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Lisa C. Hurst

Inside the School Silicon Valley Thinks Will Save Education | WIRED - 9 views

www.wired.com/altschool

shared by Lisa C. Hurst on 05 May 15 - No Cached
  • Lisa C. Hurst on 05 May 15
     
    "AUTHOR: ISSIE LAPOWSKY. ISSIE LAPOWSKY DATE OF PUBLICATION: 05.04.15. 05.04.15 TIME OF PUBLICATION: 7:00 AM. 7:00 AM INSIDE THE SCHOOL SILICON VALLEY THINKS WILL SAVE EDUCATION Click to Open Overlay Gallery Students in the youngest class at the Fort Mason AltSchool help their teacher, Jennifer Aguilar, compile a list of what they know and what they want to know about butterflies. CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK/WIRED SO YOU'RE A parent, thinking about sending your 7-year-old to this rogue startup of a school you heard about from your friend's neighbor's sister. It's prospective parent information day, and you make the trek to San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood. You walk up to the second floor of the school, file into a glass-walled conference room overlooking a classroom, and take a seat alongside dozens of other parents who, like you, feel that public schools-with their endless bubble-filled tests, 38-kid classrooms, and antiquated approach to learning-just aren't cutting it. At the same time, you're thinking: this school is kind of weird. On one side of the glass is a cheery little scene, with two teachers leading two different middle school lessons on opposite ends of the room. But on the other side is something altogether unusual: an airy and open office with vaulted ceilings, sunlight streaming onto low-slung couches, and rows of hoodie-wearing employees typing away on their computers while munching on free snacks from the kitchen. And while you can't quite be sure, you think that might be a robot on wheels roaming about. Then there's the guy who's standing at the front of the conference room, the school's founder. Dressed in the San Francisco standard issue t-shirt and jeans, he's unlike any school administrator you've ever met. But the more he talks about how this school uses technology to enhance and individualize education, the more you start to like what he has to say. And so, if you are truly fed up with the school stat
Drew Rosenshine

Does Teaching Kids To Get 'Gritty' Help Them Get Ahead? : NPR Ed : NPR - 49 views

www.npr.org/...get-gritty-help-them-get-ahead

grit mindset kids teaching dissertation

shared by Drew Rosenshine on 14 Jul 14 - No Cached
  • they need to have a "growth mindset" — the belief that success comes from effort — and not a "fixed mindset" — the notion that people succeed because they are born with a "gift" of intelligence or talent.
  • ducators say they see it all the time: Kids with fixed mindsets who think they just don't have the "gift" don't bother applying themselves. Conversely, kids with fixed mindsets who were always told they were "gifted" and skated through school tend to crumble when they hit their first challenge; rather than risk looking like a loser, they just quit.
  • We don't use the word 'gifted' — ever," Giamportone says. "In our school, you will never hear it." " 'Smart' is like a curse," adds social studies teacher June Davenport.
  • ...13 more annotations...
  • Instead, the school is plastered with signs and handmade posters promoting a "growth mindset."
  • The focus is always more on putting out effort than on getting the right answers. Teachers have been trained to change the way they see students, and how they speak to them.
  • praise students for their focus and determination.
  • "If I was an outsider and I was hearing this conversation, I might think that this was some kind of hippie-dippy love fest," concedes the teacher, Nathan Cearley. "But what you see is actually a more rigorous and risky learning environment."
  • In three years, Cearley says, he's seen kids grow less afraid of making mistakes, and more willing to ask for help. Test scores at Lenox have jumped 10 to 15 points.
  • The number of schools using Brainology is expected to double this year, from 500 to 1,000.
  • A limited intervention, she says, if not consistently reinforced in and out of school, can only have limited results. "We don't know whether we've had any effect — the jury's out," says Duckworth. "It just seems to me extremely implausible that that's going to permanently and impressively change a child."
  • "Grit as a goal seems to be multiply flawed and very disturbing," says education writer Alfie Kohn. For starters, he says, "the benefits of failure are vastly overstated, and the assumption that kids will pick themselves up and try even harder next time, darn it — that's wishful thinking."
  • if there's a problem with how kids are learning, the onus should be on schools to get better at how they teach — not on kids to get better at enduring more of the same.
    • Drew Rosenshine
      Drew Rosenshine on 15 Jul 14
       
      Yes, but once again this is not an either/or situation.
  • I don't think people can become truly gritty and great at things they don't love," Duckworth says. "So when we try to develop grit in kids, we also need to find and help them cultivate their passions. That's as much a part of the equation here as the hard work and the persistence."
  • But now, three years into the growth-mindset training at Lenox Academy, Blaze says, she believes "you can teach old dogs new tricks."
  • Does Teaching Kids To Get 'Gritty' Help Them Get Ahead?
  • After years of focusing on the theory known as "multiple intelligences" and trying to teach kids in their own style, Hoerr says he's now pulling kids out of their comfort zones intentionally.
Ed Webb

Please Sir, how do you re-tweet? - Twitter to be taught in UK primary schools - 2 views

