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"What Is Visible Thinking? Six key principles anchor Visible Thinking and characterize our approach in schools."

My favorite part: Good thinking is not just a matter of skill but also of disposition - open-mindedness, curiosity, attention to evidence, skepticism, imaginitiveness. Also love the paragraph on the effects.

Handy list of strategies and sentence stems to help teachers model what thinking out loud should look, err... sound like, and to help students do the same.

An article that calls to mind many of the ideas discusses in David Perkins' 'Futurewise". The idea that sticks in my mind the most is after reading this article is: "It's not about just in case, it's about just in time" which is a reference to #9 A list of things that we don't really want to talk about in education. 1. We know that most of our students will forget most of the content that they "learn" in school. 2. We know that most of our students are bored and disengaged in school. 3. We know that deep, lasting learning requires conditions that schools and classrooms simply were not built for. 4. We know that we're not assessing many of the things that really matter for future success. 5. We know that grades, not learning, are the outcomes that students and parents are most interested in. 6. We know that curriculum is just a guess. 7. We know that separating learning into discrete subjects and time blocks is not the best way to prepare kids for the real world. 8. We know (I think) that the system of education as currently constructed is not adequately preparing kids for what follows if and when they graduate. 9. And finally, we know that learning that sticks is usually learned informally, that explicit knowledge accounts for very little of our success in most professions.

Very powerful read about how VTR and design thinking can empower learners as agents of change. HT @Deacs84

Planning with the end in mind

Have we been guilty of thing? "All to often I see school districts plan and overplan for the beginning of the roll out or the impact the new technology might have and less time on what happens next." I am thinking of the first week of school. HMW plan for the last week of school? Good thoughts.

"While the projects had wildly different end products, they both had a similar starting point: focusing on how to ease people's lives. And that is a central lesson at the school, which is pushing students to rethink the boundaries for many industries. At the heart of the school's courses is developing what David Kelley, one of the school's founders, calls an empathy muscle. Inside the school's cavernous space - which seems like a nod to the Silicon Valley garages of lore - the students are taught to forgo computer screens and spreadsheets and focus on people."

First of all, I'm typing this comment from my new iPad! Secondly, here is my favorite line: one emphasis is to get students to leave campus and observe how people deal w life's messy problems. Finally, I think we could write this article about MVPS I design lab.

We don't give grades... because we give more descriptive feedback. I think it would be interesting to see of we notice any increase in learning since we switched - or if kids' attitudes/beliefs about learning changed. I think standards-based grading has increased teacher understanding of learning outcomes and allowed more flexibility in designing learning experiences and assessment.

Ideas from various principals around morning announcement routines that help build school culture.

Ideas from various principals around morning announcement routines that help build school culture.

Mary shared this with me. Great language: Students will learn and work in RE-DESIGNED LEARNING SPACES that include THINK SPACES and CREATION LABS designed to allow students to exhibit their learning through hands-on experiences. Students will work through CROSS-AGED CONNECTIONS allowing students to engage with students outside of their traditional grade level and ENHANCE SOCIAL AND ACADEMIC GROWTH. Students will EXHIBIT LEARNING of state standards through multiple avenues. In addition to traditional standardized tests, authentic PERFORMANCE BASED EXHIBITIONS will be used to measure learning.

Forget everything Logan says (not really)...just think about the process of his sharing. HMW create more opportunities for our students to be effective/persuasive communicators?

I am thinking about Team K as I read this. HMW better communicate what we are doing and why?

I think we do all of these except "weed the garden". Even the thing we weed - "Muffins with Moms - get requested back!

Great blog to know about. In order to decide whether a particular math activity is "real-world," it's important to first determine the world in which the activity is intended to exist. From our perspective, there are three different worlds that constitute the universe of math instruction: the world of procedural fluency; the world of conceptual understanding/problem solving; and the world of applications. Only once we understand how each world works can we determine whether an activity within it is "real" or not.

Teacher retention is something we often think about. This article reminded me to start fostering an environment of appreciation as soon as possible.

"Circulasticity. A combination of the words circular and elasticity, it is an organizational condition that generates contexts or situations in which high levels of activity are noted, but any discernible long-term change is not."