Group items tagged

excerpt on teaching critical thinking "What are the right kinds of questions to ask? In figuring out what questions to ask, it's really helpful to look at Bloom's Taxonomy. Bloom's begins with a knowledge-based question such as, "Who was the first president of the United States?" To answer that question simply requires knowledge. That's just a first step. Next you want them to be able to evaluate. So I push teachers to look at the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy that involve the analysis and evaluation type of questions. That's when you're pushing kids' thinking. For instance, if you ask, "To what extent was George Washington successful as the first president of the United States?" that's a much higher-level question. It requires a student to evaluate, to create a set of criteria for what makes someone a great president, to possess knowledge about George Washington, and to evaluate his performance against that set of criteria. I suggest that teachers really think about questions that hit four specific criteria. Questions should be open-ended, with no right or wrong answer, which prompts exploration in different directions require synthesis of information, an understanding of how pieces fit together be "alive in their disciplines," which means perpetually arguable, with themes that will recur throughout a student's lifetime and always be relevant be age-appropriate

by Derek Bruff, November 6, 2011. The best justification of the Innovation Lab premise that I have seen. "Sharing student work on a course blog is an example of what Randall Bass and Heidi Elmendorf, of Georgetown University, call "social pedagogies." They define these as "design approaches for teaching and learning that engage students with what we might call an 'authentic audience' (other than the teacher), where the representation of knowledge for an audience is absolutely central to the construction of knowledge in a course."" Often our students engage in what Ken Bain, vice provost and a historian at Montclair State University, calls strategic or surface learning, instead of the deep learning experiences we want them to have. Deep learning is hard work, and students need to be well motivated in order to pursue it. Extrinsic factors like grades aren't sufficient-they motivate competitive students toward strategic learning and risk-averse students to surface learning. Social pedagogies provide a way to tap into a set of intrinsic motivations that we often overlook: people's desire to be part of a community and to share what they know with that community. My students might not see the beauty and power of mathematics, but they can look forward to participating in a community effort to learn about math. Online, social pedagogies can play an important role in creating such a community. These are strong motivators, and we can make use of them in the courses we teach.

short video (<2 minutes) on how knowledge is created in a MOOC. How does the MOOC approach resemble/depart from existing IL-SLI design? How should it affect what we try to do this year in IL-SLI for IL teachers? For IL students? Does the MOOC label help or hurt explaining IL-SLI intent and set-up?

A rubber ducky personal learning network--could this be a model for a personal reflection--knowledge building exercise for IL teachers, students?

Housed at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, "At SERVE Center, we believe that education is advanced through knowledge, innovation and action."

SERVE was funded to follow ECHS students in North Carolina into post-secondary.

Knowledge, Exchange, Exhibition, Presentation site sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation

Grant funded partnership formed to research and provide national leadership to advance knowledge about the employment and earnings benefits associated with postsecondary education.

By Benedict Carey in the Health section, The New York Times, September 6, 2010. The author shares findings that contradict common knowledge about study habits. Techniques that have had proven success in studies are alternating study environments, mixing content, spacing study sessions and self-testing.

By David T. Conley, published by Jossey-Bass, 2005. From summary: Describes many of the problems facing ill prepared college-bound students and outlines potential actions that should enable more students to go on to postsecondary education and do well in entry-level college courses.

Second edition book with practical for small measures of student learning--strengths and weaknesses. Has 3 sections: assessing course-related knowledge and skills; assessing learner attitudes, values and self-awareness; and assessing learner reactions to instruction.

Elmore's current writing on the instructional core; Harvard Graduate School of Education Usable Knowledge website

"But many of the problems we face today are COMPLEX, and methods to solve simple and complicated problems will not work with complex ones. One of the ways we addressed simple & complicated problems was through training. Training works well when you have clear and measurable objectives. However, there are no clear objectives with complex problems. Learning as we probe the problem, we gain insight and our practices are emergent (emerging from our interaction with the changing environment and the problem). Training looks backwards, at what worked in the past (good & best practices), and creates a controlled environment to develop knowledge and skills."

Title: Reaching the Goal:  The Applicability and Importance of the Common Core State Standards to College and Career Readiness.Source: EPIC Educational Policy Improvement CenterAuthors: David Conley et al A new analysis from Educational Policy improvement Center (EPIC) indicates that mastering the Common Core Standards have the baseline knowledge and skills necessary for college work.

"Unlike most traditional academic conferences, sessions at an unconference don't consist of one or three or five people delivering papers to an audience. Instead, they might feature project demonstrations, discussions, creative work sessions, or other formats that build on the knowledge and expertise of whoever attends. For the Texas THATCamp (and I think this is fairly typical at others), participants posted session ideas beforehand on the website, followed by a 45-minute scheduling process as THATCamp began. Topic headings generated by those initial session ideas were posted on the walls of a large meeting room, and participants circulated through the space to meet up with others interested in similar topics. After some productive chaos (which admittedly tested my structure- and schedule-loving personality a bit) the group developed a schedule of sessions that represented not only a variety of interests but also the desire to cluster certain topics into tracks. Like any conference, I frequently wanted to be in two places at once - which I see as one marker of the event's success."

The New York State Education Department is part of the University of the State of New York (USNY). Its "mission is to raise the knowledge, skill, and opportunity of all the people in New York."

ASTD claims to be the world's largest professional association devoted to training and development. The site offers publications and resources, as well as education programs, a knowledge center, etc.

Built by the Foundation Center, the PubHub offers over 6,500 (as of Nov 2011) foundation-sponsored reports, from research reports to case studies to issue briefs. All are presented via database, which offers both a keyword search and more extensive browse functions.

Absolutely fabulous video (6 minutes) on Connected Learning and how we must change the outcomes based focus of education to awaken the curiosity of each learner and engage with them in learning how to learn given the distribution of resources, ideas, experts, etc. while preserving the learners' autonomy, access to diversity, openness to others for learning, interactivity with similar and diverse co-learners, etc. Film by Nic Askew at Soulbiographies.com interviewing McArthur Foundation person and two professors of education

blog and newsletter site for the Harvard Graduate School of Education, includes Richard Elmore's writings

From the home page, "Welcome to the knowledge and learning community committed to college completion, where you can share and collaborate across stakeholders, learn about innovative projects, and read current college completion news."