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Deron Durflinger

Education Week: Building the Digital District - 0 views

www.edweek.org/...01conversion.h05.html

redesign learning education learn vanmeter meter van 1:1 one to transformation technology

shared by Deron Durflinger on 19 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • I think a lot of his decisions are based on leadership,” Smith says of Edwards and his management. “You’ve got to have the right people on the bus, but not only that, they’ve got to be on the right seats on the bus.
  • instead, it tells teachers to seek their own content and align it to the subject curriculum
  • Teachers are expected to share lessons with colleagues electronically via ANGEL, the district’s content-management software, created by Washington-based Blackboard Inc., and all four schools in the district’s 1-to-1 program each employs a technology facilitator to aid that process. The district’s three elementary schools only began distributing laptops to its third graders this year.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • I would say the biggest challenge teachers have is the lack of time
  • It’s a constant challenge for teachers to go out and to find new innovative resources and what actually matches the new curriculum they need
  • going back is not really an option.”
  • acknowledge that the district’s modest size was a key factor in helping it change its culture and improve its achievement so quickly
  • saying the digital-conversion model “may be the one last great hope for our nation.”
  • Colleagues insist any such effort in other districts must be led by a superintendent in the same mold. “He just doesn’t allow anybody around him to make excuses or build obstacles,” Principal Wirt of Mooresville High says of Edwards. “That’s not his ride at all.”
  • e did so bent on changing what he recalls as a “complacent” attitude among teachers and other staff members in a school where achievement data were average. As he walks the halls nearly four years later, he takes perhaps his greatest pride in seeing most of the same faces standing in classroom doorways
  • by all accounts Mooresville’s teachers were given little choice but to join a new culture where 6,000 district-issued laptops to students and staff served as the centerpiece of Superintendent Edwards’ educational improvement strategy
  • Similar compliance was also expected in accompanying changes to curriculum, teacher collaboration expectations, and even staff conduct, all of which began to be implemented in the fall of 2008
  • I think ‘expectation’ is the right word,
  • ‘Here is your laptop, and you will learn how to use it. You will make it an integral part of your classroom, and you will incorporate it into 21st-century teaching.’ ”
Deron Durflinger

Educational Leadership:Coaching: The New Leadership Skill:Every Teacher a Coach - 0 views

www.ascd.org/...Every-Teacher-a-Coach.aspx

leadership coaching teacher coach learning education meter van vanmeter

shared by Deron Durflinger on 21 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • Great coaches ask young athletes to go to "great heights" to challenge themselves. They take care to prepare the athlete for each stage of development, but they cannot eradicate risk because it's inseparable from growth. They can, however, intervene to ensure that the risk isn't so great that it outweighs the reward of accomplishment
  • The best coaches encourage young people to work hard, keep going when it would be easier to stop, risk making potentially painful errors, try again when they stumble, and learn to love the sport. Not a bad analogy for a dynamic classroom.
  • passionate about their sport and understand it deeply
  • ...28 more annotations...
  • see their sport as more than a game
  • vehicle for developing human capacity and learning the skills of life
  • Great Coaches Know Their Sport
  • Great Coaches Develop Players' Skills
  • their capacity to teach others to play the game
  • transmit their own knowledge and skill to those not yet proficient
  • believe that each athlete can learn to play the game
  • individual and team skills, they continually attend to the growth patterns of each team member as well as the group
  • have their eye on every kid, not just a favored few
  • analyze what the athletes do and adjust both training and the game plan as a result of what they see
  • precise feedback along with individualized training that enables athletes to use this feedback productively
  • provide high-quality practice
  • Turns out he was teaching me to be a good citizen, a human being who cares
  • Great Coaches Are Great Motivators
  • set clear and demanding performance goals for their players
  • high expectations elicit maximum effort from team members and result in maximum growth.
  • understand and appreciate human variance
  • tailor practice drills to the individual, but they also know that individuals are motivated in different ways
  • study their players to figure out what will encourage each one to persevere
  • realize that sideline drills are less motivating than the game itself, so they ensure that players grasp the link between drills and the game and that everyone gets to play the game to test their developing skills
  • fun into hard work
  • culture of success is more motivating than a culture of winning
  • invest more heavily in celebrating the more attainable goal of individual growth
  • Great Coaches Are Team Builders
  • orient everyone to a common vision
  • care for one another and play to one another's strengths
  • respectfully toward each athlete, they inspire respect among team members
  • address interpersonal problems on a team as vigorously as problems with skills execution or a game pla
Deron Durflinger