uk.techcrunch.com/...e-taught-in-uk-primary-schools

twitter technology literacy education UK socialmedia

shared by Ed Webb on 25 Mar 09 - Cached
  • The British government is proposing that Twitter is to be taught in primary (elementary) schools as part of a wider push to make online communication and social media a permanent part of the UK’s education system. And that’s not all. Kids will be taught blogging, podcasting and how to use Wikipedia alongside Maths, English and Science.
  • Traditional education in areas like phonics, the chronology of history and mental arithmetic remain but modern media and web-based skills and environmental education now feature.
  • The skills that let kids use Internet technologies effectively also work in the real world: being able to evaluate resources critically, communicating well, being careful with strangers and your personal information, conducting yourself in a manner appropriate to your environment. Those things are, and should be, taught in schools. It’s also a good idea to teach kids how to use computers, including web browsers etc, and how those real-world skills translate online.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • I think teaching kids HOW TO use Wikipedia is a step forward from ordering them NOT TO use it, as they presently do in many North American classrooms.
  • Open Source software is the future and therefore we need to concentrate on the wheels and not the vehicle!
  • Core skills is very important. Anyone and everyone can learn Photoshop & Word Processing at any stage of their life, but if core skills are missed from an early age, then evidence has shown that there has always been less chance that the missing knowledge could be learnt at a later stage in life.
  • Schools shouldn’t be about teaching content, but about learning to learn, getting the kind of critical skills that can be used in all kinds of contexts, and generating motivation for lifelong learning. Finnish schools are rated the best in the world according to the OECD/PISA ratings, and they have totally de-emphasised the role of content in the curriculum. Twitter could indeed help in the process as it helps children to learn to write in a precise, concise style - absolutely nothing wrong with that from a pedagogical point of view. Encouraging children to write is never a bad thing, no matter what the platform.
  • Front end stuff shouldn’t be taught. If anything it should be the back end gubbins that should be taught, databases and coding.
  • So what’s more important, to me at least, is not to know all kinds of useless facts, but to know the general info and to know how to think and how to search for information. In other words, I think children should get lessons in thinking and in information retrieval. Yes, they should still be taught about history, etc. Yes, it’s important they learn stuff that they could need ‘on the spot’ - like calculating skills. However, we can go a little bit easier on drilling the information in - by the time they’re 25, augmented reality will be a fact and not even a luxury.
  • Schools should focus more on teaching kids on how to think creatively so they can create innovative products like twitter rather then teaching on how to use it….
  • Schools should focus more on teaching kids on how to think creatively so they can create innovative products like twitter rather then teaching on how to use it….
  • Ed Webb on 25 Mar 09
     
    The British government is proposing that Twitter is to be taught in primary (elementary) schools as part of a wider push to make online communication and social media a permanent part of the UK's education system. And that's not all. Kids will be taught blogging, podcasting and how to use Wikipedia alongside Maths, English and Science.
trisha_poole

50 Best Education Technology Blogs You Aren't Reading Yet - 173 views

www.mastersinspecialeducation.org/ogs-you-arent-reading-yet.html

teaching technology web2.0 teachers education Blogs elearning resources flexiblelearning blendedlearning learning&teaching learningtools teacherdevelopment teachertraining

shared by trisha_poole on 06 Dec 10 - No Cached
  • Early EFL: Leahn is located in Spain, where she works as a freelance language assistant teacher and as a teacher trainer in workshops for primary and secondary school teachers.
  • Box of Chocolates: Join this EFL teacher from Recife, Brazil, who is very passionate about teaching
  • Neslihan Durmusoglu: This blog reflects on the world of EFL and about being a 21st-century learner and teacher.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Reflections of a Teacher and Learner: David teaches kids at a private college in Turkey and he also is a distance student on the University of Manchester’s MA in EdTech & TESOL programme
  • An A-Z of ELT: This blog is managed by the man who wrote An A-Z of ELT in 2006, Scott Thornbury.
  • Authentic Teaching: This blogger has taught EFL in Brazil, and taught ELT for several years as well. He now is earning an MA in Education in London
  • Jeremy Harmer’s Blog: Jeremy is a writer and teacher/teacher-trainer for English to speakers of other languages, and he blogs about presentation.
  • Marisa Constantinides — TEFL Matters: This blogger runs CELT Athens, a teacher development center based in Greece.
  • Shaun Wilden’s Blog: Shaun has been involved in English language teaching for almost twenty years. He also maintains several online teaching sites including ihonlinetraining.net.
  • So this is English… This blog is filled with ideas, thoughts, discoveries, feedback and more about the teaching and learning of English.
  • Teaching Village: Barbara is an English teacher currently living in Kitakyushu, Japan, and using Web 2.0 tools and virtual worlds.
  • trisha_poole on 13 Jan 11
     
    Technology and teaching - two words that seem to fit together perfectly today for most teachers and learners. So much so that a slew of new blogs have come on board to talk about education technology - or, edTech. This list of the 50 best education technology blogs are not inclusive, as there are so many new blogs available; however, if you look at links provided by many of these blogs to other edTech blogs, you may learn about even more blog that you aren't reading yet.
Marianne Hart

The Creativity Crisis - Newsweek - 48 views

www.newsweek.com/...the-creativity-crisis.html

shared by Marianne Hart on 13 Jul 10 - Cached
  • there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.
  • “Creativity can be taught,”
  • it’s left to the luck of the draw who becomes creative: there’s no concerted effort to nurture the creativity of all children
    • Brian C. Smith
      Brian C. Smith on 26 Jul 10
       
      Students are labeled as "creative" if they display a knack for art or music, and sometimes in writing, however, they are rarely recognized as creative in math or science where a lot of creativity is not only needed, but excellent for learning within those very two disciplines.
    • Bill Genereux
      Bill Genereux on 23 Aug 10
       
      This is precisely why creativity education is important. It is needed everywhere, not just in the arts. Those teaching outside of arts education need to start recognizing the importance of creative thinking as well.
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • When faculty of a major Chinese university asked Plucker to identify trends in American education, he described our focus on standardized curriculum, rote memorization, and nationalized testing. “After my answer was translated, they just started laughing out loud,” Plucker says. “They said, ‘You’re racing toward our old model. But we’re racing toward your model, as fast as we can.’ ”
  • The argument that we can’t teach creativity because kids already have too much to learn is a false trade-off. Creativity isn’t about freedom from concrete facts. Rather, fact-finding and deep research are vital stages in the creative process.
  • When you try to solve a problem, you begin by concentrating on obvious facts and familiar solutions, to see if the answer lies there. This is a mostly left-brain stage of attack. If the answer doesn’t come, the right and left hemispheres of the brain activate together. Neural networks on the right side scan remote memories that could be vaguely relevant. A wide range of distant information that is normally tuned out becomes available to the left hemisphere, which searches for unseen patterns, alternative meanings, and high-level abstractions. Having glimpsed such a connection, the left brain must quickly lock in on it before it escapes. The attention system must radically reverse gears, going from defocused attention to extremely focused attention. In a flash, the brain pulls together these disparate shreds of thought and binds them into a new single idea that enters consciousness. This is the “aha!” moment of insight, often followed by a spark of pleasure as the brain recognizes the novelty of what it’s come up with. Now the brain must evaluate the idea it just generated. Is it worth pursuing? Creativity requires constant shifting, blender pulses of both divergent thinking and convergent thinking, to combine new information with old and forgotten ideas. Highly creative people are very good at marshaling their brains into bilateral mode, and the more creative they are, the more they dual-activate.
  • those who diligently practice creative activities learn to recruit their brains’ creative networks quicker and better
    • Ed Webb
      Ed Webb on 23 Jul 10
       
