However, in designing courses, educators must recognize that although self-governance is an individual, internal factor, not all learners will respond well to the online or community-led approach to education. Factors, such as personal goals, communication skills, information technology skills, and study environment, will also affect success.
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Online Learning Communities Flourish Best If Individual Learners Have Self-governance - 4 views
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The International Schools Island (isi) - 7 views
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"http://slurl.com/secondlife/International%20Schools/64/90/24" An AMAZING blog for the Second Life International Schools Island.
What Happens in 60 Seconds on The Internet - 25 views
gizmodo.com/...-in-60-seconds-on-the-internet
infographic minute news distractions internet edublogger history digitalcitizenship techintegrator web2 web3d
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Designing Education - 3 views
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"Many of us will have fond memories of children's TV engaging us to turn our used bottles into rockets, our wooden spoons into cartoon character puppets, and attaching googly eyes to anything which keeps still for more than 3 seconds! Schools are great at turning recycling into creativity, and design is at the heart of this. Later, the skills pupils learn turning pasta into planes and tins into trains fuel are the beginning of making the engineers and artisans of the future."
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UKEdChat Global 2020 Online Conference - Call for Speakers - 1 views
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"As part of our efforts to support the amazing community of schools, teachers and educators globally, we are delighted to announce that our plans for a 2020 UKEdChat Conference have been moved forward to June 2020. The 2020 event will be our second online conference, and many educators got involved in the first event, sharing resources, pedagogy and great ideas that can be used in the classroom. We have now opened our 'Call to Speakers', and we invite school leaders, teachers, educational authors, educational consultants and educational companies to create (upto) 20-minute videos that will inspire delegates during the 3-day event."
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The UKEd Podcast - Episode 02 - Teenagers Lives - 1 views
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"This second episode in the UKEd Podcast explores some of the highlights from a report published by the OECD exploring the lives of teenagers, their well-being, and dependency on internet use, highlighting issues that teachers and schools can use to support teenagers in reducing anxiety and pressure they place on themselves."
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Nik's QuickShout: Becoming a Technology Teacher Trainer - 2 views
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I'm really proud to announce the release of the second edition of my Digital Tools for Teachers ebook and also the Trainers' Edition which should enable any teacher with a basic knowledge of technology to run teacher training and development courses and sessions for pre-service and in-service teachers.
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The Atlantic Online | January/February 2010 | What Makes a Great Teacher? | Amanda Ripley - 14 views
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"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo
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Children's math education resources for teachers | DreamBox Learning online math educat... - 1 views
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From Dreambox in my inbox: "In honor of Math Awareness Month this April, I am e-mailing you this morning to share the news that DreamBox Learning is launching DreamBox Math Classroom, a school version of the curriculum and standards based childrens math adventure game, DreamBox Learning K-2 Math. To celebrate the release, DreamBox Learning offers free access to the game for any kindergarten, first or second grade classroom in the U.S. and Canada through the end of the current school year or June 30, 2009. Teachers at accredited schools can simply visit www.dreambox.com/teachers to sign up for classroom usage. "
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Many Complaints of Faculty Bias Stem From Students' Poor Communicating, Study Finds - F... - 4 views
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some perceptions of classroom bias would decline, and students would benefit more from exposure to opposing viewpoints, if colleges did more to teach argumentation and debate skills. Teaching undergraduates such skills "can help them deal with ideological questions in the classroom and elsewhere in a civil way, and in a way that can discriminate between when professors are expressing a bias and when they are expressing a perspective that they may, or may not, actually be advocating,"
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The study's findings, however, were criticized as ideologically biased themselves by Peter W. Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, a group that has frequently accused colleges of liberal or leftist indoctrination. The article summarizing the study, Mr. Wood said on Friday, "seems to me to have a flavor of 'blaming the victim,'" and appears "intended to marginalize the complaints of students who have encountered bias in the classroom."
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Students need to learn how to argue as a workplace skill. If they understood this as a key workplace strategy that will affect their ability to advance they may be more willing to pay attention. They are there-- regardless of what we may believe-- to get jobs at the end. Discussion and dealing with disputes or differences is key to professional advancement
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It's one thing to be closed to students' arguments or to insist on conformity with a prof's views. It is another altogether when students do not know how to argue their own points, especially points that are not political. At some point, isn't it the case that the prof does know even a little bit more about their subjects than their students?
