Skip to main content

Home/ MVIFI Mount Vernon Institute for Innovation/ Group items tagged blogging

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Bo Adams

In 2017, a New Push to Find the Balance Between Work and Life - Independent Ideas Blog - 0 views

  • “Telepressure is a workplace problem, not a worker problem. We learn how to respond to email through our colleagues’ behavior, and it’s a consequence of the social dynamics within a work environment,”
  • In this world of stress and pressure, how do school leaders become enablers of work-life balance? Most research points to starting with how we as leaders model that balance.
  • “If we are to serve as stewards of productivity and engagement, we must pursue excellent performance as leaders in all four domains — work, home, community, and self — not trading off one for another but finding mutual value among them.”
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Be Real.
  • Be Whole.
  • Be Innovative.
Trey Boden

Stop Trying to "Do It All" - 99U - 1 views

  • Naturally, it’s the same with your work: any given hour, week or year dedicated to one project can’t be used for another.
  • When a friend asks if you’ll jump on board with her new business, or a possible freelance gig arrives by email, you’ll see more clearly what you’re giving up in exchange. Which means that if you do decide to say yes, you’ll be freed from the nagging worry that you ought to be doing something else.
  • Or follow Warren Buffet’s suggestion: list your 25 top career goals, choose the five you value the most, then treat the remaining 20 as your “avoid at all costs” list.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • to learn to see everything you choose to do (including, by the way, choosing to procrastinate on making a decision) as a choice not to do a million other things
Bo Adams

13 kids books to spark conversations about empathy | Tinybop - 0 views

  •  
    HT Erin Carey
T.J. Edwards

Pop Up and Make: Student-Designed and Facilitated Makerspaces | Edutopia - 0 views

  • received
 funds to design and implement pop-up makerspaces during 
the 2015-16 school year. These makerspaces include the 3D 
Fabrication Lab, Upcycling Shop, Music and Beat-Making Studio, Robotics and Hacking Space, Digital
 Storytelling Workshop, and Clothing and Fashion
 Design Closet.
  • Each makerspace "pops up" in either a
 classroom, computer lab, commons area, or the cafeteria 
during the school's Smart Block, an open period for eating lunch, attending academic sessions, practicing sports and music -- and now for making things
  • Fifteen students joined the event to make, co-develop, plan, and become Maker Mentors.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • During the back-to-school orientation, Maker Mentors staffed the spaces, demonstrated making, distributed information and created a buzz of excitement for the new year.
  •  
    Student pop-up Makerspaces. HT Amy Wilkes
Jim Tiffin Jr

3 Things We Should Stop Doing in Professional Development - 0 views

  •  
    Wondering what some of these ideas might look like at a fuse or an edcamp or any other school PL day...
Trey Boden

The 100-hour knack - The Whiteboard - 0 views

  • with a 100 hours of investment into a new skill or practice, you can hit a tipping point,
    • Trey Boden
       
      What obstacles hold us back from reaching the 100-hours. What part does interest play? How (should we?) get beyond our own interest for the sake of skill aquisition?
    • Trey Boden
       
      What obstacles hold us back from reaching the 100-hours. What part does interest play? How (should we?) get beyond our own interest for the sake of skill aquisition?
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • I had unwittingly reached a point where the effort became an asset.
  • the benefits outweigh the struggle
  • So, how do we push ourselves through this “pre-knack” period when the short-term calculus doesn’t seem to add up?
    • Trey Boden
       
      Really important quote for this article...
  • That means our job is not only to teach our students the skills and tools for their practice, but also to inspire and set into motion a practice that gets them past that tipping point, where the ability becomes part of them and they couldn’t imagine not putting it to use. 
Jim Tiffin Jr

Reflection: The possible, essential work of redesigning the High-School Experience - Th... - 0 views

  •  
    Reflection of a student's participation in the d.school's Protopalooza in which the redesign of high school was the topic. She shares valuable takeaways from the experience, particularly around the ideas of prototyping and expanding the ways in which she views learning can occur...beyond what her previous educational experiences had lead her to believe.
Bo Adams

As Independent Schools Face Micro-Schools' Disruption, They Can Cope by Sustaining Inno... - 1 views

  •  
    In 2010, when Gever Tulley, Anya Kamenetz, and I spoke at the same TEDx event, we talked offline about the eventual rise of "hyper-local micro schools." Here's an article about just such things beginning to disrupt independent school education. 
Bo Adams

