Skip to main content

Home/ Teacher Professional Development/ Group items tagged change

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Teachers Without Borders

"Teacher training in climate change education is in its infancy" | Education | United N... - 0 views

  • UNESCO is launching a Teacher Education Course on Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development (CCESD) in late 2011
  • In a nutshell, the course is designed to give teachers confidence in facilitating  CCESD inside and outside the classroom so that they can help young people understand the causes and consequences of climate change, bring about changes in attitudes and behaviors to reduce the severity of future climate change, and build resilience  in the face of climate change that are already present.
  • First, it helps teachers to understand the causes, dynamics and impacts of climate change through a holistic lens. Second, teachers are exposed to a range of pedagogical approaches that they can use in their own school environment. This includes engagement in whole school and school-in-community approaches. Third, teachers can develop their capacities to facilitate students’ community based learning.  Fourth, teachers can develop future oriented and transformative capacities in facilitating climate change mitigation, adaptation, and disaster risk reduction learning..    
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The course is needed precisely because teaching about climate change is such a demanding task. Teachers need to understand what and how to teach about the forces driving climate change as well as its impacts on culture, security, well-being and development prospects. Their role is to show young people how they and their communities can respond to the threat.
  •  
    "Teacher training in climate change education is in its infancy" ©Fumiyo Kagawa In advance of the tenth anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit (Rio+20), UNESCO is launching a Teacher Education Course on Climate Change Education for Sustainable Development (CCESD) in late 2011.
Emily Vickery

Bloom's Taxonomy - Emerging Perspectives on Learning, Teaching and Technology - 0 views

  • During the 1990's, a former student of Bloom's, Lorin Anderson, led a new assembly which met for the purpose of updating the taxonomy, hoping to add relevance for 21st century students and teachers. This time "representatives of three groups [were present]: cognitive psychologists, curriculum theorists and instructional researchers, and testing and assessment specialists" (Anderson, & Krathwohl, 2001, p. xxviii). Like the original group, they were also arduous and diligent in their pursuit of learning, spending six years to finalize their work. Published in 2001, the revision includes several seemingly minor yet actually quite significant changes. Several excellent sources are available which detail the revisions and reasons for the changes. A more concise summary appears here. The changes occur in three broad categories: terminology, structure, and emphasis.
Emily Vickery

willrichardson a web of connections - 0 views

  • A Web of Connections: Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything
  •  
    Will's presentation on Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything
  •  
    Will's presentation on Why the Read/Write Web Changes Everything
Teachers Without Borders

middleclassgirl.com » The concept - 0 views

  • One of the reasons I think I became a little disengaged at the end of last year with Second Life was because I had reached a ‘now what?’ stage. Having been part of the community of learners on the Islands of Jokaydia was great, but personally I felt I had plateaued in what I could offer or do.
  • ut what I began to obsess over was this: if anyone came to my plot .. why would they? Why would they come into Second Life merely to click on a few urls that would take them to the internet? To me, that wasn;t a good use of the platform.
  • How could Second Life compliment some of the traditional practices that exist at the moment? These are characteristics of the space I would like to create: Low skill level required for a new user or visitor to the space. Basic knowledge of moving, collecting and navigation required. One of the biggest obstacles is *time* - I don’t want visitors first experiences to be one of frustration or pitched at a level that they won’t be able to enjoy the experience. I want it to be ‘interactive’ by which, of course, I don’t want it to be merely a space where someone clicks on a scripted board merely to be taken to a 2D URL. Documents may be a feature, not necessarily the primary feature of the build. I would hope the space could interactive for whomever visited it. Invite collaboration, strategizing and provide points for debate.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • However, considering the knowledge that I have on Australian History and the fact that this is one area of history that students find ‘boring’, I have decided to make this a space for Australian History. Particularly focusing on Frontier Life.
  • My idea is that when someone first visited the site they would be faced with a simulation of the Australian bush either as it appeared pre settlement. Uncleared. Perhaps with evidence of Indigenous inhabitants. Features of the natural Landscape.
  • Once armed with some of this foreknowledge, visitors would be invited to clear the land themselves taking into account the topography, geography and physical elements of the landscape. Provided with a ‘box’ visitors would be invited to build their own hut, or settlement. Here is where the strategizing and foreknowledge will come into play. Some of the objects provided in the box will not be historically accurate, so first the visitor will have to discern which objects are a)historically representative of the period and b) whether those objects are going to be of any use.
  • I think that there is room for, later on, for another ‘box of stuff’ which would include material and cultural objects of indigenous people. What aspects of their lives changed? What was the impact of European settlement on their land?
  • When people change or clear the land (if this is possible) they will do it differently. If anything, apart from being immersed in the new learning space, we want to show that historical inquiry is often open ended – sometimes there is not one neat story that has all of the loose ends tied up.
Teachers Without Borders

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

  • 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.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • “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

