Rowland Foundation

"The 6 Characteristics of A Successful Educator 21st century teaching skills ... an excellent account of the 6 main characteristics of people you should be around."

Burlington - December 7th Part 1: Attitudes for Success with Challenging StudentsPart 2: Secrets of Promoting Responsibility for Learning and BehavingPart 3: Can't Miss Strategies to Motivate Students Every DayPart 4: Handle Difficult Student Behavior with Proven InterventionsPart 5: Build a Values Based Classroom

"the wisdom and foresight of Vermont" in rejecting some federal education incentives

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report on Finland. Covers: * Commitment to education and to children * Cultural support for universal high achievement * Teacher and principal quality * Accountability * How money is spent * Instructional practice * School organization * Sequencing of reforms to economic development * Cultivating behaviors for the knowledge economy

"Here are 5 reasons why we are making student blogging and portfolio development a high priority."1. Positive digital footprints2. Communicating with digital tools3. Transparency for parents and family4. New ways of thinking about Web tools5. Effective digital citizenship++Their world view is changing

It would be interesting to see a group of teachers collaborate over the course of a semester in having each of their students create their own blog. This collaboration wouldn't require common planning / interdisciplinary assignments, but having a common theme to connect the content would make sense.

"I teach in an inquiry, project-based, technology embedded classroom. A mouthful, I know. So what does that mean? To begin with, I don't lecture. My students don't take notes, at least not in the traditional sense, and we don't read a novel and simply answer the questions. It means my classroom is a place where my students spend time piecing together what they have learned, critically evaluating its larger purpose, and reflecting on their own learning. It also means my students don't acquire knowledge just for the sake of acquiring it. They need to do something with it - that's where "project-based" comes into play. Finally, technology is embedded into the structure of all we do. It's part of how we research, how we capture information, and how we display our learning. It's never an accessory tacked on at the end."

"These people...aggressively block innovation from happening and will suck the energy out of any organization. When confronted with any of the following three people-and you have found it impossible to change their ways, say goodbye."

60 videos from Creating Innovators by Tony Wagner.

The Common Core in Vermont Wiki is a warehouse of materials and resources to help you and your school in our transition to the Common Core State Standards.The resources on this page are designed to increase awareness and provide general information about the Common Core State Standards and Vermont's plan for implementation.Content area resources available for Phase 2.

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

What if we applied the psychology of what makes technology attractive to students...to our practices in the classroom? Using this idea, instead of using more technology in the classroom, why not design the traditional human / face-to-face classroom experience to be more like what makes technology so engrossing to modern students? Do these principles sound familiar... Deliver information in bite sized chunks, Create mental models, Use short stories to help process information, Learning happens and is remembered through repetition, People are motivated by Progress and Mastery, Sustained attention lasts 10 minutes, and the use of Progressive Disclosure. Progressive Disclosure an interaction design technique often used in human computer interaction to help maintain the focus of a user's attention by reducing clutter, confusion, and cognitive workload. This improves usability by presenting only the minimum data required for the task at hand. Here are 100 little articles that could have big implications in the classroom.

Often in groups such as this multiple variations of a tag topic are created by different users. To help ensure that our collective bookmarks are easily searchable, here is a list of preferred tags for the Rowland Foundation Group's library. When entering a tag that is more than one word, please use "quotes" around that tag. This will keep your tag singular, such as Achievement Gap rather than separating them into Achievement and Gap. Preferred Tags Achievement Gap Authentic Assessment Collaborative Teaching Community Partnerships Confrence document Experiential Education External Learning Opportunities Family and Parent Partnerships Formative Assessment Grant Opportunity PDF Place-based Education School Change Service Learning Sir Ken Robinson Student Voice Thematic Instruction video

I haven't listened to the whole podcast yet, but it is interesting to hear what's happening in Maine to personalize learning and to create effective professional development.  Projects4ME should be of interest Rowland Fellow Alison.

I sent him off an email. Maybe he'll share with us. As we all know 80% of success is putting oneself out there.

"... innovation ... goes beyond telling people in one place to replicate someone else's reported success. It means letting the people in the schools try things they believe will work for their students." Other Systems Are Innovating, Dramatically - Traditional School Suppresses Innovation - To Succeed We Will Have To Innovate with School - How Might Innovative Schools Be Different? - 'Innovation' Is a Strategy for Systemic Reform - We Cannot Afford the Risk of Failing to Innovate -

Sharing, and sharing online specifically, is not in addition to the work of being an educator. It is the work." Ewan Mcintosh

"For those who share this common commitment (and really, who among us does not?),there is, I am arguing, a moral responsibility, a strong one, to share our educational initiatives and innovations: to summarize them, share their key elements, show examples of them in practice, and, at best, reflect upon their successes and lack thereof."

"This is also an essential element of educational leadership. Leadership is showing the way to others and making it easier for them to follow, it is empowering others to benefit from your example, take inspiration, and improve upon your advances- to stand on your shoulders."

"True innovative people have a certain drive and energy about them that you like to be around. They are always full of ideas and looking for ways to improve things. Keep in mind that they aren't born as black belts in these mental traits…they've developed them over time."

Great pieces to reflect on for personal professional development over the summer.

Interesting article that makes me think that we don't need to look to Finland for all of the answers. We can look to "The True North strong and free!"