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I have been thinking a lot lately about the challenge we face as educators when well-intentioned learners make incorrect, inscrutable, thoughtless, or otherwise off-the-mark comments. It's a crucial moment in teaching: how do you respond to an unhelpful remark in a way that 1) dignifies the attempt while 2) making sure that no one leaves thinking that the remark is true or useful? Summer is a great time to think about the challenge of developing new routines and habits in class, and this is a vital issue that gets precious little attention in training and staff development. Here is a famous Saturday Night Live skit, with Jerry Seinfeld as a HS history teacher, that painfully demonstrates the challenge and a less than exemplary response. Don't misunderstand me: I am not saying that we are always correct in our judgment about participant remarks. Sometimes a seemingly dumb comment turns out to be quite insightful. Nor am I talking about merely inchoate or poorly-worded contributions. That is a separate teaching challenge: how to unpack or invite others to unpack a potentially-useful but poorly articulated idea. No, I am talking about those comments that are just clunkers in some way; seemingly dead-end offerings that tempt us to drop our jaws or make some snarky remark back. My favorite example of the challenge and how to meet it comes from watching my old mentor Ted Sizer in action in front of 360 educators in Louisville 25 years ago. We had travelled as the staff of the Coalition of Essential Schools from Providence to Louisville to pitch the emerging Coalition reform effort locally. Ted gave a rousing speech about the need to transform the American high school. After a long round of applause, Ted took questions. The first questioner asked, and I quote: "Mr Sizer, what do you think about these girls and their skimpy halter tops in school?" (You have to also imagine the voice: very good-ol'-boy). Without missing a beat or making a face, Ted said "Deco

How do we engage more teachers in the conversation? We are doing it one by one...is that the only way? How do we get teachers to see themselves as professionals that need to be interested in not only their content but in their pedagogy as well?

You give me the chance and I will take it! Essential Quote: "If you want teacher buy-in, let the teachers buy!" - Damn straight, better-believe-it-buddy! What is this really saying? Give educators the chance to determine their own needs and allow them to create their own PD - WOW, democracy in the work place, professional autonomy, release of control...Stop right there Mister Radical Man! All this student centered, student owning the learning may be the cool buzz words of the day, and we may wave its flag high and proud, but we ain't goin' to apply it to the employee serfs charged with implementing that pith! Pahleese, teachers in control - teachers deciding how best to teach and facilitate learning? Chaos, Anarchy, Socialism! Dog and Cats living together, mass hysteria...Ain't happenin'...not now, not ever! I actually know this to be true. I designed, proposed, pleaded for a number of programs incorporating this approach and was rebuffed (vehemently and sternly) in two districts, ignored in two others in favor of completely top down, admin centered, and strictly dictated, carrot and stick approach of standard seat time, nothing required but attention or comment, 11, 23, (whatever) Tools! Shocking that we have the PD results we have? Hardly - Continuing to do the same things we have always done and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity - A. Einstein - what an idiot!

"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."

"The feedback from teachers has been incredible to our top 10 twitter accounts for teachers. We would like to continue to provide great resources for teachers and educators, so we are continuing to add to our list."

"This past year has been one of my biggest learning spikes as a teacher since my first year in the classroom. I have been working with other teachers who are at all stages of their teaching careers and we have been focusing on innovative teaching practices within a school-based inquiry. I have embraced not being the expert, being uncomfortable with not knowing all the answers, and being unsure about how a strategy or a lesson will go. I have found myself increasingly trusting my learners. I am learning like crazy (just like my students) and trying not to burst with excitement! The key has been working with my amazing school staff, along with other dedicated teachers and mentors in our district and throughout the province. I have been collaborating with my colleagues, and I have been implementing new ways of teaching. We are doing wonderful things here in Delta and we need to encourage our colleagues to share their successes with others."

I spend a lot of time, these days, talking and writing about how we are asking teachers to redefine what it means to be a teacher - and, in all fairness, how difficult that is. I try to present myself as a master learner, suggesting that part of what teachers should be, today, is constant and resourceful learners - master learners. But perhaps a significant part of this exercise in redefinition should involve our students - an explicit remolding of perceptions of these youngsters, in order to fully shift the relationship between student and teacher, learner and master learner.

Great information on personalized learning. This site is really packed with good reads!

"Pinterest, a social sharing website that allow users to create and share virtual bulletin boards, has been the darling of social media over the past year. Its primarily female user base continues to grow by leaps and bounds. While you likely know teachers who have free Pinterest accounts, you may still be wondering if you belong on yet another social media site. "YES!" (Uttered quickly and with much enthusiasm!) And here's why. While Pinterest is exploding with fashion boards, trendy home decor, and to-die-for travel destinations (that sadly don't fit my budget), it also includes many boards for educators. Pinterest, heavy on visual appeal, can serve as a great resource for such areas as: classroom decor, language arts. content areas, lesson plans, technology tools, professional books, and much, much more! Your boards can also be a resource for students (age 13+ according to Pinterest regulations), teachers, and parents. If you're a newbie to Pinterest, listed below are a few must-know terms and how-to's. With a few quick tips, Pinterest can help you organize the internet jumble of resources for teachers and students. If you're a full-fledged addict, er, Pinterest Pro, skip to How Educators Use Pinterest or simply download today's Pinterest Cheat Sheet that also includes many ideas for boards."

