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"The key to generating truly innovative ideas, he says, is learning how to challenge the status quo-which is why he's busy trying to teach people how to "think wrong'"

1. Set Important Goals 2. Create Powerful Learning Experiences. 3. Manage Productive Learning Environments.  4. Know Students. 5. Promote Growth.  6. Leverage Teacher Talent. 7. Build Community.

Traditional summative functions. This is using badges to indicate that the earner previously did something or knows something. This is what the educational assessment community calls assessment of learning. Newer formative functions. This is where badges are used to enhance motivation, feedback, and discourse for individual badge earners and broader communities of earners. This is what is often labeled assessment for learning. Groundbreaking transformative functions. This is where badges transform existing learning ecosystems or allow new ones to be created. These assessment functions impact both badge earners and badge issuers, and may be intentional or incidental. I believe we should label this assessment as learning

Succinct and useful advice on giving feedback which is "kind, specific, and helpful."  With the point being that you need all three to help students progress and learn from their work. Has implications for administration as well.

Pulling this back out. One of my favorite blog posts about what I feel makes for the best teachers...giving great feedback. "Learning" should not be a one-off event, it should be a process of feedback and improvement.

The greatest challenge to change in learning is our reticence to simply take action: - change the space - change the program - expect high outcomes.

A Step-by-Step Guide to the Best Projects Discover a project-based learning model that motivates students to pursue knowledge and drives academic achievement.

‎"There is no evidence that the pencil makes learning faster, easier or better." "I refuse to use pencils in my classroom until manufacturers figure out a way to limit what students can write with them." "If students become so heavily dependent upon pencils, they will never learn to boil berries to create their own medium."

Ode to #Pencilchat: Technology Integration in the Classroom http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/12783558/ode-to-pencilchat-technology-intergration-in-the-classroom

Although a bit dated, this seems like a great example of the type of library we want to create.  Combine this physical space with inspiring, practical Professional Development and we're going to cook!

There are four big benefits of flex models: Competency-based: Students progress based on demonstrated mastery; they use cohort groups and teams when and where they are helpful. Customized experience: Flex models make it easy to customize the experience for each student. Portable and flexible: Students can take a flex school on the road for a family vacation or for a work or community-based learning experience. Productive operations: Flex models have the potential for more productive staffing and facilities solutions.

Lacks detail about HOW flex learning actually works, but the basic concept is appealing.

That's how blended learning should work-a combination of personal digital learning and community connected, team-based, production-focused, authentic, engaging, and relevant activities.  At Maker High, students would publish rather than 'turn it in'.  They would demonstrate mastery rather than finishing a class.

"'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."

This is a great challenge to all of us to make better assessments of learning, not memorization.  

Thanks, I enjoyed this article-

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.

"Competency-based learning is a proposed alternative to traditional K-12 advancement that allows students to progress at their own pace as they master the subject matter rather progressing after a fixed interval--a pre-defined amount of "seat time" in the classroom"

Service-Learning can… 1. Improve character values and responsible behavior. 2. Improve academic outcomes for students. 3. Promote a sense of connectedness to the school and the community 4. Promote social-emotional skills. 5. Promote civic participation.

"Principals report that service-learning has a positive impact on teacher satisfaction, school climate, academic achievement, and school engagement."

"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.

"...at the structural level, companies need to be constantly reflective, assessing their relevance... And they should expect to constantly change without fear of their own identity--because it's better to be an adaptive (school) than a well-recognized fossil."

"The best way to promote change is to constantly challenge talent. And the only way to do that is to never act like the learning process is done."

"...by all means ask a team to do something new. But right when you do, make sure to call in experts for roundtable lunches to answer questions. People will be less afraid of change if they know it's expected, and if the (school) provides the right resources to enable it. And those old habits? Let them die.

While Volunteering and Service-Learning are not exactly the same, they share common foundations which apply here. Article contains many validating reasons for incorporating pieces into curriculum.

"...positive effect on grades, self-concept, and attitudes toward education. Volunteering also led to reduced drug use and huge declines in dropout rates and teen pregnancies."