      Surely, "more quickly"?
  • Creativity has always been prized in American society, but it’s never really been understood. While our creativity scores decline unchecked, the current national strategy for creativity consists of little more than praying for a Greek muse to drop by our houses. The problems we face now, and in the future, simply demand that we do more than just hope for inspiration to strike. Fortunately, the science can help: we know the steps to lead that elusive muse right to our doors.
    • Brian C. Smith
      Brian C. Smith on 26 Jul 10
       
      Likely because it was out of necessity and the hardships of life. Not that we don't have hardships and necessities, but innovation has solved a lot of problems and automation has made skills and tasks easy.
  • What’s common about successful programs is they alternate maximum divergent thinking with bouts of intense convergent thinking, through several stages. Real improvement doesn’t happen in a weekend workshop. But when applied to the everyday process of work or school, brain function improves.
    • Brian C. Smith
      Brian C. Smith on 26 Jul 10
       
      Everyday process of work or school... over time, consistent and non-prescriptive.
  • kids demonstrated the very definition of creativity: alternating between divergent and convergent thinking, they arrived at original and useful ideas. And they’d unwittingly mastered Ohio’s required fifth-grade curriculum—from understanding sound waves to per-unit cost calculations to the art of persuasive writing. “You never see our kids saying, ‘I’ll never use this so I don’t need to learn it,’ ” says school administrator Maryann Wolowiec. “Instead, kids ask, ‘Do we have to leave school now?’ ” Two weeks ago, when the school received its results on the state’s achievement test, principal Traci Buckner was moved to tears. The raw scores indicate that, in its first year, the school has already become one of the top three schools in Akron, despite having open enrollment by lottery and 42 percent of its students living in poverty.
  • project-based learning
  • highly creative adults frequently grew up with hardship. Hardship by itself doesn’t lead to creativity, but it does force kids to become more flexible—and flexibility helps with creativity.
  • When creative children have a supportive teacher—someone tolerant of unconventional answers, occasional disruptions, or detours of curiosity—they tend to excel. When they don’t, they tend to underperform and drop out of high school or don’t finish college at high rates. They’re quitting because they’re discouraged and bored, not because they’re dark, depressed, anxious, or neurotic. It’s a myth that creative people have these traits. (Those traits actually shut down creativity; they make people less open to experience and less interested in novelty.) Rather, creative people, for the most part, exhibit active moods and positive affect. They’re not particularly happy—contentment is a kind of complacency creative people rarely have. But they’re engaged, motivated, and open to the world.
  • solutions emerge from a healthy marketplace of ideas, sustained by a populace constantly contributing original ideas and receptive to the ideas of others
  • The age-old belief that the arts have a special claim to creativity is unfounded.
  • When scholars gave creativity tasks to both engineering majors and music majors, their scores laid down on an identical spectrum, with the same high averages and standard deviations. Inside their brains, the same thing was happening—ideas were being generated and evaluated on the fly.
  • The lore of pop psychology is that creativity occurs on the right side of the brain. But we now know that if you tried to be creative using only the right side of your brain, it’d be like living with ideas perpetually at the tip of your tongue, just beyond reach
  • those who diligently practice creative activities learn to recruit their brains’ creative networks quicker and better. A lifetime of consistent habits gradually changes the neurological pattern.
  • The home-game version of this means no longer encouraging kids to spring straight ahead to the right answer
  • The new view is that creativity is part of normal brain function.
  • “As a child, I never had an identity as a ‘creative person,’ ” Schwarzrock recalls. “But now that I know, it helps explain a lot of what I felt and went through.”
  • In China there has been widespread education reform to extinguish the drill-and-kill teaching style. Instead, Chinese schools are also adopting a problem-based learning approach.
  • fact-finding
  • problem-finding
  • Next, idea-finding
  • there is one crucial difference between IQ and CQ scores. With intelligence, there is a phenomenon called the Flynn effect—each generation, scores go up about 10 points. Enriched environments are making kids smarter. With creativity, a reverse trend has just been identified and is being reported for the first time here: American creativity scores are falling.
  • Christian Howd on 13 Jul 10
     
    For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. What went wrong-and how we can fix it.
Martin Leicht

Treehouse teaching and laundry art: Educators find creative ways to reach kids - 5 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...b-bc68-96af0daae728_story.html

learning zoom online teaching laundry

shared by Martin Leicht on 11 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • was also concerned about her students’ lack of engagement — so few were completing the assignments she emailed to parents
  • Playing with her family’s laundry marked the first time Maliah seemed happy — actually happy — since the start of the pandemic.
    • Martin Leicht
      Martin Leicht on 11 Jan 21
       
      NOTE - happy - happy is good. Happy kids want to learn or are more likely to learn.
  • Nobody should ever be penalized or put at a disadvantage for the supplies they don’t have,” Dillingham thought to herself. “But everyone’s got laundry!”
  • ...19 more annotations...
  • Clark started an online fundraiser to pay for bikes. He raised more than $10,000, and neighbors donated dozens of bikes and helmets for the rides.
    • Martin Leicht
      Martin Leicht on 11 Jan 21
       
