Group items tagged

"A badge is a validated indicator of accomplishment, skill, quality or interest that can be earned in any of these learning environments. Badges can support learning, validate education, help build reputation, and confirm the acquisition of knowledge. They can signal traditional academic attainment or the acquisition of skills such collaboration, teamwork, leadership, and other 21st century skills."

Great exploration of types/kinds of badges and badge characteristics/skill set indicators.

On how schools are focused on scores rather than noncognitive skills "Right now we've got an education system that really doesn't pay attention to [noncognitive] skills at all. ... I think schools just aren't set up right now to try to develop things like grit, and perseverance and curiosity. ... Especially in a world where we are more and more focused on standardized tests that measure a pretty narrow range of cognitive skills, teachers are less incentivized to think about how to develop those skills in kids. So it's a conversation that's really absent I think in a lot of schools, to the detriment of a lot of students."

"If examinations challenge learners to solve problems the way they are solved in real life today, the educational system will change for ever. It is a small policy change that is required. Allow the use of the internet and collaboration during an examination. If we did that to exams, the curriculum would have to be different. We would not need to emphasise facts or figures or dates. The curriculum would have to become questions that have strange and interesting answers. "Where did language come from?", "Why were the pyramids built?", "Is life on Earth sustainable?", "What is the purpose of theatre?" Questions that engage learners in a world of unknowns. Questions that will occupy their minds through their waking hours and sometimes their dreams. Teaching in an environment where the internet and discussion are allowed in exams would be different. The ability to find things out quickly and accurately would become the predominant skill. The ability to discriminate between alternatives, then put facts together to solve problems would be critical. AThat's a skill that future employers would admire immensely."

"We have a romantic attachment to skills from the past which are no longer relevant on a curriculum for today's children."

If you have not seen doctopus and Google docs used in conjunction with assessments you ought to check it out! It is so phenomenal that I cannot express how super fantastic a tool it will be for you.

"...it is not about your skill set, but more importantly, your mindset, when trying new technologies."

"I don't remember playing basketball, shooting free throws one day, and then coming back and being able to dunk 4 months later. To get better, you have to practice."

"Specialist High Skills Majors let students focus on a career path that matches their skills and interests while meeting the requirements of the Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD). Students receive the SHSM's seal on their diploma.

While this program is definitely more career based, it could be modified to provide flexibility in what I am calling the "focus area electives"...which can be highly personalized by individual students within the same Focus Area who are career or college bound...or are not quite sure yet of what they want to do after high school.

Short Summary of The Global Achievement Gap "In his 2008 book, The Global Achievement Gap, Tony Wagner discusses a variety of ways to improve education in the United States. At the heart of his thinking is the need for all schools to teach what he calls the "Seven Survival Skills", which have much in common with the thoughts of Friedman and Pink (who are both cited in his book)."

1. Critical thinking and problem solving 2. Collaboration across networks and leading by influence 3. Agility and adaptability 4. Initiative and entrepreneurialism 5. Effective oral and written communication 6. Accessing and analyzing information 7. Curiosity and imagination

Dr. Tony Wagner, co-director of Harvard's Change Leadership Group has identified what he calls a "global achievement gap," which is the leap between what even our best schools are teaching, and the must-have skills of the future:Critical thinking and problem-solvingCollaboration across networks and leading by influenceAgility and adaptabilityInitiative and entrepreneurialismEffective oral and written communicationAccessing and analyzing informationCuriosity and imagination

Shared this a couple of months ago...worth another look.

And we're thrilled to have Tony Wagner as the keynote for the Rowland Foundation's 2nd Annual Conference on School Transformation! You can preview The Global Achievement Gap here: http://books.google.com/books?ei=AWNyT-eMBOXe0gG5tsW9AQ&id=_4zBmOBP9uwC&dq=tony+wagner&q=personalization#v=onepage&q&f=false

This is a great catchall of information on the Critical Skills Program. Folks use the CSP as a big backpack to carry their work around 21st Century Skills, student-centered learning, differentiation and personalization.

"'The tests we rely on so heavily really don't measure creative thinking and they don't measure common sense thinking, wisdom, ethics, work ethic - they don't measure your character,' Sternberg said. In his view, students go to college to develop into active and engaged citizens. If colleges kept that ultimate goal in mind in their admissions process, it would send a message to high schools about the skills that universities value and want to see in prospective students."

"Science Leadership Academy (SLA), a public magnet high school in Philadelphia is a fairly young school, just eight years old. But in that short time, it's developed a reputation around the country as a shining example of the merits of inquiry-based learning approach. Colleges sometimes have a difficult time understanding the school's approach to developing autonomous, critical thinkers. For example, SLA doesn't offer Advanced Placement (AP) courses, because making students take a summative test at the end of the year is antithetical to the concept of allowing students to guide their own learning based on interest and collaborative work - and just as importantly, the value of the incremental learning process."

