By calling it “school” (rather than learning), and “a job” (rather than work), we’re unwittingly creating a tone of drudgery and compliance that centers the institutions and their processes (grades, academic success and performance), and de-centers the end result (skills–>understanding–>creativity–>wisdom).
10More
Getting A Job Is Not The Purpose Of School - 41 views
-
the vast majority of social ills that plague us–as a planet, not just in one country–stem from a surplus of bad work
-
And because we’ve all had jobs that sucked, it’s easy to shrug it off as a necessary evil in life, but it’s not. Work that demeans, dehumanizes, mechanizes, and depersonalizes individuals also, by design, demean, dehumanize, mechanize, and depersonalize society at large, and telling people to “be thankful they have a job” is an antiquated response that misses the point.
- ...7 more annotations...
-
Only in the absence of any viable idea of vocation or good work can one make the distinction implied in such phrases as “less work, more life” or “work-life balance,” as if one commutes daily from life here to work there.
-
If such questions are not asked, then we have no way of seeing or proceeding beyond the assumptions of (the author) and his work-life experts: that all work is bad work; that all workers are unhappily and even helplessly dependent on employers; that work and life are irreconcilable; and that the only solution to bad work is to shorten the workweek and thus divide the badness among more people.”
-
Doesn’t the quality of a culture rely in part on a deep, dynamic interaction between those who are adults now, and those who will be soon?” And in that intersection sits education.
-
Getting a job is not the purpose of school. Good work is a shared core of both education and social improvement. I’m not entirely sure what this means for learning on a practical level, but I keep having the idea of diverse learning forms embedded in authentic local communities as a kind of first response.
18More
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
Dennis OConnor liked it
-
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.
- ...10 more annotations...
-
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.
-
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.
-
They require changes in curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices -- changes that are often new for teachers and students.
-
A scholarly article with tremendous real-world practical implications and suggestions. Love this.
-
A scholarly article with tremendous real-world practical implications and suggestions. Love this.
-
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.
1More
12 things teachers can do to help reduce stress - 73 views
-
Yay, another new year! Where does the time go? Being a teacher is a stressful job, but one of the most rewarding vocations available. Sometimes, it is possible to lose sight of the important things in life, as the stress of the job takes over your life. We all make resolutions with good intentions, but reducing work stress is critical for ensuring that the job doesn't absorb every waking moment in your life. Below are 12 suggestions on how teachers (and school leaders) can reduce stress, for themselves, for colleagues, and for pupils. Some of the suggestions might seem obvious, but it's nice to be reminded, and to allow you to reflect on opportunities you have to reduce some of the stress in your life.
1More
The Positive Power of Negative Thinking - 16 views
-
"Fads in education come and go, with many settings being full of optimism, hope, and trying to instil a positive mindset among their pupils. Yet, all these positive, happy signals sometimes fall short of providing individuals the skills to think more critically within the world they engage in. Many people believe that thinking negatively is a bad thing, and do not consider it as a positive force for good. Expecting things to go wrong can be a great force for good, and with grades and expectations in schools set very high, what happens when things don't go to plan? People are completely stuffed. If exams scores do not reach expected levels, then deciding on a college, university, or vocational options can throw individuals off-course, but having considered the negative outcome options can provide a backup plan of which they still have some control."
11More
CBI: We must drive change through a culture of expectation - 1 views
-
-
There is a risk that the mistakes of the past – both teaching to the test by schools and micro-management of the school system through the means of exams and league tables – may be repeated in the EBC.
-
nternational evidence from high-performing education systems suggests more formative assessment during schooling would be beneficial
- ...7 more annotations...
-
But an over-reliance on summative assessment can distort the quality of education by becoming the dominant focus of school activity.
-
Removal of the currently over-specified and repetitive national curriculum from primary schools in favour of clearly defined goals on literacy, numeracy, science and computer science.
-
Move the focus of our exam system to 18 and develop clearly rigorous and stretching standards for both academic and vocational A-levels, with maths and English retained until 18 for both
-
should be commissioned to advise on the right balance of timing and the optimal mix between formative and summative assessment
49More
CBI: Change is possible - but we must be clearer about what we ask schools to develop i... - 1 views
-
- ...46 more annotations...
-
In Finland, the goals of education are explicitly linked to competitiveness, research and innovation.
-
This lack of a comprehensive statement of the achievement we are looking for schools to deliver is a key failing.
-
-
One such school leader told us they had taken a conscious decision with one group of young people to focus on five key subjects and some life skills, knowing that the accountability system would score them down for it, as it expected eight qualifications from all students at that time.
-
Our system should reward schools making brave decisions which focus on boosting long-term outcomes for pupils, not punish them.
-
It should be able to survive changes of government and provide the test against which policy changes and school actions are judged
-
shine the light on whether the system is truly addressing the needs of all students, rather than just the few required to meet a government target.
-
thos and culture that build the social skills also essential to progress in life and work, and allow them time to focus on this
-
Have a school accountability and assessment framework that supports these goals rather than defining them.
-
An exclusive focus on subjects for study would fail to equip young people with these, though rigour in the curriculum does help
-
Behaviours can only be developed over time, through the entire path of a young person’s life and their progress through the school system.
-
Development of a clear, widely-owned and stable statement of the outcome that all schools are asked to deliver.
-
resourcing these bodies to develop an approach based on a wider range of measures and assessments than are currently in use,
11More
Learning and earning: Equipping people to stay ahead of technological change | The Econ... - 34 views
-
working lives are so lengthy and so fast-changing that simply cramming more schooling in at the start is not enough. People must also be able to acquire new skills throughout their careers.
-
lifelong learning that exists today mainly benefits high achievers—and is therefore more likely to exacerbate inequality than diminish it.
- ...6 more annotations...
-
a burst at the start and top-ups through company training—is breaking down. One reason is the need for new, and constantly updated, skills.
-
The 19th and 20th centuries saw stunning advances in education. That should be the scale of the ambition today
-
It is easier to learn later in life if you enjoyed the classroom first time around: about 80% of the learners on Coursera already have degrees. Online learning requires some IT literacy, yet one in four adults in the OECD has no or limited experience of computers. Skills atrophy unless they are used, but many low-end jobs give workers little chance to practise them.
-
Lifelong learning starts at school. As a rule, education should not be narrowly vocational. The curriculum needs to teach children how to study and think. A focus on “metacognition” will make them better at picking up skills later in life.
-
Pushing people into ever-higher levels of formal education at the start of their lives is not the way to cope.
-
WHEN education fails to keep pace with technology, the result is inequality.
1More
Engaging Schools: Fostering High School Students' Motivation to Learn - 59 views
-
When it comes to motivating people to learn, disadvantaged urban adolescents are usually perceived as a hard sell. Yet, in a recent MetLife survey, 89 percent of the low-income students claimed I really want to learn applied to them. What is it about the school environment pedagogy, curriculum, climate, organization that encourages or discourages engagement in school activities? How do peers, family, and community affect adolescents attitudes towards learning? Engaging Schools reviews current research on what shapes adolescents school engagement and motivation to learn including new findings on students sense of belonging and looks at ways these can be used to reform urban high schools. This book discusses what changes hold the greatest promise for increasing students motivation to learn in these schools. It looks at various approaches to reform through different methods of instruction and assessment, adjustments in school size, vocational teaching, and other key areas. Examples of innovative schools, classrooms, and out-of-school programs that have proved successful in getting high school kids excited about learning are also included.
1More