      NOTE - a little digital citizenship too mixed in with online fund raising.
  • She couldn’t be sure whether her kids were uninterested or whether they lacked the necessary pens, paper and crayons at home.
  • He decided he would take his students on socially distanced bike rides across the city. “It was a leap of faith. I got extremely nervous. I was trying to find a way to connect with kids,” Clark said.
  • her young students are musical detectives, in search of learning. She teaches most grade levels and the school chorus.
    • Martin Leicht
      Martin Leicht on 11 Jan 21
       
      NOTE - musical detectives searching for music.
  • t he’s found other ways to keep his students engaged and cycling the city. He invited students to a weekly entrepreneurship class for which they rode their bikes uptown from Dunbar to the gym where Clark works, Sweat DC. The students met with the owner of the gym and the owners of a nearby bar, Hook Hall, and the bagel shop Call Your Mother Deli to learn what it takes to run a business.
  • She wanted them to create their own composition, their own snowy-day song.
    • Martin Leicht
      Martin Leicht on 11 Jan 21
       
      NOTE - used flipgrid for this
  • When Clark wanted to teach them about resilience, he took them through the hilly streets of Georgetown.
  • In lessons for older students, some days there were makeshift drums involved or recorders that students had taken home.
  • she was able to use the treehouse as a key part of her lessons.
  • She lugged a bookshelf, desk and heater into the 5-by-7-foot space, and ran an Ethernet cable from the house so she’d have Internet.
    • Martin Leicht
      Martin Leicht on 11 Jan 21
       
      NOTE - properly set up
  • before climbing into what passes for her classroom in 2020: her daughters’ decade-old treehouse.
    • Martin Leicht
      Martin Leicht on 11 Jan 21
       
      NOTE - different locals - maybe something with changing backgrounds.
  • So as one class studied architecture this fall, Daney, 54, encouraged them to walk in their neighborhood to take photos of houses of different styles: ranch, colonial, Victorian.
    • Martin Leicht
      Martin Leicht on 11 Jan 21
       
      NOTE - use what you have around you.
  • nd he stuck with his usual method of helping students learn about the design process, asking them to prepare a meal. They started with ideas and research, made a plan, carried it out and evaluated it. The result: soups and pastas and pastries.
    • Martin Leicht
      Martin Leicht on 11 Jan 21
       
      NOTE - edTech class on engineering and design
  • Kids need connection, he said. “I think they’re starving for conversation,” including with adults.
  • In fifth grade, students are expected to learn how to add, subtract, multiply and divide with whole numbers, decimals and fractions. Through a computer application the students have, they can program the robot to move a certain distance, stop, maybe even turn.
    • Martin Leicht
      Martin Leicht on 11 Jan 21
       
      NOTE - use a robot or technology to achieve the same result.
  • With learning all-virtual, he packs a big Ziploc bag — for each student, each quarter — with things like fishing line, foam board, pipecleaners, magnets, Popsicle sticks and rubber bands. Whatever they will need for their projects.
  • And a lot of the math is a little sneaky. They think they are trying to get the robot to move, when they are actually measuring the angles to get it to move.”  
  • Others complete their math problems directly on the computer, which can lead to some troubles as they try to show their work.
    • Martin Leicht
      Martin Leicht on 11 Jan 21
       
      NOTE - will share screen be viable.
  • When Kristin Gavaza interviewed for the music teacher position at Dorothy I. Height Elementary in the summer, she told the principal she had some ideas for how to create a festive concert while students were scattered and learning from home.
    • Martin Leicht
      Martin Leicht on 11 Jan 21
       
      NOTE - picture references a complete teacher set up of a large screen and standing desk. Sure, she's video editing yet the concept carries to teaching class too.
  • Martin Leicht on 11 Jan 21
     
    Numerous creative examples to how educators promoted learning on line and worked to build engagement.
Steven Szalaj

Raise the bar with national exam for teachers - chicagotribune.com - 53 views

www.chicagotribune.com/...29-bd-20121229,0,7069731.story

Education Certification Union

shared by Steven Szalaj on 30 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • Steven Szalaj on 30 Dec 12
     
    Editorial about a recommendation by the AFT Pres to develop a professional certification for teachers.  It's about time...
  • ...2 more comments...
  • Michelle Kassorla on 30 Dec 12
     
    About time for what? For standardized tests to ruin the teaching profession like it has ruined our kids? For the government to control, from the top down, what education departments teach their students? Looks like a HUGE power grab and a very bad way for a Union, who professes to stand against standardized tests to act! Shame on them! Go to Fairtest.org to find out more about the scam of standardized testing. If you think a standardized test can improve education, you must also think you can fatten a calf by weighing it!
  • Mark Smith on 30 Dec 12
     
    Michelle is right. More standardized testing is not the answer for anything, least of all teacher certification. Come on, Steven .. use your critical thinking skills. Don't encourage the bean counters and bureaucrats who are so enamored of things that can be measured and filed into neat categories. The most valuable things cannot be measured in any "objective" way. To focus on what's measurable is to focus on what's shallow.
  • Steven Szalaj on 31 Dec 12
     
    Mark & Michelle, thank you for your comments. When I posted this I knew the words "standardized test" would be a flashpoint. It is for me too. With nearly 40 years in the classroom, teaching a creative art (music) to all different levels (kindergarten through college and well beyond), I have often railed against reducing any education, any student, to a number. Very little in what I have taught can be measured with a pencil-and-paper test. What I see here is different than this. It is the union that she is saying should be the "gate-keeper" to our profession, rather than some generic government standard test. Yes, tests would be a part of the certification, but from what I read, so would much more, including actual classroom work. The certification would be similar to the AMA for physicians or the Bar for attorneys. These are certifications designed and administered by the profession - not the government - and validate a candidate's readiness to practice. Yes, I too am strongly against the government, or any organization outside of our profession, to certify, to validate, a teacher's ability to do the job. But we have to admit there is a problem with teacher certification and validation. There are people who simply should not be in the classroom (haven't we all seen them?). It is very difficult to remove folks who are dragging the respect for our profession down. Yes, there is remediation. Yes, it should be a difficult process to remove someone in order to protect against administrative abuses. But what is talked about here is the profession policing itself - something that the teacher's unions, in general, have steadfastly refused to do. What the AFT Pres is suggesting is that the best thing we can do to raise the status of teaching as a profession is to take action ourselves to make it happen. Really, if we in the profession do not do this, then it will be imposed from those outside who do not know what we do, how we do it and why we do it.
  • Michelle Kassorla on 31 Dec 12
     