Struggling North High buckles down, pulls itself up | The Des Moines Register | DesMoin... - 0 views

www.desmoinesregister.com/...h-buckles-down-pulls-itself-up

learning education redesign des moines north 1:1 transformation

shared by Deron Durflinger on 24 Oct 11 - No Cached
  • “A true transformation in a school begins and ends with the attitudes of the teachers, administrators and staff,” Smith said. “There is no laptop, tardy policy or program that is going to make a change. My role is to surround myself with unbelievably smart and fantastic people, and then I get out of their way and let them do what they do best.”
    • Deron Durflinger
      Deron Durflinger on 24 Oct 11
       
      Love this quote!
Deron Durflinger

Demand, Pay for STEM Skills Skyrocket - STEM Education (usnews.com) - 0 views

www.usnews.com/...ational-skill-jobs-expert-says

demand pay stem skills education learn meter vanmeter van redesign

shared by Deron Durflinger on 02 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • "In the end, you can track this back to high school math. We're very good at the high end, but math is the place most students fail … that's the biggest challenge of them all. How do we get young people to learn math?"
    • Deron Durflinger
      Deron Durflinger on 02 Nov 11
       
      No pressure math department:)
Deron Durflinger

Niall Ferguson: How American Civilization Can Avoid Collapse - The Daily Beast - 0 views

www.thedailybeast.com/...zation-can-avoid-collapse.html

History collapse ferguson america US education skills pay vanmeter van meter

shared by Deron Durflinger on 03 Nov 11 - No Cached
  • The Work Ethic
    • Deron Durflinger
      Deron Durflinger on 03 Nov 11
       
      This is the one I feel has lost the most traction at many levels. For sure not just with our students either.
  • these killer apps were essentially monopolized by Europeans and their cousins who settled in North America and Australasia
  • the great divergence
  • ...23 more annotations...
  • They also grew more powerful
  • 20th century, just a dozen Western empires—-including the United States—controlled 58 percent of the world’s land surface and population, and a staggering 74 percent of the global economy.
  • tendency of Western societies to delete their own killer apps.
  • But there is a second, more insidious cause of the “great reconvergence,” which I do deplore—and that is the
  • Ask yourself: who’s got the work ethic now? The average South Korean works about 39 percent more hours per week than the average American. The school year in South Korea is 220 days long, compared with 180 days here. And you don’t have to spend too long at any major U.S. university to know which students really drive themselves: the Asians and Asian-Americans
  • Yet life expectancy in the U.S. has risen from 70 to 78 in the past 50 years, compared with leaps from 68 to 83 in Japan and from 43 to 73 in China.
  • On no fewer than 15 of 16 different issues relating to property rights and governance, the United States fares worse than Hong Kong. Indeed, the U.S. makes the global top 20 in only one area: investor protection
  • The future belongs not to them but to today’s teenagers
  • The latest data on “mathematical literacy” reveal that the gap between the world leaders—the students of Shanghai and Singapore—and their American counterparts is now as big as the gap between U.S. kids and teenagers in Albania and Tunisia.
  • Yet statistics from the World Intellectual Property Organization show that already more patents originate in Japan than in the U.S., that South Korea overtook Germany to take third place in 2005, and that China is poised to overtake Germany too
  • the United States’ average competitiveness score has fallen from 5.82 to 5.43, one of the steepest declines among developed economies. China’s score, meanwhile, has leapt up from 4.29 to 4.90.
  • Perhaps more disturbing is the decline of meaningful competition at home, as the social mobility of the postwar era has given way to an extraordinary social polarization. You don’t have to be an Occupy Wall Street leftist to believe that the American super-rich elite—the 1 percent that collects 20 percent of the income—has become dangerously divorced from the rest of society, especially from the underclass at the bottom of the income distribution.
  • Far more than in Europe, most Americans remain instinctively loyal to the killer applications of Western ascendancy, from competition all the way through to the work ethic. They know the country has the right software. They just can’t understand why it’s running so damn slowly.
  • What we need to do is to delete the viruses that have crept into our system: the anticompetitive quasi monopolies that blight everything from banking to public education; the politically correct pseudosciences and soft subjects that deflect good students away from hard science; the lobbyists who subvert the rule of law for the sake of the special interests they represent—to say nothing of our crazily dysfunctional system of health care, our overleveraged personal finances, and our newfound unemployment ethic
  • And finally we need to reboot our whole system.
  • If what we are risking is not decline but downright collapse, then the time frame may be even tighter than one election cycle
  • Western Civilization's Killer Apps
  • COMPETITION
  • THE SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTION
  • THE RULE OF LAW
  • MODERN MEDICINE
  • THE CONSUMER SOCIETY
  • THE WORK ETHIC
Deron Durflinger

uceacastle - SLATEacacia - 0 views

uceacastle.wikispaces.com/SLATEacacia

shared by Deron Durflinger on 05 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Deron Durflinger on 05 Dec 11
     
