Group items tagged

"The following is an excerpt from the book Every Child, Every Day: A Digital Conversion Model for Student Achievement, published by Pearson. Edwards is the superintendent of Mooresville (NC) Graded School District (MGSD), whose districtwide 1-to-1 program earned it the 2012 Sylvia Charp Award. "

"By engaging teachers and the technology integrationist in conversations about the curriculum, specific class dynamics and capabilities of the technology, we are now able to talk about what we would like to do, the tools best suited for that purpose, ways to tweak units or lessons, and what is not working. This collaborative, co-teaching model has allowed for us to find connections across content areas, classes and our district. We all recognize how much is gained when we are allowed to really talk about our curriculum and our students, and this model allows for that creative, collaborative time to work through complex and interesting questions and ideas about integrating technology effectively. "

"Last night, I had the privilege of presenting at the Reform Symposium on something I am very passionate about - giving students a voice through blogging. In fact, I find whenever you can give students a voice in your classroom leads to a much more engaged learning environment. While the archives will not be up for another week or so I did want to share the slides I used for my message. "

"We've always focused on instructional design being essential to the design of courseware. That's certainly true, it's the first step to make a learning solution instructionally sound. The next in line is to make it interesting, engaging, interactive. Too many solutions fail at that crucial stage. I've seen too many hours of what is commonly termed 'shovelware' that result from this failure."

"This collection of blogs, articles, and videos from Edutopia aims to help teachers deploy social media tools in the classroom to engage students in 21st-century learning."

"Teachers at Mount Desert Elementary School in Northeast Harbor, Maine, use proven Responsive Classroom techniques -- such as relationship-building morning meetings and engaging student-led activities -- to get students focused and ready to learn. "

"NASA abandoned the Space Shuttle Program to get out of low orbit and back to their main mission of deep space exploration, a lesson for 21st century educators. Our public education system is anchored in 20th century low orbit factory school traditions. We educators need to abandon our own "low orbit" education traditions and engage in deep space exploration to ensure we well serve contemporary learners and transform contemporary learning."

""Just as rigor does not reside in the barbell but in the act of lifting it, rigor in reading is not an attribute of a text but rather of a reader s behavior engaged, observant, responsive, questioning, analytical. The close reading strategies in Notice and Note will help you cultivate those critical reading habits that will make your students more attentive, thoughtful, independent readers." Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst In Notice and Note Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst introduce 6 signposts that alert readers to significant moments in a work of literature and encourage students to read closely. Learning first to spot these signposts and then to question them, enables readers to explore the text, any text, finding evidence to support their interpretations. In short, these close reading strategies will help your students to notice and note. In this timely and practical guide Kylene and Bob * examine the new emphasis on text-dependent questions, rigor, text complexity, and what it means to be literate in the 21st century * identify 6 signposts that help readers understand and respond to character development, conflict, point of view, and theme * provide 6 text-dependent anchor questions that help readers take note and read more closely * offer 6 Notice and Note model lessons, including text selections and teaching tools, that help you introduce each signpost to your students. Notice and Note will help create attentive readers who look closely at a text, interpret it responsibly, and reflect on what it means in their lives. It should help them become the responsive, rigorous, independent readers we not only want students to be but know our democracy demands."

"We are a team of educators, entrepreneurs, and engineers passionate about improving education. We believe in super simple tech tools to enhance classroom engagement, assessment and personalization. Thank you for joining us as we share strategies, tips and ideas for using Socrative. Join in the conversation and help our community grow!"

"The common core standards are encouraging teachers to engage students in close reading. Much of the focus of discussions of close reading have emphasized what teachers should not do (in terms of pre-reading, or types of questions). I am being asked with increasing frequency what close reading is. "

"Coming up with the right question involves vigorously thinking through the problem, investigating it from various angles, turning closed questions into open-ended ones and prioritizing which are the most important questions to get at the heart of the matter. "We've been underestimating how well our kids can think." "We've been underestimating how well our kids can think." Rothstein said in a recent discussion on the talk show Forum. "We see consistently that there are three outcomes. One is that students are more engaged. Second, they take more ownership, which for teachers, this is a huge thing. And the third outcome is they learn more - we see better quality work.""

"Daniel H. Pink, author of "To Sell is Human" and "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" talks about the microeconomic fallacy that more pay begets more work and argues that humans are truly motivated by Autonomy, Mastery & Purpose, and why most of us spend a large portion of our day engaging in "non-sales selling" as we persuade, convince, and influence others to give up something in exchange for what we have. http://www.danpink.com/ http://youtu.be/u6XAPnuFjJc"

"A new study from the Stanford Graduate School of Education flips upside down the notion that students learn best by first independently reading texts or watching online videos before coming to class to engage in hands-on projects. Studying a particular lesson, the Stanford researchers showed that when the order was reversed, students' performances improved substantially."

"Personalized learning requires teachers to become co-learners and release their iron grip on the learning process. It requires districts to trust principals, principals to trust teachers, and teachers to trust students. It requires a great deal of conversation about what real learning is and why it matters. engaged-students2This student-driven approach to learning allows kids to explore what matters to them, to build things that don't work and to figure out why. It requires them to form opinions and justify them based on solid evidence. And it requires adults who care and can speak carefully and honestly into the lives of kids. All learning should be formative. "

"As I design a lesson or assessment, I ask myself if what I've designed, or what the students must master, correlates to the important skills of: Collaboration Communication Critical Thinking Creativity My lessons and tests must incorporate one or more of of the four Cs to, in my opinion, be worthy of spending precious instructional time in the classroom. On another note, the other short rubric I keep in my head is related to differentiating my lessons. Looking at teacher and education author Dr. Carol Tomlinson's list of ways to differentiate in the classroom, you'll notice that this aligns nicely with the four Cs above. Tomlinson explains that the four elements that lend themselves naturally to differentiation are: Process Environment Content Product"