Group items tagged

Author Susan Cain explains the fallacy of "groupwork," and points to research showing that it can reduce creativity and productivity

Wondering if focus on collaboration, group work stifles creativity and individuals ...Do some approaches to education reward those students who are simply more extroverted. Do we often, inadvertently, value Personalities over Substance in our classrooms?

The Rural Trust's Global Teacher Fellowship program will be awarding up to 25 fellowships in 2014 to support the professional and personal development of rural teachers. The awards (up to $5,000 for individual teachers and $10,000 for a team of two or more teachers) support teachers' participation in self-designed summer learning experiences and a two-day place-based learning institute in the fall following their summer experience. This fellowship is a stand-alone grant not meant to supplement other grant funds for larger projects. Teachers are encouraged to center their learning in an international travel and study experience, out of which they develop interdisciplinary, place-based learning curricula aligned with their specific state and local content standards.

There are a number of Rowland fellows that might be able to use this to supplement / expand their existing work.

They're Watching You at Work: What happens when Big Data meets human resources? The emerging practice of "people analytics" is already transforming how employers hire, fire, and promote.

"Academic environments are artificial environments," Laszlo Bock, Google's senior vice president of people operations, told The New York Times in June. "People who succeed there are sort of finely trained, they're conditioned to succeed in that environment," which is often quite different from the workplace.

"...administered a battery of tests to a group of corporate presidents, he found that not one of them scored in the "acceptable" range for hiring. Such assessments, he concluded, measured not potential but simply conformity." I would build on this with the statement that current assessment and graduation requirements are great at measuring a student's ability to excel at conformity and irrelevant knowledge sets while doing little to encourage that student's individuality and personal skill sets. Current assessment and graduation requirements are great at measuring a student's ability to memorize what others think important, but not in assessing and fostering the important act of thinking for themselves. Current assessment and graduation requirements are great at measuring who a student is according to an antiquated framework defined within the walls of a school. But, scripted versions of success and knowledge don't allow for assessing and promoting student potential for a world where there are no boundaries or false constraints of whom he/she might become. JF

The education wide-ranging ideas - presented in snapshots from principals, professors, policy makers, students, and others - really speak toward the Rowland community's drive toward shaking up the status quo in education. My personal favorite: scrap business-as-usual twelfth grade in favor of universal pre-school.

Laura Mina mentioned Maker-Spaces at the last planning meeting. It seemed that there were a few Fellows who had were interested and might have had a few questions. This short NPR piece is timely and includes some time around a BTV Maker Space.

"Maker spaces have become hotbeds of technological innovation and entrepreneurship. Now, governments, universities and big corporations are taking notice - and beginning to invest in them." I personally believe for a number of reasons that every Vermont HS should have a Maker Space. First it is a place to encourage interdisciplinary work centered around elements of PBL. Second, it would allow students to connect with their communities to solve real problems with real solutions. And finally and perhaps most importantly, because it would help move the idea of "Libraries" being places where students go to find Information...to being places to the idea that they are places where students go to Interact & Collaborate around Ideas.

About standardized Aptitude Tests and Interest Inventories. "A child who holds a preconceived idea they were born 'less-able' will never pursue mastery and may even avoid the perception of interest in a subject area or career field." "...interest inventories perpetuate stereotyped socialization patterns and a segregated workforce because they typically compare an individual's likes and dislikes to those of persons already in the workforce. Given the extreme sex and race segregation common in the workplace, this concern is significant." "...rather than expand vocational options, aptitude tests and inventories heighten the other systemic pressures that make a young woman's pursuit of nontraditional vocational training extremely unlikely." These three articles highlight the need for educators to be cognizant of bias in guiding students in the exploring classes, college majors, and career interests. Society informs and pressures young men and women to think of these things in terms of either being male or female-centric. These articles also show through studies that young women's performance on aptitude test is linked directly to societal perceptions of gender competence. With that it has implications on their interests or perceived non-interests.

"In this poignant, funny follow-up to his fabled 2006 talk, Sir Ken Robinson makes the case for a radical shift from standardized schools to personalized learning -- creating conditions where kids' natural talents can flourish."

Improved Academic Achievement Improved Student Engagement Enhanced Civic Engagement and Citizenship Enhanced Personal and Social Skills

"...research indicates that service learning can: *increase students' personal, interpersonal and social development (Billig 2000) *increase motivation, student engagement, and school attendance (Billig 2000) *and, lead to new perspectives and more "positive lifestyle choices and behavior." (Civic Literacy Project 2005)"

Implications for PLPs. Messages about "gender appropriate" career interests start long before students actually start to think about steps towards college and career. "One interesting implication of this study is that any action directed to increasing children's motivation and self-esteem, if successful, is likely to reduce occupational sex segregation in the future."