The Art of Getting Opponents to "We" - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Significantly, participants all came to align behind a single vision statement — and now they are actively communicating and advancing that vision nationwide through their organizations and networks. They host meetings with educational networks, superintendents, principals, teachers and philanthropists, reach out to libraries, museums and after-school programs, and identify and connect pioneers in learner-centered education.
  • Convergence staff and facilitators work to create a “safe space,” maintaining a strict neutrality and ensuring that everyone feels heard, says Fersh. It’s important that participants “feel they’re not in a place that’s already cooked or leaning toward any solutions.”
  • Convergence staff members look continually for opportunities to forge connections among participants. They begin meetings with “connecting” questions — for example: “When did you know that education was of great importance to you?” — that are designed to reveal people’s values and experiences, rather than highlight their disagreements. The objective is not to sweep differences under the rug, but to build rapport that a group needs to grapple effectively with its differences.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Another key is to identify a frame that energizes everybody, but is not so broad that it is meaningless. “For us the gold standard is that the dialogue has to lead to action,” said Fersh. To do that, he said, there are intermediate goals: “Can you get people to the table and sustain their presence? Can you find agreements that are worth fighting for? And can you keep people together to keep working over time to make sure something happens?”
  • In the end, she said, people converged on the notion that they had to do far more than tinker around the edges of a broken system held over from a bygone industrial age. “There was a lot of conversation that the current system is ill designed to create 21st century outcomes for students,” said Young. “But there wasn’t alignment around what a new system could look like. People really wanted to be part of that conversation.”
Jim Tiffin Jr

When Grading Harms Student Learning | Edutopia - 0 views

  • Is grading the focus, or is learning the focus?
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      Simple, straightforward reminder of what assessment is for.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      A simple, straightforward reminder of what assessment is for.
  • Zeros do not reflect student learning. They reflect compliance.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      Exactly.
  • a deduction in points. Not only didn't this correct the behavior, but it also meant that behavioral issues were clouding the overall grade report. Instead of reflecting that students had learned, the grade served as an inaccurate reflection of the learning goal.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Students should learn the responsibility of turning in work on time, but not at the cost of a grade that doesn't actually represent learning.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      I completely agree with this point. But admittedly, I still am not sure how it would work in practice... I totally realize that the grades we give as teachers are completely under the school's control - we can go back and change grades even after the course has ended if we need to. But at the core of my question is, "What is the leverage (if that is the right word) that we can use to help students learn that responsibility?" Sports and pulling privileges come to mind, but what else is there. I wonder what other teachers have used for this situation? 
  • Practice assignments and homework can be assessed, but they shouldn't be graded.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      An excellent distinction!
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      An excellent distinction!
  • Many of our assignments are "practice," assigned for students to build fluency and practice a content or skill. Students are often "coming to know" rather than truly knowing.
  • we should formatively assess our students and give everyone access to the "photo album" of learning rather than a single "snapshot."
  • Teaching and learning should take precedence over grading and entering grades into grade books. If educators are spending an inordinate amount of time grading rather than teaching and assessing students, then something needs to change.
  • We've all been in a situation where grading piles up, and so we put the class on a task to make time for grading.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      Guilty :-(
  • Our work as educators is providing hope to our students. If I use zeros, points off for late work, and the like as tools for compliance, I don't create hope. Instead, I create fear of failure and anxiety in learning. If we truly want our classrooms to be places for hope, then our grading practices must align with that mission.
    • Jim Tiffin Jr
       
      +1!
Meghan Cureton

Breadth and Depth: Can We Have It Both Ways? - Learning Deeply - Education Week - 0 views

  • There may be ways to have it both ways. On further reflection, it seems as if breadth and depth are much more intertwined then they initially appear; it is not possible to become a deep inquirer in a subject without some broader understanding that goes around the specific thing you are exploring.
  • The T represents people who are moderately knowledgeable across a domain, and deeply knowledgeable within a strand of that domain.
  • Essential questions that force integration of breadth and depth -- Imagine if you took that same 9th grade "Mesopotamia to the French Revolution" course and organized it instead around the following essential question: "Why do civilizations rise and fall?"
  •  
    HT @eijunkie
Bo Adams

Understand How Badges Affect College Admissions - - 0 views

  • Where badging might most upend traditions, however, is in kindergarten through 12th grades, particularly in how students build portfolios for themselves and use those portfolios to apply to college.
  • A world in which everything a student does, whether inside or outside of school, can be measured and categorized by a digital badge would – with a common set of standards and if viewed as legitimate by colleges and universities – greatly change the college admissions process, as well as how students think about learning.
  •  
    Understand How Badges Affect College Admissions - @ChipHouston1976 @MeghanCureton @ErinMVPS @boadams1 @AmyMWilkes https://t.co/6Twl5ILsaU HT Pam Ambler
Bo Adams

How One School Integrated Global Citizenship into Maker Education - Independent Ideas Blog - 0 views

  •  
    An interesting and compelling case study of Austin, TX, grade 7 designers partnering with a school in Nicaragua to fabricate lamps.
« First ‹ Previous 41 - 60 of 105 Next › Last »
Showing 20 items per page