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Several studies (post 1998) seem to indicate that the capacity to understand and engage in logical argumentation has diminished (at least in the 'Western' world). These studies seem to have encouraged the state education boards (committees) of several states to entertain making a "critical thinking" or "Introductory logic" course part of the required core.
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I have found Susan Wolcott's teaching materials, which are informed by research by K.S. Kitchener and P. M. King, to be the most helpful in addressing student accusations of bias. I had long been puzzled by why my colleagues in philosophy are so often accused of bias when, in my own observation of their teaching, they take care to keep their own views of a philosophical topic hidden from students. Indeed, they spend a great deal of time playing devil's advocate and championing the philosophical position that is getting the least airtime in class discussion, readily switching sides if another perspective begins to be neglected. Wolcott's developmental analysis, which explains how students arrive at college as "confused fact finders" and often get stuck in learning critical thinking skills at the "biased jumper" stage, helps me to understand how students attribute bias to professors when the students lack skills to maneuver around arguments. The most helpful part of Wolcott's analysis is her suggestion that, if one gives students an assignment that is more than one level above their current abilities in critical thinking, they will completely ignore the assignment task. This failing is particularly visible when students are asked to compare strengths/weaknesses in two arguments but instead write essays in which they juxtrapose two arguments and ignore the task of forging comparisons. In Wolcott's workbooks (available by request on her website), she describes assignments that are specifically designed to help students build a scaffolding for critical thinking so that, over four years, they can actually leave the "biased jumper" stage and move on to more advanced levels of critical thinking. One need not be a slavish adherent to the developmental theory behind Wolcott's work to find her practical suggestions extremely helpful in the classroom. Her chart on stages of critical thinking is the first link below; her website is the second link. http://www.wolcottlynch.com/Do... http://www.wolcottlynch.com/Ed...
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The classroom and campus are not divorced from the polarized language in the greater society wherein people are entrenched in their own views and arguments become heated, hateful, and accusatory. The focus of this study on political bias is not helpful under the circumstances. The greater argument is that students need to be taught how to argue effectively, with facts, logic and reasoning not just in the classroom but beyond.
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What happened to the 'Sage on the Stage' as the 'provacatuer-in-chief'? Some of my best classroom experiences came from faculty that prompted critical thinking and discussion by speaking from all sides of an issue. They were sufficiently informed to deflate weak arguments from students with probing questions. They also defended an issue from every side with factual information. In the best instances, I truly did not know the personal position of a faculty member. It was more important to them to fully and fairly cover an issue than it was to espouse a personal preference. That spoke volumes to me about the love of learning, critical examination of strongly held personal beliefs, and assertive but fair-minded discourse. Do those faculty still exist?
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The study suggests that those faculty do exist and in fact are numerous, but that students' ever-diminishing skills in critical thinking and argumentation lead them to misunderstand the questioning, challenging Socratic dialogue and "devil's advocate" work of the professor as simple bias.
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When I was teaching controversial subjects the advice from the Administration was, "Teach the debate." Its pretty hard to "teach the debate" without actually having some of those debates. When students "checked out" during those debates I always wondered if they were the ones who were going to report on their teaching evaluations that, "the professor was biased." Of course when the student intellectually "checks out," i.e., remains quiet, only says what they think I want to hear, etc., they are not doing A work in the class. This reinforces their view that "the professor is biased."
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What We do not know ( Infographic ) - 14 views
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"When it comes to history, science, and global affairs. Americans are notoriously uninformed. Too many of us shrug off our inability to" do math" or speak a second language. And in effect, we assume that these capacities are somehow dispensable, however they are not. Higher education in America is experiencing a similar misassumption......."
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Response: Several Ways Teachers Can Create A Supportive Environment For Each Other - Cl... - 10 views
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One way to address this is to establish a team norm that collaborative efforts AREN'T about studying successful people. Instead, they are about studying successful PRACTICES
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Because teachers are (1). surrounded by efforts to tie performance to individuals instead of collaborative groups and (2). used to working in isolation, it is only natural to see competitive teacher-centered language slip into our conversations.
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The first level is, what can an individual teacher do to impact the culture of her individual professional learning team?
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Idaho Teachers Fight a Reliance on Computers - NYTimes.com - 8 views
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The idea was to establish Idaho’s schools as a high-tech vanguard.