    Some of Nick's subscriptions
Deron Durflinger

Three Trends That Define the Future of Teaching and Learning | MindShift - 0 views

mindshift.kqed.org/...ure-of-teaching-and-learning-2

future learning trends teaching blended transformation

shared by Deron Durflinger on 29 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • 1. Collaborative.
  • Watch for: (1) Department of Education working to establish a one-stop shop for teacher networks. (2) Commonly accepted guidelines for using YouTube, Facebook, and other social media in schools.
  • Tech-Powered.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Watch for: The explosive growth of high-tech companies and venture capitalists investing ever-more capital in the education market.
  • 3. Blended.
  • Watch for: Schools using blended learning to save costs on books and supplements.
  • What these trends mean
  • Teachers’ and students’ relationships are changing, as they learn from each other. Teachers roles are shifting from owners of information to facilitators and guides to learning. Educators are finding different ways of using class time. Introverted students are finding ways to participate in class discussions online. Different approaches to teaching are being used in the same class. Students are getting a global perspective.
    • Deron Durflinger
      Deron Durflinger on 29 Dec 11
       
      How will we adapt at Van Meter to meet the demands of these trends?
Deron Durflinger

What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland's School Success - Anu Partanen - National -... - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...250564

finland Education edreform reform transformation van meter vanmeter jason glass learning

shared by Deron Durflinger on 30 Dec 11 - No Cached
  • Instead, the public school system's teachers are trained to assess children in classrooms using independent tests they create themselves. All children receive a report card at the end of each semester, but these reports are based on individualized grading by each teacher.
  • There's no word for accountability in Finnish,"
  • "Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted."
  • ...15 more annotations...
  • what matters is that in Finland all teachers and administrators are given prestige, decent pay, and a lot of responsibility.
  • If a teacher is bad, it is the principal's responsibility to notice and deal with it.
  • And while Americans love to talk about competition, Sahlberg points out that nothing makes Finns more uncomfortable
  • There are no lists of best schools or teachers in Finland. The main driver of education policy is not competition between teachers and between schools, but cooperation.
  • school choice is noticeably not a priority, nor is engaging the private sector at all.
  • In Finland parents can also choose. But the options are all the same."
  • It was equity
  • the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.
  • schools should be healthy, safe environments for children. This starts with the basics. Finland offers all pupils free school meals, easy access to health care, psychological counseling, and individualized student guidance.
  • Educational policy, Abrams suggests, is probably more important to the success of a country's school system than the nation's size or ethnic makeup.
  • When Finnish policymakers decided to reform the country's education system in the 1970s, they did so because they realized that to be competitive, Finland couldn't rely on manufacturing or its scant natural resources and instead had to invest in a knowledge-based economy. 
  • is to preserve American competitiveness by doing the same thing. Finland's experience suggests that to win at that game, a country has to prepare not just some of its population well, but all of its population well, for the new economy. To possess some of the best schools in the world might still not be good enough if there are children being left behind
  • Finland's dream was that we want to have a good public education for every child regardless of where they go to school or what kind of families they come from, and many even in Finland said it couldn't be done."
  • Finland's experience shows that it is possible to achieve excellence by focusing not on competition, but on cooperation, and not on choice, but on equity.
  • The problem facing education in America isn't the ethnic diversity of the population but the economic inequality of society, and this is precisely the problem that Finnish education reform addressed. More equity at home might just be what America needs to be more competitive abroad.
Deron Durflinger

Don't Prevent Students' Mistakes, Prepare for Them - Coach G's Teaching Tips - Educatio... - 0 views

blogs.edweek.org/...mistakes_prepare_for_them.html

students mistakes coach teaching education teacher learning

shared by Deron Durflinger on 03 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Here's why: such frustration is a precursor to deep, lasting learning. That's right, students' grasp of new concepts and skills is often better when they struggle through the process of learning those concepts and skills than when teachers error-proof that process.
  • elping students troubleshoot their errors like this should be a primary role of every teacher. There's nothing to troubleshoot, though, if kids never run into troubl
  • Lesson planning should thus be more about anticipating students' errors and preparing to help them learn from those errors than trying to develop presentations that prevent all errors. Provide students activities that involve applying information, and be ready to help them when they get tripped up
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • The classroom must therefore be a place where students have regular opportunities to learn by using--and yes, misusing--that information. In other words, a place where they can learn from one of life's greatest teachers: mistaiks.
Shannon McClintock Miller

