Group items tagged

What year are you preparing your students for? 1973? 1995? Can you honestly say that your school s curriculum and the program you use are preparing your students for 2015 or 2020? Are you even preparing them for today?  With those provocative questions, author and educator Heidi Hayes Jacobs launches a powerful case for overhauling, updating, and injecting life into the K 12 curriculum. Sharing her expertise as a world-renowned curriculum designer and calling upon the collective wisdom of 10 education thought leaders, Jacobs provides insight and inspiration in the following key areas:  * Content and assessment--How to identify what to keep, what to cut, and what to create, and where portfolios and other new kinds of assessment fit into the picture.  * Program structures--How to improve our use of time and space and groupings of students and staff.  * Technology--How it s transforming teaching, and how to take advantage of students natural facility with technology.  * Media literacy--The essential issues to address, and the best resources for helping students become informed users of multiple forms of media.  * Globalization--What steps to take to help students gain a global perspective.  * Sustainability--How to instill enduring values and beliefs that will lead to healthier local, national, and global communities.  * Habits of mind--The thinking habits that students, teachers, and administrators need to develop and practice to succeed in school, work, and life.

This ASCD Study Guide is designed to enhance your understanding and application of the information contained in Curriculum 21: Essential Education for a Changing World, an ASCD book edited by Heidi Hayes Jacobs and published in January 2010. You can use the study guide before or after you have read the book, or as you finish each chapter. The study questions provided are not meant to cover all aspects of the book, but, rather, to address specific ideas that might warrant further reflection. Most of the questions contained in this study guide are ones you can think about on your own, but you might consider pairing with a colleague or forming a study group with others who have read (or are reading)

"What boosts PBL from a fun and engaging exercise to a rigorous and powerful real-world learning experience? Researchers have identified four key components that are critical to teaching successfully with PBL (Barron & Darling-Hammond, 2008; Ertmer & Simons, 2005; Mergendoller & Thomas, 2005; Hung, 2008). All of these play a role in the curriculum-design process."

From Thomas Sauer's Skydrive - the Jefferson County Public Schools (KY) WL curriculum for levels 1-3, regardless of language, but emphasis on Spanish, French and German

Is change hard? Is change easy? The answer to both of those questions is "yes." If you reflect upon all that is done to "change" schools, you would probably think that policymakers think change is hard - very hard. Think of all the initiatives that are launched every day to change schools: new tests, new curriculum, new evaluation systems, new laws, policies and regulations. When all of these, however, fail to change schools, the people who develop these change initiatives end up thinking that the change initiatives just have to be bigger, stronger and more tightly managed.

"I just came across this awesome graphic on Bloom's Taxonomy and thought you might be interested to have a look as well. This graphic is a little bit different from the visuals I have previously shared with you in Bloom's Taxonomy page here in Educational Technology and Mobile Learning. Besides featuring the usual thinking skills found in the revised taxonomy, it also provides a classification of learners along this thinking continuum. In this regard we have : Creative Thinkers Independent Inquirers Effective Participators Self Managers Team Workers Reflective Learners have a look at the visual to learn more."

Digital Citizenship is a concept which helps teachers, technology leaders and parents to understand what students/children/technology users should know to use technology appropriately. Digital Citizenship is more than just a teaching tool; it is a way to prepare students/technology users for a society full of technology. Digital citizenship is the norms of appropriate, responsible technology use.  Too often we are seeing students as well as adults misusing and abusing technology but not sure what to do. The issue is more than what the users do not know but what is considered appropriate technology usage. 

"It is often said that leading and teaching in project-based learning schools are like building an airplane while flying it. During the summer, we land the plane and we have a chance to just build. In the spirit of summer, this post is brief and concrete so we have more time for the beach and planning! Here are three ways you can plan for student success this summer"

Tons of resources collected by our good friend and ACTFL President, Toni Theisen.

"Over the course of two years, I, along with the Burlington Public Schools tech team, had the opportunity to meet and connect with over one hundred schools. These discussions would usually involve what device works best in the classroom and how the iPad is affecting teaching and learning outcomes. Frequently this conversation focuses on the most effective hardware 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."

"For some, the technology rich classroom is easy to justify. Once you have made the transition and seen the benefits, it is easy to weigh them against the potential risks and worries about the problems resulting from having a room full of devices."

"PDF documents are now being used almost everywhere. Long ago, when they have just been introduced, it was difficult for us to use these documents as there were no options for any kind of change. All we could do was just read or view the documents. There were no PDF tools for teachers, admins, and students. However, with the introduction of other tools, we were able to do different things with PDFs which made it easy for us to use them for various purposes."