Group items tagged

"Brain researchers have long studied how students hear and read individual words, but it has proven difficult to parse out what happens when a reader understands a long and difficult passage of text. Now, a team of researchers at Northwestern University in Evanston,Ill., have developed a new way to view reading comprehension in the brain, and in the process highlighted a new angle for testing comprehension that isn't skewed by a student's background knowledge."

"Many teachers are using Twitter as a classroom tool. But a lot of schools still view the communication tool as a "toy" students use in their free time, not a serious platform for learning. As sites like Twitter and Facebook become ever more fundamental to how the world communicates, schools will need to shift their policies to move with the times. An article written by KQED's Education department in collaboration with the Trust and Safety Team at Twitter helps educators understand how to keep themselves and their students safe on Twitter. It also pulls together great resources on digital citizenship, basic Twitter info and ideas on how to use Twitter in the classroom."

"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."

"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! "