Action Research: A Self-Directed Approach to Professional Development - 4 views

  • The best part about being a teacher is that you get to remain a student forever. Teachers are lifelong learners. To be an effective educator, you must constantly pursue learning through workshops, conferences, on-site or online training modules, and seminars. Professional development can help teachers stay up-to-date with new trends and learn new techniques, strategies, and methods for dealing with various classroom challenges. But all professional development is not the same.
  • If you feel frustrated by not being able to find what you need, how about creating your own solutions? Every classroom challenge is as individual as the students in the class. Sometimes, instead of looking for solutions out there somewhere, it helps if a teacher learns to understand the challenge and experiments to find the answer that suits her class or students. Most teachers shy away from the word "research," thinking it is scholars' job to conduct research and come up with condensed data or analysis. But all of us are researchers, consciously or otherwise.
  • Teachers can do action research by formally defining a problem, drafting a hypothesis, collecting and organizing data, and coming to a conclusion about the effect of the hypothesized change. And the conclusion you derive will be more meaningful and effective because it deals with your challenges and your solutions, keeping in mind your circumstances and resources.
  •  
    Action Research: A Self-Directed Approach to Professional Development
Teachers Without Borders

The School Leader as Bricoleur: Developing Scholarly Practitioners for Our Schools - 0 views

  • Bricoleur, as presented herein, is used metaphorically and in a postmodern or post-formal (Kincheloe & Steinberg, 1999) sense to represent methods, practices and cultural materials that the scholar-practitioner uses as s/he interacts in the complex web of relationships among knowledge, inquiry, practice, and learning
  • The result of the bricoleur’s methods of practice is a bricolage (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000), a construction that arises from the reflexive interactions of different types of knowledge, mediating artifacts, and methods in relation to the social contexts, cultural patterns, and social actions and activities that comprise the daily events of the school.
  • First, the construct of scholar-practitioner leadership is examined, providing a background for exploring the intricacies of scholarly practice through the metaphor of bricoleur.
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • alternative epistemology of inquiry as practice, wherein the leader as scholar and his or her leadership practice are inseparable from scholarly and critically oriented inquiry.
  • not that of an aloof official imposing, authoritatively, educational ends and methods. He will be on the lookout for ways to give others intellectual and moral responsibilities, not just for ways of setting tasks for them . . .
  • More recently, efforts have been undertaken to reexamine the meaning of “scholar” within the context of educational leadership2 preparation and practice (Anderson & Jones, 2000; Jenlink, 2001b, 2001c; Riehl, et al., 2000). Preparing educational leaders as scholars invests largely in understanding a “scholar” as someone who values inquiry.
  • Relatedly, scholar-practitioner leadership, as a construct, represents a complex set of relationships among inquiry, knowledge, practice, and theory. These relationships have a critical intersect of the core value for and understanding of a “new scholarship”.3 This “new scholarship” defines practice, knowledge, and inquiry within the practice-based world of teachers and administrators, acknowledging the value of “local theory” and “knowledge-of-practice.” Also shaping the conceptual and practical meaning of scholar-practitioner leadership is a dimension of criticality that transforms leadership practice into leadership praxis.
  • In contrast, learning to lead for the scholar-practitioner is concerned less with transitional orientations of knowledge and inquiry and more with engaging in a “new epistemology” of knowledge and practice articulated through the inquiry as praxis.
  • A central element in scholar-practitioner leadership is criticality, which, depending on the degree of criticality, transforms inquiry, knowledge and practice.
  • The ideal degree of scholarly practice for school leaders seeking to create democratic learning communities would exist at a point along the primary axis, moving outward to a level of inquiry and/or knowledge-of-practice.
  • The criticalist “attempts to use his/her work as a form of social or cultural criticism” (Kincheloe & McLaren, 1994, p. 139). As a criticalist, the school leader engages in his or her work through leadership praxis5 guided by inquiry that is reflective, ethical, critical, and intentional. Praxis-oriented scholarly practice refers to “activities that combat dominance and move toward self-organization and that push toward thoroughgoing change in the practices of . . . the social formation” (Benson, 1983, p. 338).
  • A critical leadership praxis is also concerned with inequity and injustice that surface within the curricula and instructional systems of schools, as well as asymmetrical power relations that all too shape student and teacher identities along ideological lines that work to control and disadvantage some while advantaging others
  • leadership praxis is emancipatory, “grounded in a critical consciousness, which will manifest itself in action that will always be becoming emancipatory” (Grundy, 1993, p. 174). For the educational leader as criticalist, the question is not “Am I emancipated and how can I emancipate my staff?” but rather ”How can I engage in forms of critical, self-reflective and collaborative work which will create conditions so that the people with whom I work can come to control their knowledge and practice?” (p. 174).
  • The word bricoleur and its cognate bricolage come from bricole, a corruption of which is the English term brick wall. The root word of bricole means rebound. Bricoleur, as Levi-Strauss (1966) has noted, is “used with references to some extraneous movement” (p. 16)—movement in physical terms such as a ball rebounding off a wall, in sociological terms the social interaction in activities, and in psychological terms the interacting and cognitive rebounding of ideas, concepts, and feelings experienced as one individual works in relationship to others.
  • Noting the association with Baudelaire, bricolage, as Norris (1987) suggests, is a French word that refers to the “ad hoc assemblage of miscellaneous materials and signifying structures” (Levi-Strauss, quoted in Norris, p. 134). The bricoleur works in association with his or her culture and the material practices and artifacts available in the culture. Spivak (1976) says “the bricoleur makes do with things that were meant perhaps for other ends” (p. xix). Weinstein and Weinstein (1991) explain the bricoleur as a person who is “practical and gets things done” (p. 161). As Norris (1987) notes of the bricoleur, s/he is “happy to exploit the most diverse assortment of mythemes—or random combinartory elements” (p. 134).
Teachers Without Borders

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

  • 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.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • 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.
1 - 15 of 15
Showing 20 items per page