Knowledge in the Public Interest (KPI)

Part of the National Institutes of Health, the National Eye Institute supports research and training, as well as the dissemination of health information, for all aspects of visual function, disease, and eye disorder. This resource page is a listing of NEI-based resources.

Published by the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching (NIET), March 2012. This paper argues that, based on two recent studies, "job-embedded PD can be highly effective, but only when there is a sufficient infrastructure in place to support it." NIET's own program, TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement, is such a program. Cited studies: Biancarosa, G., Bryk, A.S., & Dexter, E.R. (2010, September). Assessing the value-added effects of Literacy Collaborative professional development on student learning. The Elementary School Journal, 111(1), 7-34. -- and -- Saunders, W.M., Goldenberg, C.N., & Gallimore, R. (2009, December). Increasing achievement by focusing grade-level teams on improving classroom learning: A prospective, quasi-experimental study of Title I schools. American Educational Research Journal, 46(4), 1006-1033

While this analysis seems somewhat biased (clearly written in support of NIET's own program), many of the characteristics of their program match work that KPI has done in PD.

As per the About Us page, this resource library, part of the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM), offers a searchable database of conference presentations/handouts, PowerPoint lectures, learning modules, digital images, audio and video files, sample patient cases, etc. The library began with a 3-year, $400,000 grant from the National Library of Medicine, and is supported by a small editorial team.

By Goldie Blumenstyk in The Chronicle of Higher Education - Administration section, May 22 2013. Announcement of a new report by the Century Foundation looking at the growing differences between 2-Year and 4-Year schools and considering socioeconomic impact of that gap.

By Oliver Dreon, PhD in Online Education section of Faculty Focus website, May 13 2013. Citing research titled Critical inquiry in a text-based environment...from The Internet and Higher Education (2000), the author have 5 steps to improve the community aspect of online classes, including introductions and a "common area" for students to meet for discussions that are off-topic.

Confirming much of what we've learned with our communities.

By Naava Frank in e-Jewish Philanthropy, May 2 2013. The author compares online communities to cocktail parties, in order to remind community sponsors that "guests" must be cultivated and introduced to each other. She describes a "relationship infrastructure" of equal importance to the technology infrastructure. The article concludes with a protocol that includes working in pairs, requiring an "assignment" (e.g. common goal) and for participants to post their responses -- and then to reply to each others' responses.

Frank's protocol matches KPI's findings in terms of engagement.

By Leslie Harris O'Hanlon in Education Week; part of Technology Counts 2013: Building the Digital District, March 11 2013. O'Hanlon looks at ways that K-12 teachers are bringing technology into the classroom. While in some cases this is self-directed, there are districts and national initiatives to do as well. Online professional development is discussed.

Last paragraph is really important: "Teachers should find one thing that they would like to change or something they want to make better and look for ways to use a technology tool," [New Hampshire kindergarten teacher Maria Knee] says. And "teachers need to get outside of their school and see what is happening in other places. And be open to learning."

The tool enables users to take a screenshot or load an existing image and then annotate/add text to the image and save it.

This is free software that you can download in order to tag images (or elements in images) on your website/blog. The tool was created as a merchandising/marketing tool (e.g. visitors can find out where to buy all of the cool things in your image), but it seems ripe for other more scholarly purposes as well. Downside: unclear whether others can tag your images.

This short video produced by McKinsey & Company, Jan 2013, broadly discusses their worldwide survey into the issue of education to employment. Some success stories are highlighted. Calls for widespread, large scale collaborations between employers, educators, students and parents.

With a presence both on the internet and on TV (PBS), Teaching Channel calls itself a "showcase" of "inspiring and effective teaching practices in America's schools." The organization's mission "is to revolutionize how teachers learn, connect, and inspire each other to improve the outcomes for all K-12 students across America." Browse videos by subject, grade level or topic (all from the left-hand navigation). In addition, there is a blog. Users are encouraged to subscribe, and the Teachers space is also organized by subject and grade-level, as well as by roles. The site also provides a workspace.

Produced by NPR, these thematic collections run about 45-60 minutes each and provide several TED talks on a given topic. Latest episodes appear on this page; browse the archive for the full list. Some of the most famous/popular TED talks are featured.

Produced by McKinsey & Company, McKinsey on Society division, December 2012. McKinsey & Company notes that, in many countries, we are faced with "high levels of youth unemployment and a shortage of job seekers with critical skills." In this report, they have compiled case studies of best practices from around the world (with the goal of high employment of program graduates) as well as surveying students about their own prospects based on their education. On this page, links to the report itself (as well as Executive Summary) as well as access to some of the case studies.

If the goal of postsecondary education is employment, this report starts to posit some innovations and solutions.

By Geoff Cain on his blog, Brainstorm in Progress, October 27 2012. Cain looks at the instructional design of MOOCs -- and what instructional designers can borrow from MOOCs and apply to more traditional courses. His big take-aways are to provide paths toward community for the students (ideally even open the model to students from previous cohorts who may now be actively using these acquired skills in the field) and to model the behaviors (e.g. technologies) that you are teaching.

By Audrey Watters in Hack Education (blog), Oct 25 2012. Watters has conducted informal surveys on why teachers do NOT use OER (open educational resources). Reasons are: difficulty of discoverability, lack of supplementary materials, and confusion over licensing. In her Discoverability section, she has a link called "What's available" that directs readers to more specifics about OERs, including which are most popular.

Posted by Kelly Tenkely on her blog, Dreams of Education. In this post (n.d.), Tenkeley describes (and seeks funding for) her Learning Genome Project. Based on behind Pandora, this project would apply recommender data to curriculum based (K-12) lessons. The project also seeks deep analysis of the students (learning styles, etc.) and the teachers (called "lead learners"). Any time a lesson is used, both teacher and student are to rate it.

Trapit is a tool that assists with discovery of new resources and also provides a framework for presentation of resources, thus making it a potentially useful tool for content curation. Fall 2012, they are promoting educational applications as well.

Made me pine for Iris and Stephanie!

By Amanda Ripley, part of Time's cover story on Reinventing College, Oct 18 2012. In this piece, Ripley provides a brief survey of the three major university-related MOOC suppliers: Udacdity, Coursera and EdX. The author describes a Udacity physics course (which she deems among the best of those MOOCs she sampled) and then compares it to physics courses at Georgetown University and University of DC.

Website for the PBS Frontline documentary, originally aired September 2012. According the blog post, Introducing "Dropout Nation" (March 23 2012), this Frontline episode is part of the American Graduate: Let's Make It Happen campaign. The story follows a group of students in Houston Texas.