Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

Devices come and go, but progressive teachers who adapt will sustain longer than any device

Usually this conversation is focused on what hardware works best for teaching and learning. While this is an important decision to make, it should not be the focus. In fact, the best devices a school can employ are great teachers.

We have reached a point in education technology where devices are, for the most part, adaptable.

Children are influenced by everything around them, the way their parents act, what their parents say and do, and increasingly as they spend more time ‘with’ celebrity figures how these role models act.

Teachers — many of them — will continue to resent efforts to use standardized tests to measure their ability to teach.

Tucker, 72, a former senior education official in Washington, is the president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, which he founded in 1988. Since then he has focused much of his research on comparing public education in the United States with that of places that have far better results than we do — places like Finland, Japan, Shanghai and Ontario, Canada. His essential conclusion is that the best education systems share common traits — almost none of which are embodied in either the current American system or in the reform ideas that have gained sway over the last decade or so.

His starting point is not the public schools themselves but the universities that educate teachers. Teacher education in America is vastly inferior to many other countries; we neither emphasize pedagogy — i.e., how to teach — nor demand mastery of the subject matter. Both are a given in the top-performing countries. (Indeed, it is striking how many nonprofit education programs in the U.S. are aimed at helping working teachers do a better job — because they’ve never learned the right techniques.)

Teachers learn from their experience, from their colleagues, from their students, and any number of other resources. If you are a teacher looking for ways to expand your knowledge base, here are 100 free lectures you can watch to help facilitate some of that learning.

Creative Learning Environments

Technology

Teachers are warned that schools are scouring social networking sites and googling potential candidates for school positions.

Collaboration

collaborate

effective teacher collaboration

What do teachers want? A new study from PBS Learning Media details (in a highly visual manner) exactly what teachers want these days. From budgets to technology to web tools to increased engagement, it’s all here. The following infographic is definitely worth printing out and posting around your school. If you’re in the middle of determining what teachers, students, and parents want in your district, use this as a jumping off point to start the discussion. Key Findings Just 1 in 5 teachers say they have the right amount of technology in their classroom The biggest hurdle to getting improved technology? Budget. teachers want new technology because it provides new learning experiences and a motivation to learn. Web 2.0 tools are the most-used pieces of technology in the classroom.

Teachers are among the most powerful influences in learning. Teachers need to be directive, influential, caring, and actively engaged in the passion of teaching and learning. Teachers need to be aware of what each and every student is thinking and knowing to construct meaning and meaningful experiences in light of this knowledge, and have proficient knowledge and understanding of their content to provide meaningful and appropriate feedback such that each student moves progressively through the curriculum levels. Teachers need to know the learning intentions and success criteria of their lessons, know how well they are attaining these criteria for all students, and know where to go next in light of the gap between students’ current knowledge and understanding and the success criteria of: “Where are you going?”, “How are you going?”, and “Where to next?”. Teachers need to move from the single idea to multiple ideas, and to relate and then extend these ideas such that learners construct and reconstruct knowledge and ideas. It is not the knowledge or ideas, but the learner’s construction of this knowledge and these ideas that is critical. School leaders and Teachers need to create school, staffroom, and classroom environments where error is welcomed as a learning opportunity, where discarding incorrect knowledge and understanding is welcomed, and where participants can feel safe to learn, re-learn, and explore knowledge and understanding (Hattie, 2009, pp. 238-239).