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Emily Vickery

Open Thinking & Digital Pedagogy » Blog Archive » What is a PLN? Or, PLE vs. ... - 0 views

educationaltechnology.ca/...1156

pln pd

shared by Emily Vickery on 20 Dec 08 - Cached
  • I am currently writing a chapter regarding open and networked learning. I have used the term Personal Learning Network (PLN) dozens of times over the last few years, and have seen it mentioned countless times in blog and microblog posts, and other forms of media. However, I cannot seem to find a solid reference or definition for the concept of PLN. I sent out several email messages asking people if knew of an existing article or reference for the PLN definition, and I have yet to receive a response. About the best lead I could find was a post from Stephen Downes that mentioned “Dave Warlick has taken the concept of the Personal Learning Environment, renamed it (to Personal Learning Network).”
Teachers Without Borders

A Push to Improve Teachers' Colleges - WSJ.com - 1 views

online.wsj.com/...4138204576602992880869786.html

teacher education pre-service teachers evaluation standardized tests

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 08 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • The Obama administration announced a new $185 million competition Friday that would reward colleges for producing teachers whose students perform well on standardized tests. The competition would require states to provide data linking collegiate teaching programs inside their borders to the test scores of their graduates' students. Under the proposal, to be eligible for the money, states would have to ratchet up teacher-licensing exams and close persistently low-performing teacher-training programs.
  • In a news conference Friday, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan noted that that nearly two-thirds of new teachers report feeling unprepared to run classes. "What if 62% of our new doctors felt unprepared to practice medicine?" said Mr. Duncan, adding that "the status quo is unacceptable."
  • Evidence is mounting that teacher quality is the biggest in-school determinant of student achievement. Yet the nation's colleges of education are a patchwork of programs that vary in quality. Each state sets its own admissions, graduation and licensing requirements.
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  • Recruiting and training a strong teaching force has been a main priority of Mr. Duncan, and he has chided teacher-prep programs for their failure to produce high-quality instructors. The U.S. requires states to identify low-performing teacher-prep programs. But in the past 12 years, 27 states haven't found even one program lacking in quality, Mr. Duncan said.
Teachers Without Borders

A different way to deal with bullying - Parentcentral.ca - 1 views

www.parentcentral.ca/...rent-way-to-deal-with-bullying

bullying schools education research

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 09 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Bound-to-be controversial in light of the recent suicide of 11-year-old Mitchell Wilson, a new approach to bullying uses a “no-blame, problem-solving response” rather than punishing aggressive kids and creating a victim mentality among those they target, say leading Canadian bullying researchers.
  • the idea behind the no-blame method is that it’s “more motivating for a child who has been aggressive.” It also helps the bully save face, and “take responsibility for making change, and to feel good about making change, and it decreases the likelihood of feeling unfairly treated and avenge an ‘injustice’ that was done to (them).”
  • But, in general, “the danger of a very hard-line approach is it elicits sympathy (for the aggressor) ... friends felt justified in their continuation of the bullying.” Bullying is a relationship problem and needs to be solved like any other, says York University’s Debra Pepler, considered one of Canada’s top bullying experts and a founder of PREVNet.
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  • “Putting a label on them really restricts thinking,” said Pepler. “Calling them a bully suggests they are always aggressive and that’s part of who they are.” In fact, they may be bullied themselves at home, or gain respect in the schoolyard for being aggressive, she says. Children who bully at a moderate or high rate are more likely to be delinquent or sexually harass, so “adults need to step in and help them get onto a pathway where they get the attention and leadership opportunities they want in a positive rather than a negative way.”
  • Children who have been targeted first require protection from being bullied — but they also often need to build self-confidence and develop positive relationships.
Teachers Without Borders

What Teachers Have Learned - Room for Debate Blog - NYTimes.com - 0 views

roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/...what-teachers-have-learned

