Group items tagged

"Project-based learning is not 'doing projects'. PBL is student-driven and specifically open to interpretation to ensure students learn through carrying out a project and not doing a project pre-designed by the teacher. They are driven to answer a 'big' question and carry out their inquiry and design in teams. They are also under pressure to present their results to a third party of some kind. The students decide on how to achieve the goals and are not carrying out teacher-designed tasks."

"Learning through inquiry is not a new concept - at all. Much of the more general life- learning that we do as humans is based on inquiry. Here's a basic example: As a baby, you saw a 'thing' across the room. Your little brain wondered what it was, so you crawled over to it and inspected it. You looked at it, touched it, and determined you wanted to play with it. While babies may not be able to construct thorough explanations and communicate their questions and findings, the inquiry based learning concept is definitely there. As babies grow and turn into students, this style of learning can serve them well, especially in science. The handy infographic below takes a look at the steps of learning through inquiry, as well as some statistics on the importance of science education in the future. Keep reading to learn more."

"In early September, my sixth grade social studies students began playing the SimCityEDU beta. Around the same time, my seventh graders began playing a non-digital debate game -- complete with teams, a point system and a leaderboard. All of my students are rewarded for their growth and accomplishments with a digital badge system. After one month, I find that my students remain highly engaged in their learning. Gamifying my classroom has truly been transformative! "

"This presentation sparked my thinking about what other skills and attributes would serve the learners (of all ages) in this era of learning. Some other ones that I believe important based on what I hear at conferences, read via blogs and other social networks include: Grit Resilience Hope and Optimism Vision Self-Regulation Empathy and Global Stewardship"

"AppCrawlr mines app data scattered all across the web to learn everything about apps. AppCrawlr knows good alternatives to Angry Birds are physics based, challenging, addictive games with great sound effects, solid replay value, and super fun. "

"Thanks to our fabulous ambassador Suzy Brooks, we've connected the dots with awesome New Zealand-based company Puteko to bring you this fantastic new International Dot Day colAR coloring activity. Watch your dot go from 2D to stunning 3D! Here are some photos from Peter H. Reynolds, author of The Dot. Peter created his dot, followed the instructions below - and voilà:"

"One of the things that I always do in my Google Apps workshops and webinars is teach people how to create self-grading quizzes through Google Forms and Spreadsheets. Depending upon the pace of the group we'll often look at creating image-based and multiple page quizzes too. I've recently put all of the screenshots of those processes into one PDF. You can view the PDF below. (If you are viewing this on an iPad, you might not be able to see the guide)."

"Because this book's main focus is on the day-to-day classroom applications of brain-based research, I will not attempt to provide you with a thorough description of the physical brain and all its functions. However, it is beneficial for teachers to have at least a general awareness of how the brain physically functions. This knowledge can help teachers understand their students' needs or reactions and may provide a physiological basis for certain instructional decisions. So, let's take a quick walk through the brain."

"The source for innovative or creative thinking is as much as mystery as that of curiosity or particular genius. In a traditional classroom, "having a good idea" is strangely not valued as much as the ability to demonstrate proficiency with a specific assessment form. In fact, "good ideas" can often be disruptive to a tightly-sequenced and outcomes-based learning process."

"In a way, the current education system is already set up like a game-just not a very well designed one. Students earn points (grades), gain levels (grades), and in a way, have leaderboards. There are class valedictorians and students are essentially ranked based on their grades when colleges are deciding who to accept. Currently, the typical grading system in schools has students starting off with a 100 average, which slowly (or quickly, depending on the student's performance) gets lower and lower as the student receives anything less than a 100 on any assignments, tests, etc."

Over the last ten months since I launched iPadApps4School.com I have reviewed a lot of mathematics apps that are appropriate for elementary school students. These are the ten that have been the most popular over the last ten months (based on total clicks and shares through social media).

"David Wilcox, of Musings on the Middle Years of Education, and I have worked together to create an infographic about the teen brain. It is based on a blog post he wrote over a year ago (Click here for that post) to tackle the issue of Why Teens Forget. Through lots of research, checking facts, and rechecking facts, we have found that teens forgetfulness may be due to major changes in their brain. These changes can last into the college years. While there is research that demonstrates the increased forgetfulness of "teens," we also found that research suggests this time period is an awesome explosion of learning and discovery that takes them into adulthood."