Group items tagged

Insightful.

Students doing their own research! Students teaching each other! Shelley Wright now focuses on helping her students learn to learn. She models her journey and helps them develop their own skills. Reminds me of our work together!

"This chart is cross-posted on our new site at Personalize Learning. After writing the post "Personalization is NOT Differentiating Instruction," I received some very interesting feedback and more hits than any other of my posts. I think I hit a nerve. :o So Kathleen McClaskey and I did some research on what personalization is and the differences between differentiation and individualization. We found very little information on the differences. And what we did find, we disagreed with many of the points. That lead us to create this chart:"

"Reflective practice is an important sub-component of teacher research. It includes journaling and talking about one's instructional practice. However, doing reflective practice is not the same as doing teacher research. Teacher researchers hypothesize and systematically test their ideas. They look to triangulate their ideas with multiple forms of evidence multiple perspectives (inside and outside of their research group) the research literature on this topic Teacher researchers also write about their projects. Writing is an important part of the process because it requires organization of ideas within a framework."

Examples and pitfalls of flipping a class.

Khan Academy has a Coaching feature that allows students to practice a new skill and receive immediate feedback. You can also track student progress. Now the classroom can be used for valuable discussions like how specific skills can be applied in their real world (relevanancy). Or to allow peer to peer teaching, small group instruction, and one on one instruction when all else fails.

Great questions for anyone thinking about incorporating IPads into the classroom with the focus solely on the instructional piece of technology.

This could be the to do or not to do questions for incorporating technology into a classroom setting.

"Tutorial Designer" is one of the six roles, Alan November lists in his Digital Learning Farm that empower student learners and describes in his book 'Who owns the Learning?. Take a look at the examples below of students: sharing what they have learned in class sharing beyond their classroom and their parents sharing with a global audience in mind. As you are watching these samples… Where does your imagination take you? What ideas come to your mind? What comes to mind for YOUR STUDENTS TO SHARE? What lesson or unit, could you "upgrade" to include the creation of a video, audio or screencast?"

"In cooperative learning, students work together, think together and plan together using a variety of group structures designed along an instructional path. This dynamic learning model breaks with the dusty forms of frontal teaching that often create classrooms of "lonesome togetherness" -- students who may sit together but live worlds apart. Cooperative learning creates what Daniel Goleman calls "cognitive empathy," a mind-to-mind sense of how another person's thinking works. The better we understand others, the better we know them -- pointing toward (among other virtues) greater trust, appreciation and generosity. "

"Differentiation and personalized learning is lost in the pre-created curricula and assembly line experience of most distance courses and MOOCs" "The subject matter (and the learners' needs) should drive instructional strategies, not technology" "I'd argue that relationships are motivating. Seeing the passion good instructors bring to a classroom live and in person is motivating. " "My experience, and fear, is that online classes are too rigid, too much like a factory, and less responsive to individual students' learning."

"A couple of weeks ago I had an interesting meeting with about 25 instructional designers from UBC, where we discussed design models for hybrid learning, defined as a deliberate attempt to combine the best of both face-to-face and online learning. "

"Project-based learning is an example of innovation, but probably not the way you'd expect. While learning through projects is indeed innovative compared to sit-and-get, drill-and-kill, teacher-led and textbook-sourced instruction, PBL's primary innovation is probably its flexibility. There's almost no other learning trend or innovation than can not only co-exist with PBL, but also fit seamlessly and entirely within it. PBL promotes innovation in education by making room for it. But creating that innovation -- what does that require? What kinds of ingredients can you put into the tin, shake up, and end up with innovation? "

"Mini challenges are a great alternative to open exploration or direct instruction. They can be a form of guided discovery. We recommend starting with easier (easier to find, more intuitive, etc.) challenges and building up. Ideally these challenges are completed in pairs or small groups so that there is additional support and an immediate opportunity to "teach." A favorite final challenge is for the student(s) to come up with a challenge for the other pairs/groups or to prepare a "discovery" to share with the whole class using an LCD projector."

This is basically another "attack" on the way education is "done". I love the sarcastic approach to the prep for the "real world" that is the dominant excuse for rule following. This article reflects why I think the whole notion of "grades" and a "grade book" must be re-examined if we are to really shift instructional practice toward genuine and authentic student learning.

Seven-step process for planning problem-based learning experiences.

I laughed so hard when I read this part: First, stop expecting kids to pay attention. They don't owe you anything. They're only in school because it's the law and their friends are there. He also lists some good strategies - none that are new, but it is always good to review!

"We want a team to think about action research as a collaborative endeavor, where principals and teachers work together to improve something over time. It's not just about gathering data, it's about working hard to improve something. Maybe you see a need to improve writing in the building, and you're going to figure out whether there's a way to take a techno-constructivist approach to strengthening students' writing skills. Maybe you feel the culture of your school is very mired in antiquated approaches to teaching and learning, and you want to build a new culture of innovation and collaboration, so you're going to develop your project around that goal."

"where principals and teachers work together to improve something over time" HA! Techno-constructivist? Could this term be applicable to the age of chalkboard and chalk innovation? I just don't think research resultant data is going to lead the way to anything but more "initiatives". As learning facilitators, we are drowning in them and the learner targets are confused beyond measure. Maybe, the answer is as simple as priority setting AND the genuine wherewithal to put those priorities in place. If I were an instructional leader, rather than a innovative pariah or low tech Luddite, I might say that my campus community is going to tackle a learning fundamental, close reading. I form a committee, we plan activities, we go...in isolated boxes of 41 minutes x 7, while filing out reams of busy work paper & electronic documentation, while building character, fostering the whole child, honoring the best spitters of knowledge with assembly recognition and the rounds and rounds of testing - not a measure of learning, but a measure of the course and scope delivery of bloated curricula....all on a schedule determined and unchangeable by the number of buses owned and operated...that developed project is actually doomed to ineffectiveness not because of its inherent flaws, but because that leader is both structurally and functionally prevented from making it a reality. Study and Commission and White Paper away, the results are predetermined! The really sadness here is that we KNOW how to pull this off - High Tech High and New Tech Network Schools and others I can't think of that have freed themselves from structural inertia...but we wring our hands and continue to fashion work-around initiatives....that we know in advance simply will not work.