Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

Sponsored by the Great Schools Partnership This blog has posting valuable to all educators in considering their practice. Samples of posts include: Brain Research, Differentiation, Collaborative Group Work and Student Feedback

"Twitter has emerged both as an important source of news, information, and resources for educators, as well as a valuable way to engage in a meaningful professional learning network. This webinar will provide a useful overview of Twitter and how it can inform and support the ongoing development and networking of K- 12 educators." Webinar THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2013 | 3:00-4:00 PM EST

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

Another piece that puts the focus of Innovation on People rather than Programs. My personal belief is that #EdReform should start and end with empowering PD which is Personal and Purposeful. With that, what if schools modeled their PD on the Rowland Foundation's model of #EdReform? What would it look like if PD were not determined and delivered but instead supported and shared? What if PD were about providing resources and teaching teachers to be data collectors, researchers, developers of innovation? 2 year Action Research cycle? What if every teacher in a school spent a school year coming up with a hunch, collecting data, researching ideas around their hunch...then spent the second year testing it out/implementing it in the classroom, more data collection, presenting outcomes to their peers, and collecting feedback for reflection and refinement?

"What has proved to matter is...the building of knowledge and innovation skills, which are much harder and take longer to get in place and maintain. Leading-edge competency in one's area of practice is indispensable; practice at turning ideas into reality is a must." "...while learning is hard work, and the value is not quantifiable, it is the only way to remain valuable in an economy that thrives on innovation. The more you invest in your people's knowledge, the more innovation you can expect to reap."

Grants to individuals fund participation in high-quality professional development experiences, such as summer institutes or action research; Grants to groups fund collegial study, including study groups, action research, lesson study, or mentoring experiences for faculty or staff new to an assignment.

Could be a nice additional source of funding to support existing projects.

Great resource. Teachers at Harwood Union Middle High School applied for a Learning & Leadership Grant to explore iPad apps in a fairly informal PLC-type setting and received $5,000 to support their work. It helps that the application for the grant was fairly easy to complete.