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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

"Being able to solve everyday complex problems through communication and cooporation with others are the skills that students need to learn and practice to prepare for the future. Communicating effectively and efficiently with diverse audiences and solving everyday problems are important in a society that is moving at a rapid pace in a Global Market. The ability to solve everyday complex problems is an important and necessary skill for students today. Problem based learning (PBL) provides a learning environment students require to resolve everyday problems while applying previous and learning new knowledge. Cooperative learning, as a part of PBL, allows students the opportunity to communicate ideas and knowledege. As a teacher it is also important to communicate effectively with students to guide the learning process as well as model how to question and reason through a problem. The web-enhanced 3 part seminar series is designed to review and apply the basics of PBL to allow you to create a PBL unit to use within your own classroom."

For students engaging in creative personalised learning projects such as a 'Genius Hour' or 'Personal Passion project it can often be difficult for them to uncover the right project. Students have become so reliant upon their teachers to pose them problems that when they are given the option to explore one of their own design they don't know where to start. This is indeed a significant challenge as we know that our students will enter a workforce and world of learning beyond school where they must be active problem finders. How then might we provide the support they require without removing the opportunity for truly personalised exploration.  

Learn more about problem based learning, This great infographic from Mia MacMeekin offers some interesting ideas and insights on how to implement the principles of problem based learning in your classroom.

problem-based learning is a curriculum development and instructional system that simultaneously develops both problem solving strategies and disciplinary knowledge bases and skills by placing students in the active role of problem solvers

Einstein is often quoted as having said "If I have an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes." Clearly Einstein understood how to attack puzzling problems. As teachers we face a host of puzzles on a daily basis. Every student we teach, thanks to their idiosyncrasies presents a unique puzzle. The interactions between students further complicates things. Our goals for our learners, their learning needs, the demands of the curriculum, pressures from beyond the classroom all result in puzzles for us to manage and to solve.

Buy Negative Google Reviews Assuming you are looking to buy negative Google reviews in an effort to improve your business's online reputation, there are a few things you should keep in mind. First and foremost, it is important to remember that when you buy negative Google reviews, you are essentially paying someone to lie about your business. As such, it is important to be very careful about who you purchase these reviews from. There are a lot of scam artists out there who will take your money and then either never deliver the promised reviews or deliver reviews that are so obviously fake that they do little to help your business. When looking for a company to buy negative Google reviews from, be sure to do your research. Read online reviews of the company you are considering using and look for any red flags. You should also make sure that the company offers a money-back guarantee in case you are not satisfied with the reviews they provide. Another thing to keep in mind when buying negative Google reviews is that you need to be realistic about the number of positive reviews your business has. If your business has a ton of positive reviews, then a few negative reviews are not going to have a huge impact on your overall rating. However, if your business has very few positive reviews, then even a few negative reviews can have a significant impact. As such, it is important to only purchase a few negative reviews if your business has a relatively good online reputation. If your business has a poor online reputation, you may want to purchase more negative reviews in an effort to offset the positive reviews. At the end of the day, buying negative Google reviews is a bit of a gamble. There is no guarantee that the reviews you purchase will be realistic or helpful. However, if you do your research and purchase from a reputable company, you should be able to get some negative reviews that will improve your business's online reputation. The world of online revie

Buy Negative Google Reviews Assuming you are looking to buy negative Google reviews in an effort to improve your business's online reputation, there are a few things you should keep in mind. First and foremost, it is important to remember that when you buy negative Google reviews, you are essentially paying someone to lie about your business. As such, it is important to be very careful about who you purchase these reviews from. There are a lot of scam artists out there who will take your money and then either never deliver the promised reviews or deliver reviews that are so obviously fake that they do little to help your business. When looking for a company to buy negative Google reviews from, be sure to do your research. Read online reviews of the company you are considering using and look for any red flags. You should also make sure that the company offers a money-back guarantee in case you are not satisfied with the reviews they provide. Another thing to keep in mind when buying negative Google reviews is that you need to be realistic about the number of positive reviews your business has. If your business has a ton of positive reviews, then a few negative reviews are not going to have a huge impact on your overall rating. However, if your business has very few positive reviews, then even a few negative reviews can have a significant impact. As such, it is important to only purchase a few negative reviews if your business has a relatively good online reputation. If your business has a poor online reputation, you may want to purchase more negative reviews in an effort to offset the positive reviews. At the end of the day, buying negative Google reviews is a bit of a gamble. There is no guarantee that the reviews you purchase will be realistic or helpful. However, if you do your research and purchase from a reputable company, you should be able to get some negative reviews that will improve your business's online reputation. The world of online revie

