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"What Makes a Great Teacher? Image credit: Veronika Lukasova Also in our Special Report: National: "How America Can Rise Again" Is the nation in terminal decline? Not necessarily. But securing the future will require fixing a system that has become a joke. Video: "One Nation, On Edge" James Fallows talks to Atlantic editor James Bennet about a uniquely American tradition-cycles of despair followed by triumphant rebirths. Interactive Graphic: "The State of the Union Is ..." ... thrifty, overextended, admired, twitchy, filthy, and clean: the nation in numbers. By Rachael Brown Chart: "The Happiness Index" Times were tough in 2009. But according to a cool Facebook app, people were happier. By Justin Miller On August 25, 2008, two little boys walked into public elementary schools in Southeast Washington, D.C. Both boys were African American fifth-graders. The previous spring, both had tested below grade level in math. One walked into Kimball Elementary School and climbed the stairs to Mr. William Taylor's math classroom, a tidy, powder-blue space in which neither the clocks nor most of the electrical outlets worked. The other walked into a very similar classroom a mile away at Plummer Elementary School. In both schools, more than 80 percent of the children received free or reduced-price lunches. At night, all the children went home to the same urban ecosystem, a zip code in which almost a quarter of the families lived below the poverty line and a police district in which somebody was murdered every week or so. Video: Four teachers in Four different classrooms demonstrate methods that work (Courtesy of Teach for America's video archive, available in February at teachingasleadership.org) At the end of the school year, both little boys took the same standardized test given at all D.C. public schools-not a perfect test of their learning, to be sure, but a relatively objective one (and, it's worth noting, not a very hard one). After a year in Mr. Taylo

This unavoidable and irreducible complexity means that schools are challenging place to study, to understand and to manage change within. Even for the teacher who spends everyday inside the school there is so much going on that unguided observations and the plans based upon them come with no guarantee of success. - We need a lens and a lever to manage this complexity. -  Such a lens is offered by the 'cultural forces'.

At the heart of mathematics are a set of connected thinking dispositions. The mathematician uses these dispositions as the cognitive tools of their trade. While the traditional imagining of mathematics might be all about the accurate application of well-rehearsed algorithms and processes, in the real world of mathematics, it is all about the thinking. As we consider what our students need from their mathematical education, we should not overlook the importance of these dispositions. 

Earlier this year a group of teachers I work with explored the 'Eight Cultural Forces' identified by Ron Ritchhart of Harvard's Project Zero. In doing so we decided to focus on our use of the term learning instead of the word work. Our goal was to bring our language choices into the spotlight and explore how a more deliberate focus on learning might alter the culture of our classrooms. Two terms later this focus persists and it is worth reflecting on the effect that this has had.

"Eight basic principles for the "Innovative Classroom," around which one teacher designed a middle school course called Physical Computing. Some of the projects and tools are specific to that course, but the fundamental ideas could be applied to almost any course at any level"

A growing number of videos that may be of interest for science. "for instance BBC Brit's Biggest Bangs is a fun, interactive video experience that allows users to channel their inner mad scientists, mixing dangerous chemicals with sometimes explosive results without a proper laboratory. The secret behind the interactivity is a central choose-your-own-adventure video around which annotations lead to separate videos that respond to your chemical selections." You choose your first chemical and then select another from among eight on the laboratory table.  You'll see the team scientist take each chemical from the table.  Then pause to consider-will it explode or won't it? If it doesn't, the oh so serious, oh so British narrator offers background on why the bang, or the lack of bang (NR or no reaction) may have disappointed, as well as what the resulting compound is and does.

"Classrooms are infused with technology. Many lessons ask students to use for online or digital tools. Accomplishing this so it serves educational goals isn't as much about knowing how to use the tools as constructing knowledge in an organic, scalable way. To prepare students to make the cerebral leap between tools used for a particular project and tools available as-needed requires preparation in eight areas discussed in this post."

This paper describes the findings of an exploratory, qualitative case study and examines problems and impediments faculty members encountered in blended learning environments in Turkish Higher Education system. A total of 117 faculty members from 4 universities responded to 8 interview questions. Findings were based on content analyses of interview transcripts. The results show that faculty members' problems with blended teaching resulted in the identification of three inductive categories: instructional processes, community concerns and technical issues. The eight themes emerged from these three categories include the following: (1) complexity of the instruction, (2) lack of planning and organization, (3) lack of effective communication, (4) need for more time, (5) lack of institutional support, (6) changing roles, (7) difficulty of adoption to new technologies and (8) lack of electronic means. This study indicates that teaching blended courses can be highly complex and have different teaching patterns, which, in turn, impacts successful implementation of the blended college courses.

"This Aboriginal pedagogy framework is expressed as eight interconnected pedagogies involving narrative-driven learning, visualised learning plans, hands-on/reflective techniques, use of symbols/metaphors, land-based learning, indirect/synergistic logic, modelled/scaffolded genre mastery, and connectedness to community. But these can change in different settings."

Nice outline and resource for Australian aboriginal learning styles.

Healthline Body Maps provides interactive three dimensional models for learning about human anatomy. Body Maps has male and female models. The models have eight layer views, from skin to skeletal, that you can select. You can hold your mouse pointer over any part of the model to view a body part's name and then zoom to more detailed information

If you're an Australian teacher then you should definitely have this page in your Bookmarks/Favorites. As they say: "Through its Copyright Advisory Group, the Australian Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) has published a Creative Commons information pack online, a bundle of eight documents that distills the basics of CC licensing and the philosophy behind it. This pack is a great resource for educators and students, and we encourage you to use it in your schools by adapting it however you like. The info pack includes concise and concrete answers to simple questions, like: What is Creative Commons? How to Find Creative Commons Licensed Material How to Attribute Creative Commons Licensed Material and more. Find all documents at their Smartcopying website, "The Official Guide to Copyright Issues for Australian Schools and TAFE." All of them are licensed CC BY, the most effective and open license for open educational resources."

From Richard Byrne's "android4schools" site. A free Android app that is designed to help younger students learn how the human body works. The app features eight sections: circulation, muscles, the senses, kidneys & urine, skeleton, respiration, digestion, and brain & nerves. Each section contains short animated videos that explain the functions of each system and how it works.

"Asian students are attracted by what US colleges offer; an outstanding education, safe residential communities, an extraordinary network of influential alumni and a degree from a university with a global brand. It's the total package, and it's seen as a higher quality education than that offered by Australian universities. Or indeed anywhere else."

The Center for Online Learning, Research and Service at the University of Illinois Springfield is launching a Massive Open Online Class (MOOC) on "Online Learning Today, and Tomorrow." It begins June 27, 2011 and runs for eight weeks. It is totally open, free, and collaborative.