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What will tomorrow bring? What will life be like in 2028 as our youngest students of today exit school? What occupations will they enter and what challenges will they face? These are not new questions but with the rate of change in society and the pace at which technology evolves they are questions without clear answers. How then do schools prepare students for this uncertain tomorrow? What shall we teach our children today such that are well prepared for the challenges and opportunities of their tomorrow?

The shift away from teaching for the rote memorisation of prescribed methods requires teachers to rethink their approach to the discipline. With this new pedagogy comes a need to understand the processes of mathematical thinking in ways not previously required. When we require our students to be able to reason and problem-solve through unique challenges we also require our teachers to have an understanding of the mathematical moves that their learners are likely to call upon.

Einstein is often quoted as having said "If I have an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes." Clearly Einstein understood how to attack puzzling problems. As teachers we face a host of puzzles on a daily basis. Every student we teach, thanks to their idiosyncrasies presents a unique puzzle. The interactions between students further complicates things. Our goals for our learners, their learning needs, the demands of the curriculum, pressures from beyond the classroom all result in puzzles for us to manage and to solve.

An important part of the role of any educator is that of planning learning sequences. Perhaps you are tasked with designing curriculum or more likely you are translating a mandatory curriculum into workable units of learning. The task is complex and there are multiple arrangements. The goal is to design units that connect students with learning in ways that are meaningful and relevant. A well-designed unit of learning fits seamlessly alongside other learning opportunities and the overall sequence of learning should match the learners developing expertise. As we plan units of learning we must consider a great variety of factors which impact the learning we design. Our knowledge of our students and where they are with their learning is crucial and a strong place to start. We also need to know what it is we are required to teach and have a grab bag of pedagogical moves that bring this content alive.

"Self-Directed Learning When students are motivated to create work that they share online, it ignites an independent learning cycle driven by their ideas and energized by responses from peers."

Self-Directed Learning "When students are motivated to create work that they share online, it ignites an independent learning cycle driven by their ideas and energized by responses from peers."

Note-taking is one of those skills that rarely gets taught. Teachers and professors assume either that taking good notes comes naturally or that someone else must have already taught students how to take notes. Then we sit around and complain that our students don't know how to take notes.

chool camps are a wonderful opportunity to observe how our students handle the challenge of a different learning setting. Away from the norms and familiar settings of the classroom, we see students in a different light. For the students, camps are an exciting and for some frightening challenge. For teachers, they are an outstanding assessment tool that should inform our practices long after camp is over. 

One of the thinking moves that we hope our students will confidently engage with is centred around the disposition of uncovering complexity. As we endeavour to shift our students towards a deeper understanding, the capacity to uncover complexity is a vital step. However, the ability to uncover complexity is itself complex and an excellent example of a skill that is best achieved when considered as a disposition. 

This is a great blog post to use to frame a discussion about the educational applications for Wikipedia and the importance of teaching media literacy.

Making a lesson plan is easy. Creating an effective lesson plan is the key to effective teaching and a critical factor in achieving positive student outcomes.

Though many professors are still experimenting and learning how these tools can be used, below are 10 ways journalism schools are teaching students to use social media.

For teachers in Australia the year is drawing rapidly to a close. It is a time for packing away classrooms, taking down displays of student learning and saying farewell to students as they move on to new classes. At the ending of one year it is worth taking a moment to ponder what is so remarkable about teaching as a profession.

That's why we're here," she said. "So I can show you not only what's out there but also how other educators are using these resources to teach their students right now."

"students, learning, future, food, education, schools, teaching"

"We're about to give your fourteen-year-old a computer," Michael Allen recently told a group of parents attending a new student orientation, "and here's why it could scare you." Then Allen, the principal of no-textbook New Tech High School, said he understood their biggest fears: the new sites and technologies that crop up all the time, kids multitasking while doing schoolwork, the reality of parents' lack of control over what their kids see and how they behave online. But for Allen and many like him who are integrating technology in schools, guiding the behaviors that accompany a new way of learning is just as important as the content they'll be covering in school - if not more so. In order to be successful, Allen maintains that students need to learn trust, respect and responsibility for technology. He knows that many of the situations that come up in a school where computers are the only conduit of information must be addressed earlier rather than later, and parents and teachers need to be leading the way."

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Explore classic stories "The Wizard of Oz," "The Mermaid," and "Aladdin" and collect treasure. Great activity for using context clues. As the questions pop up, students who don't know the story can click on the link "Read the book to discover the answer" and be taken to the page in the book that contains the information they need to answer. Great for teaching students to go back to the text to find information and use context clues.

"The Virtual Valentines Project is designed to teach students geographical awareness and cultural understanding while connecting classrooms all around the world for Valentine's Day. Through this experience, our goal is to circumnavigate the globe with virtual Valentines greetings and cultural exchanges in order to spread a little happiness to children everywhere.  Whether your students are in kindergarten or are seniors in high school, this project will help them learn something new."

The history of teaching is littered with ideas that have come and gone. In their day each was the new bright hope, set to transform what we do as teachers and how our students learn. Each new idea had its supporters and detractors and each in turn was replaced by an alternative or simply disappeared from view. Those who have experienced this ebb and flow of ideas have learned to approach the shiny and the new with caution and yet we have all encountered ideas that are so compelling it is difficult to ignore. How might we approach new ideas and innovative practices in ways that ensure our students benefit?