    You are still talking about a standardized test. Let's face it--doctors have to have specific knowledge to do their job. Whether or not they are creative or engaging is not as important as their knowledge base. The same with lawyers--knowledge of the law is essential, and everything else is secondary. However, in teaching, although educational theory and knowledge of their subject area is important (and already tested, by the way) the most essential aspect of teaching is how you can creatively engage students, interact with parents and peers, and stay organized and motivated. These things CAN'T BE TESTED. Right now, teachers already go through extensive training, evaluation, and continuing education. Do you REALLY think that a standardized test will really improve teaching? I know a lot of university professors who can easily pass a test, but few of them can teach worth beans.
Jason Schmidt

School Would Be Great If It Weren't for the Damn Kids - 95 views

www.alfiekohn.org/...damnkids.htm

school alfie kohn students edreform education interest current commentary

shared by Jason Schmidt on 17 Nov 10 - No Cached
  • It simply doesn’t make sense to try to “purge ‘ineffective’ teachers and principals.”  His listener, almost giddy with gratitude now, prepares to chime in, as Samuelson, without pausing, delivers the punch line:  That’s right, it’s time to stop blaming teachers and start . . . blaming students!
  • His focus is not on students’ achievements (the intellectual accomplishments of individual kids) but only on “student achievement” (the aggregate results of standardized tests)
  • As I’ve noted elsewhere, we have reason to worry when schooling is discussed primarily in the context of “global competitiveness” rather than in terms of what children need or what contributes to a democratic culture
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • Upon hearing someone castigate students for being insufficiently motivated, a noneconomist might be inclined to ask two questions.  The first is:  “Motivated to do what, exactly”?  Anything they’re told, no matter how unengaging, inappropriate, or, well, demotivating? 
  • Whenever I see students made to cram facts into their short-term memories for a test, practice a series of decontextualized skills on yet another worksheet, listen passively to a lecture, or inch their way through the insipid prose of a corporate-produced textbook, I find myself thinking of a comment made by Frederick Herzberg, a critic of traditional workplace management:  “Idleness, indifference, and irresponsibility,” he said, “are healthy responses to absurd work.”
  • The more you reward people for doing something, or for doing it well, the less interest they typically come to have in whatever they had to do to get the reward. 
  • People who blame students for not being “motivated” tend to think educational success mean little more than higher scores on bad tests and they’re apt to see education itself as a means to making sure our corporations will beat their corporations.  The sort of schooling that results is the type almost guaranteed to . . . kill students’ motivation.
  • one thing that’s happened is a concatenation of rewards and punishments, including grades, which teach students that learning is just a means to an end.
  • Another thing that’s happened is teaching that’s meant primarily to raise test scores.
  • inner-city kids get the worst of the sort of schooling that’s not about exploring and discovering and questioning but only about working hard (often at rote tasks) and being nice (read: obedient).
  • “Motivation is weak because more students…don't like school, don't work hard and don't do well.”  But why don’t they like school (which is the key to understanding why, assuming his premise is correct, they don’t succeed)?  What has happened to their desire to figure out how things work, the hunger to make sense of things, with which all children start out? 
  • if you want to see (intrinsically) motivated kids, you need to visit classrooms or schools that take a nontraditional approach to education, places where students are more likely to be absorbed and frequently delighted, where what they’re doing is not merely “rigorous” (a word often applied to very difficult busywork) but meaningful.
  • Jason Schmidt on 17 Nov 10
     
    Alfie Kohn's commentary on an article written by Robert J. Samuelson. Samuelson argues in his article that the problem with education reform is not the usual suspects like ineffective teachers, but kids who are lazy and unmotivated. Interesting read with thoughtful information about student motivation.
Randy Yerrick

Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers | TED Talk | TED.com - 23 views

www.ted.com/..._kids_real_math_with_computers

LAI532F16

shared by Randy Yerrick on 30 Sep 16 - No Cached
  • Randy Yerrick on 30 Sep 16
     
    From rockets to stock markets, many of humanity's most thrilling creations are powered by math. So why do kids lose interest in it? Conrad Wolfram says the part of math we teach - calculation by hand - isn't just tedious, it's mostly irrelevant to real mathematics and the real world. He presents his radical idea: teaching kids math through computer programming.
Clint Heitz

Flipping the Classroom: A revolutionary approach to learning presents some pros and cons | School Library Journal - 73 views

www.slj.com/...ng-presents-some-pros-and-cons

flipping flipped classroom flipped_classroom

shared by Clint Heitz on 09 May 13 - No Cached
    • Clint Heitz
      Clint Heitz on 09 May 13
       
      Why not create multiple types of videos? YouTube allows "choose your own path" videos that can let you alter the video based on the responses during viewing.
    • Clint Heitz
      Clint Heitz on 09 May 13
       
      Great way to provide equitable access opportunities
  • Teachers need to figure out what they want to get out of a flipped classroom, says Marine City High’s Ming. “What’s the purpose of doing it? Is it because you’re looking for more time in your curriculum to do hands-on activities?” An AP government teacher told Ming the best part of teaching his class was holding class discussions. The flipped classroom helped him get through the material with time to spare for conversation.
  • ...9 more annotations...
    • Clint Heitz
      Clint Heitz on 09 May 13
       
      The purpose is always the key. Don't try to implement this "just because" or excessively. It is a great tool, but not always the right one.
  • Watching videos also means more sitting in front of devices. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends kids limit “screen time” to two hours a day because too much exposure has been linked to obesity, irregular sleep, behavioral problems, violence, and less time for play.
    • Clint Heitz
      Clint Heitz on 09 May 13
       
