Group items tagged

So what are these listening strategies?

Yes, technology plays an important role in today’s classrooms. While the pace of change has accelerated, however, one constant remains the same: Good teachers are critical to delivering an effective learning experience

Technology can play a critical role—but only when the technology supports the approach, the teaching philosophy and the goals that educators, students and families have agreed matters the most.

When technology is integrated intentionally with foresight and with intention of addressing specific growth-oriented goals, it increases the potential to help students learn, develop, and grow in unique ways

for the most part, schools have incorporated these 21st century instructional techniques and tools as add-ons to the teacher-centric 19th century classroom structure, in which the majority of the curriculum is pulled from a textbook, and, despite best intentions, most students learn the same thing in the same way at the same time.

what exactly is personalized learning? And why is technology so central to its outcomes?

personalized learning as an instructional approach that encompasses both differentiation and individualization, but is also flexible in content or theme to match the specific interests and prior experiences of learners

Personal Learning Communities

the administration is going to be actively involved in the groups as participants with teachers still being the leaders. It’s their intent to be an equal participant in the process. Teachers have been asked to choose which of the four groups they would like to join. The topics are differentiated instruction, cross-curricular projects, teaching with technology, and school culture – character education. All are meaningful, current topic areas that are connected to our school and board’s SMART goals.

Technical competence

An educator needs to know how to use the technology of an era

Experimentation. Every teacher/educator should see herself as a researcher

What are we doing as educators to meaningfully engage our students, to give them the autonomy, purpose, and opportunity for mastery which they crave and to which they respond with focus, energy, enthusiasm, and diligence?

Do we think that before technology, most students avoided distraction?

Yes, of course, students can and do get distracted when their computers and smartphones are open on their desk or lap, and teachers need to respond thoughtfully to this problem.    It is fine for teachers to ask students to put them away in certain times.    William Stites has a terrific post about how schools can confront and manage the technological distraction issues