Kansas Learning First Alliance

Life in the 21st century provides a whole-new world of opportunities for self-directed, passion-driven, personalized learning.  Educators who are ready to move on from teaching the way they were taught, and administrators who will let them, can begin supporting students using tools and strategies available to the 21st century learner. 

"increasingly, some educators are calling for more attention to the career part of the equation - and questioning whether a traditional four-year college degree is necessarily the best path for everyone. A new report released by Harvard Wednesday states in some of the strongest terms yet that such a "college for all" emphasis may actually harm many American students - keeping them from having a smooth transition from adolescence to adulthood and a viable career. "

My favorite vocabulary assessment involved discussion.  This is one of the reasons it was different but another is that the discussion was one on one -the student and I had a 3-5 minute uninterrupted conversation

Daniel Simons has become one of the most influential young cognitive scientists in the last decade, co-authoring smash-hit studies in two different fields. His videos would be useful as openers for educators to discuss perceptions vs. reality as we do data analysis.

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A conference held in Kansas in June each year to immerse you in ways to use technology as instructional tools.

Great conference for learning ways to incorporate a 21st century learning environment. And of course there's technology! :)

Born to Learn is the first animation in a fascinating series aimed to provide easy-access to the exciting new discoveries constantly being made about how humans learn! Narrated by Damian Lewis

Useful sites for managing social media

Read this teacher-friendly article for an overview of the rationale for using rubrics and tools and tips for implementing rubrics as an assessment tool in your classroom. You will be able to create and start using rubrics for student assessment within an hour.

Recently I've come to the idea that the question "how do you differentiate?" is the wrong question to ask (or at least coming in the wrong sequence). The essential question should be "what do you differentiate?" By differentiating instruction I am changing something for some group of students. To do this I have to ask myself "what can I change and what do I need to keep the same?" What follows are three cases of differentiation, all of which change a different facet of learning.

Standards based instructional tools and assessments

Atlas is a Web-based curriculum management tool that electronically: Incorporates curriculum mapping, tracks gaps and repetition in instruction, addresses the Why in performance testing, aligns curriculum to benchmarks and standards, produces updated reports to encourage partnerships, facilitates sharing of ideas and communicating them rapidly across buildings, schools and grades and shares requirements with students.

An oasis of teaching resources and educational information for educators everywhere. Excellent resource for graphic organizers.

Information and resources to implement Character Education Programs

All products from My Learning Plan Inc. feature a flexible online system designed for Fast and Easy planning, management, and reporting of professional development offerings, appraisal processes, and more, to support focused educator growth resulting in effective classroom instruction and improved student achievement.

NICHD - The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Official Home Page

Learning Forward Kansas is an affiliate organization of Learning Forward. Learning Forward Kansas was formed to provide current information relating to the needs and concerns of staff development personnel

Classroom tools, games, resources

Poems from different poets all around the world. Thousands of poems and poets. Search for poems and poets using the Poetry Search Engine..