Buy Negative Google Reviews Assuming you are looking to buy negative Google reviews in an effort to improve your business's online reputation, there are a few things you should keep in mind. First and foremost, it is important to remember that when you buy negative Google reviews, you are essentially paying someone to lie about your business. As such, it is important to be very careful about who you purchase these reviews from. There are a lot of scam artists out there who will take your money and then either never deliver the promised reviews or deliver reviews that are so obviously fake that they do little to help your business. When looking for a company to buy negative Google reviews from, be sure to do your research. Read online reviews of the company you are considering using and look for any red flags. You should also make sure that the company offers a money-back guarantee in case you are not satisfied with the reviews they provide. Another thing to keep in mind when buying negative Google reviews is that you need to be realistic about the number of positive reviews your business has. If your business has a ton of positive reviews, then a few negative reviews are not going to have a huge impact on your overall rating. However, if your business has very few positive reviews, then even a few negative reviews can have a significant impact. As such, it is important to only purchase a few negative reviews if your business has a relatively good online reputation. If your business has a poor online reputation, you may want to purchase more negative reviews in an effort to offset the positive reviews. At the end of the day, buying negative Google reviews is a bit of a gamble. There is no guarantee that the reviews you purchase will be realistic or helpful. However, if you do your research and purchase from a reputable company, you should be able to get some negative reviews that will improve your business's online reputation. The world of online revie

Problem Pictures is about bringing mathematics to life with photographs. Striking photographs are combined with original questions and problems to challenge students at all levels.

We all want to nurture a learning culture in our classroom. One that cultivates skills such as problem solving, critical thinking, synthesis, analysis, critical judgement and interpretation. For this to happen we need to pose learning problems and questions that demand the development of these skills. Well-posed questions can be simple questions but the right questions can drive much more learning and elicit insight that those complex questions that don't ask students to really think. Framing good questions is an art and some suggested questions are discussed here.

"The annual Horizon report, released June 29 by the nonprofit New Media Consortium, examines the trends and technologies that will shape primary and secondary education over the next five years. It references libraries as being at the forefront of maker spaces, which are among 18 major trends that include the rise of STEAM education: the intersection and importance of science, technology, arts, engineering, and math. The Horizon Report broke down challenges to school technology adoption into three categories: "solvable," "difficult," and "wicked," representing a range of difficulty to implement over the next five years. The "solvable" problems reflect what many libraries are already doing, like focusing more on blended learning and STEAM. The "wicked" problems were far more dramatic: shifting toward deeper learning approaches and rethinking the role of school itself."

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.

So what is Computational Thinking? Well it is a collection of diverse skills to do with problem solving that result from studying the nature of computation. It includes some obviously important skills that most subjects help develop, like creativity, ability to explain and team work. It also consists of some very specific problem solving skills such as the ability to think logically, algorithmically and recursively. Computer Science is unique in the way it brings all these diverse skills together.

Various explanations and solutions have been proposed over the last ten years in relation to the ongoing problem of student lack of engagement with the middle years' curriculum in Australia. Identified contributors to this problem include an irrelevant or trivial curricular focus and ineffectual teaching and learning strategies.

Professor MacFarlane discusses many issues which ring true to me. In particular: - lack of vision for what education could be like with new technology (around 4 min mark) - the web2.0 and technology revolution is great for the 15% of people who have a good life anyway because of their suituation and culture (5:30) - others don't benefit from the access to the technology - they need help (6:00) - no change in classroom over last 20 years with computers and in danger of no change in next 20 years (7:30) - instruction vs. construction (8:30) - expect learning to change with introduction of technology (10:30) - but hasn't really done so - student self-directed learning is separate from school work i.e. at home and not related to school (14:30) - much of what kids do on computers at home is trivial (16:00) - the ones that do have good experiences are the same 15% (16:30) - kids that are missing out have a computer at home probably but no access to the community that enables them to have these experiences (17:10) - doing something by themselves does not really benefit them - it is being part of a community that had benefit for learning - what are we dong for these people? (19:10) - talking about missing pedagogical model for how to teach (22:00) - teachers are expected to use technology to provide innovative learning but no model against which to do so, some don't use it at all, some use it inappropriately - there maybe some individual examples but not overall (23:00) - schools bad at connecting with their communities in a learning sense (26:00) - talks about chinese online writing community and how they comment, collaborate (34:00) - community (47:30) - communitites aren't formed when people are brought together in schools etc. - need to have a common problem or interest (48:30) - Plant's definition? - in education the problem is because assessment is done individually (49:00) - so forming groups and sharing ideas is not attractive for students - worried about not getti

From ACMA Cybersmart this very catchy video has stats on what students are doing online as well as lots of targetted advice on what to do to prevent problems and what to do when problems arise. It also contains visual links to the support docs that Cybersmart can provided.

Five interesting ways that offer some new twists for students to approach thinking. A good graphic accompanies the post

Post by Ewan McIntosh. Finding questions that Google can't answer. Article looking at the questions we ask and the problem-solving sbilities we are teaching students

Mathway solves your math problems with step-by-step explanations. Mathway is for students, parents, and teachers, and covers the following math subjects: Basic Math | Pre-Algebra | Algebra | Linear Algebra | Trigonometry | Precalculus | Calculus

Cybersmart Detectives is an innovative online game that teaches children key internet safety messages in a safe environment. Children work online in real time liaising with community professionals to solve an internet-themed problem. The activity is based in the school environment, and brings together a number of agencies with an interest in promoting online safety for young people, including State and Federal Police, internet industry representatives and child welfare advocates.

Cybersmart Detectives is an innovative online game that teaches children key internet safety messages in a safe environment. Children work online in real time liaising with community professionals to solve an internet-themed problem. The activity is based in the school environment, and brings together a number of agencies with an interest in promoting online safety for young people, including State and Federal Police, internet industry representatives and child welfare advocates.