Does our (adults) use/non-use of technology help breed this attitude?
  • authors “will increasingly tailor their work to a milieu that the writer Caleb Crain describes as ‘groupiness,’ where people read mainly ‘for the sake of a feeling of belonging’ rather than for personal enlightenment or amusement. As social concerns override literary ones, writers seem fated to eschew virtuosity and experimentation in favor of a bland but immediately accessible style.
    • Stan Golanka
       
      Does this ring true to educators? Are social concerns and literary conerns opposites? How does web publishing affect "literary" publishing, as opposed to "non-literary" publishing?
  • However impossible it is to think of “Jon & Kate Plus Eight” or “Jersey Shore” as art, reality shows have taken over wide swaths of television,
Randolph Hollingsworth

Blog U.: Barefoot Teaching - University of Venus - Inside Higher Ed - 18 views

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    "it's women who worry most about maintaining "authority," which simply reinforces "patriarchal" teaching methods and squelches critical thinking among students. I know that as a rookie teacher early in my graduate career, I was terrified of losing any control because it would reveal my inexperience. I think that is a fairly common phenomenon for any young teacher (take a look at how harshly grad TAs tend to grade, for example), not just women."
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