      Why not flip it with podcasts that students can listen to while walking, driving, etc.
  • Students need to feel as though their teachers are guiding them to the best materials, not merely giving them a list of videos to watch, says Valenza
  • “Teachers should keep posing the ‘why,’” says Bob Schuetz, the technology director at Palatine High School in Illinois. “Why am I doing this? Why is it beneficial to students?”
  • “The teacher walks around and helps everyone. It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card for teachers not to teach.” It’s also not a way for kids to get out of doing anything at home. “Flipping what the kid does means they do the work ahead of time, come to class, and debrief,” explains Michelle Luhtala (aka the
  • “The end goal is personalized education. The flipped classroom is just a means to that end.” Students can use the videos to learn at their own pace—any time or place, says Roberts. “These students can replay their teacher’s explanation of a new concept as many times as they need to without fear of holding up the rest of the class.”
  • a librarian at Bullis School in Potomac, MD, gives students videos, Web pages, and screenshots about the nuts and bolts of the library, which frees up more time to devote to their research projects.
  • ure, some kids will ignore the video. “The same kids who don’t currently do their homework will not watch the lecture,” says McCammon. “But as you start making your class more engaging, kids who don’t usually do their homework will start doing it because they want to participate in the class.” Kids write questions down while they’re watching the video, and then the first 10 minutes of class is for discussion of what they’ve seen.
MIchael Heneghan

Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom by Alan November on Vimeo - 68 views

vimeo.com/3930740

education technology AlanNovember web2.0 teaching

shared by MIchael Heneghan on 05 Aug 10 - Cached
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      "People learn through conversations"
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      "Easy to teach teachers to use technology. Difficult to get the teachers to shift control away from themselves to the kids."
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      "Tech robbed kids of the opportunity to make a contribution to their communities." How can I find a way to help kids contribute, via English class?
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      "Interdisc. Bauhaus created an amazing flow of ideas." How can we make our classes more interdisc.?
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      "Need authentic conversations locally and around the world"
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      "this gives students more of a choice to do the kinds of assignments they want to do, as opposed to just the teacher deciding." You would certainly need to check that they were doing challenging, relevant work.
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      All of these skills mentioned above are exactly what are essential in the 21st century workplace.
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      Concrete idea for how to answer the above, last question. He used a concrete example from a 3rd grade class: "Have the kids create a podcast every week of what they learned. Have a writer, producer, mixer, etc." Would you do that during class time or outside of classtime?
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      "Have an official Note Taker each class as well. Have the class as a whole review the notes to see if they are good/correct."
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      "Another solution: you need to be more reflective on the body of work that you are doing. What have I learned? Where have I been and where am I going?" How do you do this?
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      "Teach kids really good research skills. Have them look up assignments and related material from other teachers from all over the world." And then do what with them?
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      "One solution: have an official classroom researcher everyday in your class." The job would be to gather the websites that will be used connected to whatever it is you're studying? Is that right? Need more thought on this.
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      "Final Myth: Tech will make kids smarter. Actually it's a distraction. Creates more plagiarism and people wanting to get things done. Losing critical thinking." How can we use the enormous resources of the internet and at the same time increase critical thinking?
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      "Another myth: the internet will give people a range of ideas. The opposite is true. People search out their version of the truth, e.g. Fox News or Huffington Post." I find this to be incredibly true.
    • MIchael Heneghan
      MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
       
      "It's a myth that tech will be the great equilizer in society. At least not for now." Why?
  • MIchael Heneghan on 20 Aug 10
     
    This was shared previously, but I've added many annotations I think teachers will find interesting.
Deborah Baillesderr

Giving the Classroom Back to Kids: Supporting Independent Learning through the Flipped Model - YouTube - 59 views

www.youtube.com/watch

giving classroom kids supporting independent learning model

shared by Deborah Baillesderr on 26 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • Deborah Baillesderr on 26 Oct 13
     
    Kids teaching kids!
Joe Virant

Does Easy Do It? Children, Games, and Learning - 29 views

www.papert.org/...Doeseasydoit.html

papert games

shared by Joe Virant on 14 Oct 09 - Cached
  • The kind of product I shall pick on here has the form of a game: the player gets into situations that require an appropriate action in order to get on to the next situation along the road to the final goal. So far, this sounds like "tainment." The "edu" part comes from the fact that the actions are schoolish exercises such as those little addition or multiplication sums that schools are so fond of boring kids with. It is clear enough why people do this. Many who want to control children (for example, the less imaginative members of the teaching profession or parents obsessed with kids' grades) become green with envy when they see the energy children pour into computer games. So they say to themselves, "The kids like to play games, we want them to learn multiplication tables, so everyone will be happy if we make games that teach multiplication." The result is shown in a rash of ads that go like this: "Our Software Is So Much Fun That The Kids Don't Even Know That They Are Learning" or "Our Games Make Math Easy."
  • What is worst about school curriculum is the fragmentation of knowledge into little pieces. This is supposed to make learning easy, but often ends up depriving knowledge of personal meaning and making it boring. Ask a few kids: the reason most don't like school is not that the work is too hard, but that it is utterly boring.
  • game designers have a better take on the nature of learning than curriculum designers. They have to. Their livelihoods depend on millions of people being prepared to undertake the serious amount of learning needed to master a complex game. If their public failed to learn, they would go out of business. In the case of curriculum designers, the situation is reversed: their business is boosted whenever students fail to learn and schools clamor for a new curriculum!
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • watching kids work at mastering games confirms what I know from my own experience: learning is essentially hard; it happens best when one is deeply engaged in hard and challenging activities.
  • The preoccupation in America with "Making It Easy" is self-defeating and cause for serious worry about the deterioration of the learning environment.
  • I have found that when they get the support and have access to suitable software systems, children's enthusiasm for playing games easily gives rise to an enthusiasm for making them, and this in turn leads to more sophisticated thinking about all aspects of games, including those aspects that we are discussing here. Of course, the games they can make generally lack the polish and the complexity of those made by professional designers. But the idea that children should draw, write stories and play music is not contradicted by the fact that their work is not of professional quality. I would predict that within a decade, making a computer game will be as much a part of children's culture as any of these art forms.
  • Joe Virant on 14 Oct 09
     
