Kansas Learning First Alliance

I've written previously on how your resume is meaningless, on building career security, not job security and on the rise of personal branding.  To summarize the overarching themes of those three posts quickly: Your work should be working for you, building your reputation, not locked away in a resume. A resume proves nothing, a living case study proves everything. Creating a name for yourself in your industry provides you the ultimate freedom:  career security. The tools exist for you to influence your industry in deep ways to make positive change and carve out a name for yourself. Building your personal network enables incredible connections with the world around you not previously possible. A blog is the ideal avenue to accomplish all of this and so much more.

Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change: The 21st century is a world in constant change. In A New Culture of Learning, Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown pursue an understanding of how the forces of change, and emerging waves of interest associated with these forces, inspire and invite us to imagine a future of learning that is as powerful as it is optimistic. Our understanding of what constitutes "a new culture of learning" is based on several basic assumptions about the world and how learning occurs:

a more positive view.

In general, I think that different approaches for that situation may be a safer bet.  Such approaches include lesson planning which create tasks with access points for students at all levels, or structuring group-work and assigning status such that all students know they have skills to help others as well as something to learn from others.

Sometimes gifted children think they know what their parents do and do not want to hear; therefore, these children will tell parents only certain information and avoid telling them other things, such as their fears.

Virtual field trips challenge and expose students to new types of technology. It is a great way to spark their interest and motivate their learning in a specific content area. Virtual field trips can offer students more opportunities because you can take them to places they wouldn't normally be able to go.

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However, the deeper questions didn't happen in a vacuum.  Students have spent hours learning the art of questioning.  Here are ten things I've done in class to encourage students to ask better questions:

The graphic below is a clickable image map. Simple click on the tool to visit it!

It takes a giant leap of faith for a teacher to think that their students can learn the material on their own. Teachers become teachers to teach. It is natural for the teacher to want to force the student to learn. But, this is similar to trying to force the proverbial horse to drink. Think about how many video games people have learned and won, on their own! No one had to "teach" them how; no one had to force them to play.

Sort of Negative view of Differentiated Instruction. Odd. They don't talk about differentiated instruction groupings other than by readiness.