On the Minerva Project... "In fact, in the first year the students will take four courses: Multi-modal Communication, Complex Systems, Empirical Systems, and Computational Sciences. The intention is for traditionally separate subjects to be integrated if they involve complimentary skills. COMPETENCY-BASED UNIVERSITIES As the Minerva experiment develops, some existing universities are taking steps to award college credit based on skills learned, not the amount of time they've been enrolled."

LONDON - The global financial crisis has amplified the value of a good education, according to a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. "The people who really paid the price for the financial crisis are those without baseline qualifications," Andreas Schleicher, the O.E.C.D.'s deputy director for education and skills, said last week at a London news conference.

The new Groupthink on Groupthink?  A bit of discussion around this at the ACSR Critical Skills Master Teacher's training this past Saturday. Interesting.

This simple video makes the essential elements of PBL come alive and brings to light the 21st Century skills and competencies (collaboration, communication, critical thinking) that will enable K-12 students to be college and work-ready as well as effective members of their communities.

Article based on The Innovator's DNA: Mastering the 5 Skills of Disruptive Innovators Focus on concluding three chapters, People, Processes, and Philosophies, which draw on and offers 15 takeaways for Principals and School-Leaders.

What You Can Do to Become Stronger Innovation Leaders in Your School: 1. Own as Principal the role of Innovator-in-Chief: You can't delegate innovation. 2. Make your practice of "active innovation" visible. 3. Create complementary teams in school leadership. 4 . Observe closely what other principals and schools are doing. 5. Arrange for employee swaps. 6. Ask "Why?" 7. Seek people who had invented something, held deep expertise in a particular knowledge area, and demonstrated a passion to change the world. 8. Remember that innovators want to work with and for other innovators. 9. Embed innovation as an explicit, consistent element of performance reviews. 10. Develop formal and informal processes to facilitate knowledge exchanges. 11. Network externally. 12. Practice Beta testing and Prototyping. 13. Build many small, diverse teams. 14. Communicate and reinforce that Innovation is everyone's job. 15. Make innovation an explicit core value of your school. 16. Give more time for innovation. 17. Create "a safe space for others to innovate. 18. Model your risk taking and your learning from failure.

The book is framed around the Five Core Skills of Innovators, a framework highly valuable for ourselves and our students: What are we doing to do more of and become better at *Associating, *Questioning, *Observing, *Networking, *Experimenting.

"…service-learning inherently teaches the kind of thinking skills and knowledge application necessary for success outside academia. Student products of service-learning, including comprehensive projects and analytic journals, require demonstration of critical thinking and problem solving skills in multiple contexts. In addition, service-learning often provides the right balance of challenge and support to foster intellectual growth and development (Eyler & Giles, 1999)."

Today's students adjust to rapid technological and social changes, navigate vast flows of information and learn to work collaboratively with diverse individuals and cultures in a global economy. Discover cognitive tools and teaching techniques to help them cultivate the skills and abilities required to succeed in the new millennium. - November 18, 2011 - November 20, 2011 at the Westin Boston Waterfront Hotel in Boston, MA

"The Leader in Me is a whole-school transformation model that acts like the operating system of a computer - it improves performance of all other programs. Based on The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People..." "...our schools should not merely be focused on improving test scores, but should provide opportunities for students to develop their full potential." Leadership Accountability Adaptability Initiative and Self-direction Cross-cultural Skills Responsibility Problem Solving Communication Creativity Teamwork

I know that many educators grimace at the thought of implementing a piece of "Corporate America" into public education. But, take a look at the 7 Habits and then ask yourself if these are habits you would want for your students. Habit 1 - Be Proactive Habit 2 - Begin with the End in Mind Habit 3 - Put First Things First Habit 4 - Think Win-Win Habit 5 - Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood Habit 6 - Synergize; Together Is Better Habit 7 - Sharpen The Saw; Balance Feels Best

"...summarizes the research on five categories of noncognitive factors that are related to academic performance: academic behaviors, academic perseverance, academic mindsets, learning strategies, and social skills..."

Publication Summary Page of CCSR Report http://ccsr.uchicago.edu/publications/teaching-adolescents-become-learners-role-noncognitive-factors-shaping-school Great related blog post on Grit by Jonathan Martin "Developing Grit via Mindset and Learning Strategies: Learning from the CCSR report" http://21k12blog.net/2013/05/19/developing-grit-via-mindset-and-learning-strategies-learning-from-the-ccsr-report/

James Heckman has a multitude of research and resources available on this site. Those interested in "non-cognitive skills" and early childhood development will find a wealth of readings and research here.

"If you look at four-year-olds, they are constantly asking questions and wondering how things work. But by the time they are 6½ years old, they stop asking questions because they quickly learn that teachers value the right answers more than provocative questions. High school students rarely show inquisitiveness."