nytimes.com teacher development pre-service teacher education

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 23 Aug 09 - Cached
  • What we need are teachers who are much more competent in their subject areas!
  • I’ve seen many teachers ‘bomb’ over the years because they knew their subject matter, but not how to interact with, or be a role model for, children.
  • I am a 21-year veteran teacher who took a whole boatload of education courses in furtherance of my BA and MS degrees. They were utterly useless. The only thing that actually prepared me for teaching was student teaching. All of the other courses taught theory, but nothing practical.
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  • In my opinion, the effectiveness of a teacher is almost impossible to predict until you see them in the classroom for quite a while. Also, a person’s educational background and pre-selection (masters/no masters/Ph.D./Teach for America/Teaching Fellows) cannot predict how they will succeed in the classroom.
  • Empathy is what enables a teacher (or any leader, in truth) to know, in every moment, what a child needs. They know when to call on a student and when not to, when a child has problems at home, when they need to raise the bar and when to lower it.
  • Watching a great teacher interact with students is as inspiring as watching an Olympic athlete. It’s an intuitive and emotional gift and it can’t be taught or instilled with any certification. The degrees mostly just enable educators to speak a common language — a necessary aspect of a profession.
  • As a former teacher I find it interesting that all the focus is on teacher preparation. Nothing was said about class size or collaboration with other teachers. It is assumed that one teacher, in front of a class, is the answer.
  • I believe that the best preparation for teaching is a combination of pedagogy and a strong apprenticeship — a marriage of traditional preparatory and alternative certification programs. All new teachers would benefit from a year of full-time work in the classroom beside an experienced and effective teacher.
  • I left the field because I couldn’t stand this version of corruption, where everyone tries to do the easiest thing instead of the right thing.
  • Pedagogy is fine and good when you’re in academia; however, most of the education school professors haven’t been in a classroom in 20 years and have no idea what works and what doesn’t.
  • That said, I have taken professional development coursework offered through local education schools that were absolutely laughable. Sitting through a 5 hour session that culminated in making a caterpillar from an egg carton is a waste of time. I went to learn how to produce higher rates of literacy in English Language Learners — not how to produce a cute craft of little practical value.
  • I was voted as “Teacher of the Year” at the High School I teach at, and I have never taken an Education course. I have a Master’s degree in Engineering. After 20 years in industry, I became a Math and Physics teacher through the alternate route to certification here in Vermont. I have written a published article comparing the difficulties and joys of teaching with those in industry (For the Love of Kids).
  • I have come to the conclusion that an Education degree for teachers and especially for administrators is a detriment to the education of students, not an asset. How much better to bring real life experience to the classroom than the rote prescriptions taught in the Education classes.
  • teachers should be given comparable credits for spending the summer interning for an NGO or a business.
  • This means that almost all schools would rather have a student right out of college with a teaching major and no real world experience than someone who has 20+ years of working in the real world.
  • I wasn’t the best at classroom management, but then I wasn’t so terrible at it either. I was turning into an automaton, and just as alarmingly, my students were too.
Jeff Johnson

Reinventing Professional Development in Tough Times - 1 views

www.teachersourcebook.org/...02pd_budget.h02.html

professional development edtech technology integration professional_development professionaldevelopment staff_development staffdevelopment

shared by Jeff Johnson on 22 Apr 09 - Cached
  • Jeff Johnson on 22 Apr 09
     
    Last year, leaders with the Trussville school district in Alabama wanted to help their teachers learn more about integrating Web technologies into their lessons, a central aim of the district's curriculum. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough money in their budget to bring in leading ed-tech experts to provide professional development. So they did it anyway-in a manner of speaking.
Teachers Without Borders

New York Regents May Expand Ways to Certify Teachers - NYTimes.com - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...16teach.html

pd teacher education certification

shared by Teachers Without Borders on 16 Nov 09 - Cached
  • The State Board of Regents will consider letting alternative teacher training programs certify teachers, expanding the role that for decades has been exclusively performed by education schools
  • Another would change the requirements for teacher certification, like having more difficult content exams and classroom demonstrations.
  • While New York has had some alternative certification programs in place for years, like Teach for America and New York City Teaching Fellows, students are still required to take classes at education schools during the summer, nights and weekends to earn a teaching certificate.
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  • Arne Duncan said that schools should focus more on hands-on classroom work, similar to medical residencies that aspiring doctors must complete.
  • “Upwards of 90 percent of teachers pass the test for certification, they go on to course work and very, very few don’t make it through,” Dr. Steiner said. “I don’t think anybody thinks that’s the right model. It’s very focused on course work and the quality is varied.” The idea, he said, is to focus the core of preparation on practice teaching.
  • “It enables us to have a complete paradigm shift, where we go from passive learned knowledge that is received from a university to active absorbed knowledge that is seen and experienced in the classroom,” he said.
  • William J. Baldwin, the vice provost at Teachers College, said that in expanding the certification process, the state would be treating teaching as something to be trained for, rather than a sophisticated profession.
  • The commissioner is also proposing to develop a new assessment for professional certification, which teachers receive after at least three years in the classroom. The new assessment could also include a way to measure teacher effectiveness based on student test scores.
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