"We need to develop more learning opportunities where students constitute the actual evaluators for the work itself. Imagine if students, teachers and others evaluate and provide feedback to determine the effectiveness of a student's creation: Develop an 60-second speech to be shared with the student council and three advertising posters to be copied and placed around school to decrease bullying. Your work will be evaluated according to our rubric by the students in our class, outside professionals and me - as the teacher. These are the experiences that push learning beyond a one-way conversation between student and teacher. They demystify the assessment process and allow each student to be a creator and simultaneous evaluator, providing multiple experiences for students to recognize and apply the criteria for quality."

"The age of knowing is slowing giving way to an age of data navigation, and what students need help with should be adjusted accordingly-even if in ways other than the ideas below."

"I see posts and videos about great educators and the great things that they're doing almost every day. And, being the self-reflective person that I am, it often makes me have the same reaction: "Wow, that's great! Look at what that teacher is doing. Look what her students have created. Look at the impact his classroom is having on the world. "Why am I not doing that? Why aren't my students doing that? Man, what kind of a teacher am I if we're not doing that?"

Welcome to the official guide to technology and learning by Edudemic! This part of Edudemic is meant to offer you, the teacher, some of the best and most popular resources available today. We've combed through hundreds of resources in order to narrow down our guides into something easy to read, easy to use, and easy to share. Below are links to the guides we have made so far. They're always a work in progress so be sure to let us know if we missed something or if you have more resources you want us to call out in the guides. We're always looking for the best and most useful resources so don't be shy, share! - See more at: http://www.edudemic.com/guides/#sthash.WpqFjsU4.dpuf

"In a unit on Transportation, our Kindergarteners read a large picture book "On the Move!" by Donna Latham Students got so interested into learning about different ways people around the globe got around. They were even ready to take a trip to Venice, Italy to ride in a Vaporetto. Since our 5 & 6 year olds have gotten pretty good at using PicCollage on the iPads, their teacher Arlene Yegelwel, wanted to personalize another collaborative classroom eBook. She took the time to find over 20 public domain images of transportation methods they had discussed in class on Wikimedia Commons and sent them in one email to each iPad. Student's workflow fluency looked like this: opened the PicCollage app chose one image of the different transportation methods decided how they could best place an image of themselves onto the picture asked a buddy to take an image of them acting out a particular position on the iPad edited the image by clipping the background resized the image to make it fit the ration of the transportation image rotated the image saved the image emailed the image to their teacher"

"The idea of teacher as learner and modeling great learning is one critical notion that usually gets seen as a "nice, but not necessary" role in today's data obsessed world. The idea of mentorship and relationships remains the key determination of learning and yet we have a whole sector of folks advocating for bigger factory models of skill and drill learning. I'm more convinced than ever that those middle schools who have adopted a mentoring model with teachers staying with students for 3-4 years is a return to the classic view of learning. The classic view also shows that inquiry is not simply a new pedagogy but one that acknowledges student interest and can potentially remove artificial barriers such as time from the learning. Again, not something earth shattering or new but places things in a historical perspective juxtaposed beside the recent view of learning that it needs to be fragmented and broken down into small bite chunks of learning."

"It's been around for a few years now and had plenty of interest from around the world already, but Mr G Online has only just discovered Maths Maps. From first impressions, I am absolutely blown away by the idea. The brainchild of leading UK educator Tom Barrett, (now based in Australia), Maths Maps uses Google Maps as the launching pad for Maths Investigations. Barrett's vision was for teachers around the world to collaborate on building Maths Maps, examples of some seen in the screenshots on the left. Here is a brief description of how it works from the Maths Maps website. Elevator Pitch Using Google Maps. Maths activities in different places around the world. One location, one maths topic, one map. Activities explained in placemarks in Google Maps. Placemarks geotagged to the maths it refers to. "How wide is this swimming pool?" Teachers to contribute and share ideas. Maps can be used as independent tasks or group activities in class. Maps can be embedded on websites, blogs or wikis. Tasks to be completed by students and recorded online or offline."

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.

Highlights that dedicated teachers don not teach for the pay or status.

As I read more and more blogs, twitter feeds, etc. teachers everywhere are asking how to engage their students. This blog post demonstrates a real shift in ownership to the students!

"Coauthors Harada and Yoshina authored the first text that focused on learning assessment in a school library context. In this revised and expanded version of "Assessing for Learning: Librarians and Teachers as Partners," they continue to shed light on the issue of school librarians helping students to assess for learning. The book begins with a brief discussion of national reform efforts and the importance of assessment for effective learning within this context. The balance of the book provides numerous strategies and tools for involving students as well as library media specialists in assessment activities, emphasizing the importance of students assessing for their own learning. It also provides specific examples of how assessment can be incorporated into various library-related learning activities. All chapters in this second edition have been updated with additional information, and three new chapters on assessing for critical thinking, dispositions, and tech-related learning have been added."