    Dr. Seymour Papert describes ways in which gaming enhances learning. June, 1998.
anonymous

Teacher Training Videos created by Russell Stannard - 101 views

www.teachertrainingvideos.com/elt.html

stannard videos tutorials

shared by anonymous on 18 Dec 09 - Cached
  • anonymous on 18 Dec 09
     
    " * About Russell Stannard * ELT/ESL Videos * Web 2.0/ICT Videos * Russell's Research Videos * 9 Great Spelling Sites for ELT * Free on-line screen capture tool * Zimmer Twins-Brilliant Cartoon/Dialogue Tool for Kids * Word Magnets-Great vocabulary/Grammar Tool * How to use Survey Monkey * My favourite Website on the Web * 5 Simple but brilliant ELT tools * Great Text Tool called WordSift * Wolfram Alpha Great Question Making Tool * Fun Viral Marketing Tools * Amazing 3D dialogue builder * 2 amazing presentation tools * Best Pronunciation Sites * Best ELT sites 2008 * Great dictation site * Wordle-Great Vocab Site * My favourite Listening Site * 10 vocab sites for kids * ELT Videos with subtitles * Brilliant Comic Site * 7 Great Fun sites for ELT * Unusual Vocabulary Site * Really Fun Dialogue Building Tool * A site for drawing&Recording * 11 great sites for teaching English * Recording & Searching Podcasts with Podamatic * Good sites for ELT Video content * Review of the best ELT podcasts * Voicethread- Presentation tool * Fun drawing tool Humanising Language Teaching The Blogs I use most for ELT * Larry Ferlazzo's blog * Nik Peachey's blog * Blog at IH Barcelona * Ozge's Blog * Carl's Blog Newsletter For extra free materials and training videos, sign up to our monthly newsletter! Email Address: Confirm Email Address: Name: Organisation/Institution: "
Siri Anderson

What Makes a Great Teacher? - The Atlantic (January/February 2010) - 71 views

www.theatlantic.com/...2

EdPsych teacher-education assessment value-added ROI

shared by Siri Anderson on 15 Jan 10 - Cached
  • hey avidly recruited students and their families into the process; they maintained focus, ensuring that everything they did contributed to student learning; they planned exhaustively and purposefully—for the next day or the year ahead—by working backward from the desired outcome; and they worked relentlessly, refusing to surrender to the combined menaces of poverty, bureaucracy, and budgetary shortfalls.
  • one way that great teachers ensure that kids are learning is to frequently check for understanding: Are the kids—all of the kids—following what you are saying? Asking “Does anyone have any questions?” does not work,
  • Students are not always the best judges of their own learning.
  • Chris Sloan on 15 Jan 10
     
    "For years, the secrets to great teaching have seemed more like alchemy than science, a mix of motivational mumbo jumbo and misty-eyed tales of inspiration and dedication. But for more than a decade, one organization has been tracking hundreds of thousands of kids, and looking at why some teachers can move them three grade levels ahead in a year and others can't. Now, as the Obama administration offers states more than $4 billion to identify and cultivate effective teachers, Teach for America is ready to release its data."
  • Siri Anderson on 02 Feb 10
     
    Article on teacher effectiveness as studied through Teach for American data. Thrilling and scary in implication all at the same time.
Josh Flores

TODAYMoms - Should parents be blamed when kids fail at school? - 106 views

moms.today.com/...lamed-when-kids-fail-at-school

news resources should parents

shared by Josh Flores on 23 May 11 - No Cached
    • Josh Flores
      Josh Flores on 23 May 11
       
      Who the heck would click "NO"???
    • Josh Flores
      Josh Flores on 24 May 11
       
      Parents should be held accountable, teachers should be held accountable AND students should be held accountable.
    • Josh Flores
      Josh Flores on 24 May 11
       
      from Lynn Jones (to me?) "How many children do you have? I am an educator and I have 6 children who are all different. My second child, a son, was never told to study, never had a spelling word called out to him, and strieved to make all A's and B's since the 2nd grade. His older brother with an IQ of 128 in the 5th grade didn't care about grades and passing. His younger brother almost graduated high school before him even though they were 3 years apart in age. The oldest son has ADHD. His grandmother was a math teacher and I am a math teacher, but yet that was the subject he failed almost each year and had to go to summer school. He had the same parents and the same environment as his younger brother, but he was lacking the drive that is born in you. I won't go into the differences of the other 4 just to say that the good Lord gifted me with 3 ADHD children when not much was known about it (the oldest is 44). Every child is different and parents must learn not to judge one by the others, just like teachers must not assume that about siblings they teach. A parent can be their to help and try to point them in the right direction with the right work ethics in school, but the bottom line is how much the child cares and wants to achieve. The envolved parent can help the child that sits on the fence and can go on either side, but the ultimate choice is going to be the child's. It is the same with church. You can take the child to church every Sunday, but when they get older it is their decision how to direct their life. I am not saying that a parent shouldn't try every day to give the guidance their children need and deserve, but you can't beat yourself up when things don't go the way you think they should. All a parent can do is standby their child and give them all the love they can and to know that sometimes that is not enough for the child."
    • Josh Flores
      Josh Flores on 24 May 11
       
      My Reply to Lynn Jones: 1. Parents should be held accountable along with teachers and the students themselves. 2. Six kids????? You are a saint! I plan on having two at the most and pray to the gods they're not girls! 3. Is there a specific reason you sent me your family history?
    • Josh Flores
      Josh Flores on 24 May 11
       
      From Lynn: "I sent you the history to show that no two children are alike and not to judge one child by the behavior of another. In education we teach all types and there is no one way to approach all children. Sometimes it is not the parent that can make a difference, but someone else and not always a teacher."
    • Josh Flores
      Josh Flores on 24 May 11
       
      I don't think the article is about differentiation but sure, I'm confident it's in the back of any high quality educator's mind. Regardless, we can always do more than standby our kids. 
  • Lynn Jones on 24 May 11
     
