Group items tagged

Monument Mountain HS students run their own learning program.

Teachers know that making lessons relevant helps motivate students. The most frequent approach is to link curriculum to learner interests. Two educators, Mario Fantini and Gerry Weinstein, in two now out-of-print books, Making Urban Schools Work and Towards Humanistic Education, pointed out that it would be more effective to link curriculum to the concerns of learners. (You can find used copies of both through Book Finder.) What do kids worry about? What anxieties sometimes keep them up at night? What peer interactions churn up their emotions? How do they deal with their fears about the future, college admissions, employment or bullying?

What student voice and parent engagement do NOT look like, and thoughts on what to do about it.

"One of the principles guiding the transformation work at Sammamish is that student achievement and engagement will increase when students have more ownership of their school community..."

"As school boards address the overall challenge of social media use within schools, they should focus on the reality that the impact no longer lies only on the individual and local schools. Social networks include students and teachers all over the world and, therefore, teaching and coaching on digital literacy for teachers and students is where the focus should rest. Knowing how to build successful communities of learning and how to integrate social connectivity within a learning environment is a much more needed outcome than finding a way to control and monitor specific users and content."

Monument Mountain school Independent Project alternative to classrooms, student directed learning

Student involvement in school improvement, even strategic planning, is not a high school only proposition. Younger kids can participate as well.

The John W. Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities (JGC) at Stanford University partners with communities to develop leadership, conduct research and effect change to improve the lives of youth.

Student friendly learning spaces for the way kids really learn.  Comfort helps learning.  Discomfort hurts learning.

Form followed function at school in Minneapolis based on students doing real work, feeling welcome in learning environments.

Great TEDtalk on use of design thinking in a rural North Carolina school, with students at the creative center.

The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology The Technology Integration Matrix (TIM) illustrates how teachers can use technology to enhance learning for K-12 students. The TIM incorporates five interdependent  characteristics of meaningful learning environments: active, constructive, goal directed  (i.e.reflective), authentic, and collaborative (Jonassen, Howland, Moore, & Marra,  2003). The TIM associates five levels of technology integration (i.e., entry, adoption,  adaptation, infusion, and transformation) with each of the five characteristics of  meaningful learning environments. Together, the five levels of technology integration and  the five characteristics of meaningful learning environments create a matrix of 25 cells.

Great reflection by one teacher on her shifting thinking about schools and learning. 

One teacher's shift in beliefs and practices in education, from teacher-centered to student-centered.