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To help pay for these programs, the state may have to shift tens of millions of dollars away from salaries for teachers and administrators.
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And the plan envisions a fundamental change in the role of teachers, making them less a lecturer at the front of the room and more of a guide helping students through lessons delivered on computers.
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OK, several comments here. 1. I have no problem with "less a lecturer." However, I do not advocate the elimination of lecture. It is one of many methods for teacher and learning. 2. The implication of the last part of the sentence is that the computer is becoming the/a teacher, delivering instruction. I do not agree with this characterization of technology. It is a tool for helping students learn, not for teaching them (with some exceptions). It extends the learners access to knowledge and skills...
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And some say they are opposed to shifting money to online classes and other teaching methods whose benefits remain unproved.
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My question here is, "Why are the requiring online classes?" If it is part of the "high-tech vangard" thing, then I don't really understand. If it is because they believe that it is more effective for learning, well, that's a complex issue that depends on so many things that have NOTHING to do with the state's legislature. If it is because students will be taking online courses in their future, and then need to learn to take online courses while in high school, then I can support that. I do not believe that it is appropriate to compare online courses to face-to-face courses. Fact is, sometime online is the only way you can access the knowledge/skills that you need. We need to be comfortable with that. But it has little to do with technology. It's learning!
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improve student learning.
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This is a phrase that irks me. I think that we should be using contemporary information and communication technologies for teaching and learning, because our prevailing information environment is networked, digital, and info-abundant. We should be using tech to make learning more relevant to our time...
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“I fought for my country,” she said. “Now I’m fighting for my kids.” Gov. C. L. Otter, known as Butch, and Tom Luna, the schools superintendent, who have championed the plan, said teachers had been misled by their union into believing the changes were a step toward replacing them with computers. Mr. Luna said the teachers’ anger was intensified by other legislation, also passed last spring, that eliminated protections for teachers with seniority and replaced it with a pay-for-performance system. Some teachers have also expressed concern that teaching positions could be eliminated and their raises reduced to help offset the cost of the technology. Mr. Luna acknowledged that many teachers in the state were conservative Republicans like him — making Idaho’s politics less black and white than in states like Wisconsin and New Jersey, where union-backed teachers have been at odds with politicians.
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The teacher does become the guide and the coach and the educator in the room helping students to move at their own pace.
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This is so far off the mark that I do not know where to begin. OK, here's what I would say. "Our children live in a time of rapid change. Therefore, they must become resourceful and relentless learners. Being a teacher in such classrooms requires an expanding array of skills and activities, among them, being resourceful and relentless learners in front of their students -- adapting to today's prevailing information environment and the information and communication technologies that work it." Probably need to find a simpler way to express this.
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The plan requires high school students to take online courses for two of their 47 graduation credits
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Mr. Luna said this would allow students to take subjects that were not otherwise available at their schools and familiarize them with learning online, something he said was increasingly common in college
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becomes the textbook for every class, the research device, the advanced math calculator, the word processor and the portal to a world of information.
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Teachers are resisting, saying that they prefer to employ technology as it suits their own teaching methods and styles. Some feel they are judged on how much they make use of technology, regardless of whether it improves learning. Some teachers in the Los Angeles public schools, for example, complain that the form that supervisors use to evaluate teachers has a check box on whether they use technology, suggesting that they must use it for its own sake.
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That is a concern shared by Ms. Rosenbaum, who teaches at Post Falls High School in this town in northern Idaho, near Coeur d’Alene. Rather than relying on technology, she seeks to engage students with questions — the Socratic method — as she did recently as she was taking her sophomore English class through “The Book Thief,” a novel about a family in Germany that hides a Jewish girl during World War II.
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This is a wonderful method for teaching and timeless. However, if the students are also backchanneling the conversation, then more of them are participating, sharing, agreeing and disagreeing, and the conversation has to potential to extend beyond the sounding of the bell. I'm not saying, this is a way of integrating technology, I'm saying that networked collaboration is a relevant way for students to be learning and will continue to learn after school is over.
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Her room mostly lacks high-tech amenities. Homework assignments are handwritten on whiteboards. Students write journal entries in spiral notebooks. On the walls are two American flags and posters paying tribute to the Marines, and on the ceiling a panel painted by a student thanks Ms. Rosenbaum for her service
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Ms. Rosenbaum did use a computer and projector to show a YouTube video of the devastation caused by bombing in World War II. She said that while technology had a role to play, her method of teaching was timeless. “I’m teaching them to think deeply, to think. A computer can’t do that.”
