Does your research teaching embrace the 21st century learner? This blog post has great information/lessons on strategies for helping students curate (finding/evaluating/managing) information.
But the devil is in the details, as in the specific combination of factors and conditions that produced the results. When I looked closely at this subset, I was amazed at the array of details that could potentially affect whether quizzes improve learning.
Are they pop quizzes or scheduled on the syllabus?
What types of questions are used (multiple choice, short answer, etc.)?
What’s the relationship between quiz questions and questions on the exam (same questions, similar questions, or completely different)?
How many quizzes are given throughout the semester?
When are the quizzes given—before content coverage or after? How soon after?
Do students take the quizzes in class or online?
Are the quizzes graded or ungraded? If graded, how much do they count?
Is the lowest score dropped?
What kind of feedback are students provided?
In this forum, seven experts discuss the questions, Why do bestselling young adult novels seem darker in theme now than in past years? What’s behind this dystopian trend, and why is there so much demand for it?
Connecting “The Giver” to Other Dystopian Literature
New York Times discussion of why young adults read dystopian stories such as "The Giver." The Author talks about the book and a panel of 8 experts discuss dystopian literature. Exercises are provided that students can use when studying such stories and novels.
Quizlet has become a great teaching tool that I have used for the past few years. I wrote this post a little while ago about easily adding images to Quizlet sets. For younger students, I have found a fun and easy way to use Quizlet flashcards plus a bingo tool for fun and effective review for all topics and subjects. This will even work for middle and high school students.
Every semester, professor Dr. Josie Ahlquist challenges her Leadership in the Digital Age students at Florida State University with a unique task. "Unplug from social-based platforms for 7 days," she says to a class of hesitant college students. Allowing room for negotiation, Dr. Ahlquist has seen her challenges run for as few as two days and as many as seven, and she requests that students document their experience throughout. The results showcase a facinating journey of self-discovery and reflection as these students shed social media for the duration of the challenge.
The simple answer is this: Finland’s cultural values and priorities are manifested in its system of education: “to guarantee all people…equal opportunities and rights to culture, free quality education, and prerequisites for full citizenship.”
Finland aims to uplift everyone in society; in Finland’s case, this vision can be achieved by providing equitable access to education and other social benefits.
Finnish students do not begin their formalized education until the age of 7, standardized testing is unheard of in the formative years, and autonomy and play are encouraged throughout the curriculum.
At the foundation of Finnish educational success are two core values: trust and equity.
Finland’s educational system had become more decentralized and decision-making occurred at the local level.
local autonomy
Constraints on control and standardization facilitated greater flexibility, freedom, and the teaching profession became more supported, trusted, and respected.
Love of Learning
growth
relationships
personalized learning
n such a climate, adult stakeholders ostensibly trust one another, causing classroom environments to be less controlling and more collaborative in nature.
With trust and equity as twin pillars of the educational system, it is unsurprising that Finland is able to focus on learning processes for civic engagement and development rather than on expending unnecessary energy for checklists, data, and oversight.
Too many of our communities, schools, and students remain constrained and marginalized by poverty, lack of access, and limited opportunities. Too many of us are focused on extrinsic motivators that inevitably lead to competition, compliance, expediency, sanctions, disengagement, and a diminished love of learning.
“we’re measuring a lot of things in education today,” and wondered, “how are we measuring care?”
perhaps we should be focusing less on Finnish education and more on the cultural values and conditions that make it possible.
Highlighting text is really easy with Diigo. And adding a sticky note is very simple is well. It can be made private or shared with groups of people who are working with the same document
Other ways I encourage these kinds of discussions includes having students choose their own groupings and books for independent book "clubs" and using the Web as a vehicle to create audio and/or video "book trailers."
From a technology end, our kids are beginning to do more and more with tools like voicethread, animoto, imovie, etc. Digital storytelling is a great way for students to be creative, share insights and show what they know and can do.
One facet of our reading instruction that cannot be overlooked is the importance of teacher readers in building a classroom reading community. According to Morrison, Jacobs, and Swinyard (1999), "perhaps the most influential teacher behavior to influence students' literacy development is personal reading, both in and out of school."
I wonder how open ALL teachers are about what they are reading? How much conversation do teachers as a whole have about what they are reading?
If we don't read, why should our students?
Share your reading life with your students. Show your students what reading adds to your life. If you are reading a nonfiction book at the moment, tell them what you are learning. Pass the children's books you are reading to them when you are done. Describe the funny, sad, or interesting moments in the books you read. When you read something challenging, talk with your students about how you work through difficult text. It will surprise them that you find reading hard at times, too, but choose to read, anyway.
Many students in today's world do not read books outside of school. When they do read, it is text-messages, web pages or homework assignments. For students who did not grow up in homes with books, with adults who read and who read to them, this time to read in school is both necessary and pleasurable. Many of my students need catch-up time when it comes to "hours-in" reading. The 10 minutes at the beginning of each period that I allow my juniors each day equals hours of reading across the months of the school year. My most dedicated readers begin books in the classroom, finish them at home, and return to the classroom/school library to check out new books.
This is an important distinction in that I believe (and research indicates) that our kids ARE reading more than ever before. But it comes in non-traditional forms. We must acknowledge that web based reading is still reading, but it differs. Research also indicates that when kids read digitally, they read in a different pattern. In traditional reading, they read in a z pattern down a page. Digital reading is more of an F pattern,indicating skim and scan.