    How many children do you have? I am an educator and I have 6 children who are all different. My second child, a son, was never told to study, never had a spelling word called out to him, and strieved to make all A's and B's since the 2nd grade. His older brother with an IQ of 128 in the 5th grade didn't care about grades and passing. His younger brother almost graduated high school before him even though they were 3 years apart in age. The oldest son has ADHD. His grandmother was a math teacher and I am a math teacher, but yet that was the subject he failed almost each year and had to go to summer school. He had the same parents and the same environment as his younger brother, but he was lacking the drive that is born in you. I won't go into the differences of the other 4 just to say that the good Lord gifted me with 3 ADHD children when not much was known about it (the oldest is 44). Every child is different and parents must learn not to judge one by the others, just like teachers must not assume that about siblings they teach. A parent can be their to help and try to point them in the right direction with the right work ethics in school, but the bottom line is how much the child cares and wants to achieve. The envolved parent can help the child that sits on the fence and can go on either side, but the ultimate choice is going to be the child's. It is the same with church. You can take the child to church every Sunday, but when they get older it is their decision how to direct their life. I am not saying that a parent shouldn't try every day to give the guidance their children need and deserve, but you can't beat yourself up when things don't go the way you think they should. All a parent can do is standby their child and give them all the love they can and to know that sometimes that is not enough for the child.
  • Lynn Jones on 24 May 11
     
    I sent you the history to show that no two children are alike and not to judge one child by the behavior of another. In education we teach all types and there is no one way to approach all children. Sometimes it is not the parent that can make a difference, but someone else and not always a teacher.
Deborah King

Clive Thompson on Why Kids Can't Search | Magazine - 204 views

www.wired.com/...st_thompson_searchresults

website_evaluation research information_literacy

shared by Deborah King on 09 Nov 11 - No Cached
Kate Pok liked it
  • how savvy
  • If they’re naive at Googling, it’s because the ability to judge information is almost never taught in school.
  • intelligent search a key to everyday problem-solving
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • a golden opportunity to train kids in critical thinking.
  • “The big thing in assessing search results is authorship—who put it there and why have they put it there?”
  • “This is learning how to learn.”
  • , mastering “crap detection 101,”
  • One prerequisite is that you already know a lot about the world.
  • Google makes broad-based knowledge more important, not less
  • But, crucially, she also trains students to assess the credibility of what they find online. For example, she teaches them to analyze the tone of a web page to judge whether it was created by an academic, an advocacy group, or a hobbyist.
  • she also trains students to assess the credibility of what they find online. For example, she teaches them to analyze the tone of a web page to judge whether it was created by an academic, an advocacy group, or a hobbyist.
  • she also trains students to assess the credibility of what they find online. For example, she teaches them to analyze the tone of a web page to judge whether it was created by an academic, an advocacy group, or a hobbyist
  • she also trains students to assess the credibility of what they find online. For example, she teaches them to analyze the tone of a web page to judge whether it was created by an academic, an advocacy group, or a hobbyist.
  • kids grok the intricacies
  • A group of researchers led by College of Charleston business professor Bing
  • Gil Anspacher on 09 Nov 11
     
    All subjects need to teach students how to search for, analyze and utilize digital information within the subject area. This is where students will be getting info until someone pulls the plug or locks them in a bookmobile.
  • Roland Gesthuizen on 13 Nov 11
     
    "We're often told that young people tend to be the most tech-savvy among us. But just how savvy are they? ,,, High school and college students may be "digital natives," but they're wretched at searching."
aaxtell

CCSS "I Can" statements for K-8 - 64 views

www.thecurriculumcorner.com/...hing-ccss-i-can-for-k-6-grades

CCSS Common Core education standards standards-based teaching learning standards

shared by aaxtell on 21 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • aaxtell on 21 Dec 15
     
    Kids learn best when they know what they're supposed to be learning. Make learning outcomes explicit with kid-friendly "I Can" statements tied to each Common Core standard.
  • aaxtell on 21 Dec 15
     
    Kids learn best when they know what they're supposed to be learning. Make learning outcomes explicit with kid-friendly "I Can" statements tied to each Common Core standard.
Steve Ransom

Talentism: My Son Won't Do His Homework - 2 views

www.talentism.com/...my_son_wont_do_.html

homework talent creativity discipline gr8

shared by Steve Ransom on 03 Jun 13 - No Cached
  • Every employer I know of (and I would assume that you are no exception Colin) wants engaged employees who are passionate about their jobs. Most employers do not want employees who hate their work but persist through it anyway. It is a fallacy to believe that we are teaching our kids that the heart of innovative capability (and therefore their future job prospects) is best served by doing something you hate for an extended period of time no matter the consequences.
  • But I have to focus on what will get them work, even if that will hurt them, society, the companies that hire them and everyone around them.
  • "Why are you so convinced that my son is going to be an academic or an investment banker?" Because as far as I can tell, those are the only two things that schools prepare kids to be.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • and that the stuff that he loves (art and music and video games) will be a great future for him and the stuff he hates (math and science) is something he will never compete in, never have a chance at.
  • But school doesn’t care, because school does not have the objective of helping my son produce the maximum amount of value in the future that he will probably encounter. School cares about ensuring that he knows how to take tests, follow directions and can do math that he will never have to care about for the rest of his life.
  • Steve Ransom on 03 Jun 13
     
    Most employers do not want employees who hate their work but persist through it anyway. It is a fallacy to believe that we are teaching our kids that the heart of innovative capability (and therefore their future job prospects) is best served by doing something you hate for an extended period of time no matter the consequences.
Thieme Hennis

Teaching Kids to Code | EdSurge Guides - 14 views

www.edsurge.com/...teaching-kids-to-code

code programming learning education kids

shared by Thieme Hennis on 16 May 13 - No Cached
  • Phil Taylor on 16 May 13
     
    "Teaching Kids to Code"
  • Thieme Hennis on 06 Jan 14
     
    list of resources to learn to code.
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