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She is taking some classes online as she works toward her master’s degree, and said they left her uninspired and less informed than in-person classes.
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The group will also organize training for teachers. Ms. Cook said she did worry about how teachers would be trained when some already work long hours and take second jobs to make ends meet
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For his part, Governor Otter said that putting technology into students’ hands was the only way to prepare them for the work force. Giving them easy access to a wealth of facts and resources online allows them to develop critical thinking skills, he said, which is what employers want the most.
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“There may be a lot of misinformation,” he said, “but that information, whether right or wrong, will generate critical thinking for them as they find the truth.”
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If she only has an abacus in her classroom, she’s missing the boat.
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Last year at Post Falls High School, 600 students — about half of the school — staged a lunchtime walkout to protest the new rules. Some carried signs that read: “We need teachers, not computers.” Having a new laptop “is not my favorite idea,” said Sam Hunts, a sophomore in Ms. Rosenbaum’s English class who has a blond mohawk. “I’d rather learn from a teacher.”
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Debbie Meier and the Dawn of Central Park East by Seymour Fliegel, City Journal Winter ... - 3 views
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“I’ve got a problem in the Central Park East School between Debbie Meier and some of her parents,” he said. “Go see what it’s about.”
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I went over to Central Park East, which was then a fledgling alternative school just completing its second year, to introduce myself to Debbie Meier, the school’s director
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Debbie Meier has since become a nationally known authority on education, the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “Genius” award, but in June 1976 that wasn’t the case.
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. What was not yet clear to outsiders was that it had been deliberately designed to thrive on conflict.
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. “The principals paid lip service to us and our aspirations,” she remembers, “but the changes didn’t last.” By the end of 1973, just as she was becoming disgusted by her lack of progress working within the established system, she got a call from Bonnie Brownstein, a science coordinator in District Four. Brownstein told Meier that Superintendent Alvarado had heard about her work and wanted her to start a new school in East Harlem. Meier, attuned to the ways of educational bureaucracies, was skeptical at first, but when she met with the new superintendent, he convinced her that he was serious.
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an educational method which she believed reflected the cognitive development of children, combining John Dewey’s learning theory with more recent psychological investigations of Jean Piaget.
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Meier and her associates proposed a pedagogy based on “open classrooms” where teachers would provide children with stimulating materials, observe them working and playing with those materials, and, guided by their observations, offer each child assistance to extend his or her skills and interests.
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Neither the parents in the neighborhood nor the other teachers in District Four understood what the school was trying to accomplish, and they regarded Meier’s efforts with attitudes ranging from indifference to outright hostility.
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Local educational conservatives, on the other hand, were equally mistrustful of what they saw as the school’s permissiveness.
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There would be one rule: Children would come to Central Park East because their parents chose that school for them
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parents were required to visit with their children in order to gain admission. Beyond that, Meier set forth no policies and promised no particular results.
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shared by Adrienne Michetti on 10 Jun 10
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International Engagement Through Education: Remarks by Secretary Arne Duncan at the Cou... - 6 views
www.ed.gov/...tary-arne-duncan-council-forei
international education collaboration engagement global DoE
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two important trends that inform our drive to transform education in America. The first is increased international competition. The second is increased international collaboration
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We haven't been compelled to meet our global neighbors on their own terms, and learn about their histories, values and viewpoints. I am worried that in this interconnected world, our country risks being disconnected from the contributions of other countries and cultures. Through education and exchange, we can become better collaborators and competitors in the global economy
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In this way, Secretary Clinton said, "We will exercise American leadership to build partnerships and solve problems that no nation can solve on its own." This view of smart power and U.S. leadership applies to the work of improving educational attainment and partnerships around the globe.
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Such collaboration can inform and strengthen our reform efforts nationally, even as it helps improve standards of teaching and learning—and fosters understanding—internationally.
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We must improve language learning and international education at all levels if our nation is to continue to lead in the global economy; to help bring security and stability to the world; and to build stronger and more productive ties with our neighbors.
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we have never been more aware of the value of a multi-literate, multi-lingual society: a society that can appreciate all that makes other cultures and nations distinctive, even as it embraces all that they have in common.