Quipol - 0 views

quipol.com

shared by Shannon McClintock Miller on 10 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • Shannon McClintock Miller on 10 Jan 12
     
    Awesome polling site.  Create and embed social polling sites. 
Deron Durflinger

Waukee school board studies calendar issues through survey | Des Moines Register Staff ... - 0 views

blogs.desmoinesregister.com/...calendar-issues-through-survey

calendar school board issues Competency-Based learning van meter

shared by Deron Durflinger on 26 Jan 12 - No Cached
  • d rather have school start late on professional development days, rather than ending early. “In another words, let kids have some sleep, sleep in a couple of times a month or whatever instead of getting home early, which doesn’t do them any good. I’ve heard a lot of that from parents,” Duncan said. Cindi McDonald, Waukee’s associate superintendent, said mornings are the prime learning time for students. Tags: calendar, Cindi McDonald, Dave Duncan, Duane Magee, Lance Mouw, school calendar, Waukee, Waukee Community School District, Waukee School Board, Waukee School District, West Des Moines .AR_1 .ob_what{text-align:right;clear:both;} .AR_1 .ob_clear{clear:both;} .AR_1 .ob_dual_container{ clear:both; } .AR_1 .ob_dual_left,.AR_1 .ob_dual_right { float:left; width:46%; padding:0 2%; } .AR_1 .ob_empty{ display:none; } YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN Firm apologizes for ethanol gas mistake in Iowa (DesMoinesRegister.com) Driver of Firebird in Greene County triple fatality was not licensed to drive (Des Moines Register) Parents of Waukee middle-schoolers can attend ‘Assessment for Learning’ class (Des Moines Register) Parents can learn about assessments (DesMoinesRegister.com) Boys' basketball: Friday night's statewide scoreboard, area highlights | Altoona Herald | desmoinesregister.com (altoonaherald.com) SPONSORED LINKS Romney’s ‘Charlie Crist’ Problem Could Hurt with GOP (Newsmax.com) FBI warns of new banking scam (Bankrate.com) NFL: The Most Classless Player on Every Team (BleacherReport)
    • Deron Durflinger
      Deron Durflinger on 26 Jan 12
       
      Does this sound familiar?
Shannon McClintock Miller

Dr Seuss on the Loose! on Vimeo - 0 views

vimeo.com/21393446

shared by Shannon McClintock Miller on 26 Feb 12 - No Cached
  • Shannon McClintock Miller on 26 Feb 12
     
    A FUN list of Dr. Seuss resources for "Read Across America" Day next week.....A celebration for Dr. Seuss Day!  :) 
Deron Durflinger

Five Reasons I don't Assign Homework - South Euclid, OH, United States, ASCD EDge Blog ... - 0 views

edge.ascd.org/...127586.html

homework Edchat education van meter learning transformation sbar Competency-Based

shared by Deron Durflinger on 02 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Homework has nothing to do with teaching responsibility (HW advocates love this claim)
    • Deron Durflinger
      Deron Durflinger on 02 Mar 12
       
      Probably my favorite argument he has listed... Would love to hear everyone's thoughts on this:)
Deron Durflinger

Are You Ready for Common Core Math? | District Administration Magazine - 0 views

www.districtadministration.com/...are-you-ready-common-core-math

administration district math sbar common core vanmeter

shared by Deron Durflinger on 02 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Sovde, a former mathematics teacher and principal in the Bellevue (Wash.) Public Schools, says one of the tests PARCC is developing is a diagnostic assessment for the start of the year. He declares about the optional test, “If I were a district administrator, I would be jumping all over it, because it’s going to give you a good handle right up front about where your kids are.” All the new assessments will measure the abilities of students to solve problems, think conceptually, reason mathematically, and demonstrate more skills than rote memorization. “That’s going to be a shift, a different way of doing business,” says Sovde. The final, end-of-year summative assessment will require students to use computers or handheld devices to solve problems or think about mathematical issues. “It won’t be just a paper-and-pencil test put on a screen,” Sovde explains.
  • SBAC will ask students tailored questions based on their previous answers. It will continue to use one end-of-year test for accountability purposes but will create a series of interim tests to inform students, parents and teachers about whether students are on track.
  • more deeply than assessments do now into what students are learning in math and how they are learning it. “I think we’ll see some questions that apply to real-world settings, and I wouldn’t be surprised if students have to describe in writing how they got an answer rather than just filling in a blank with it
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • questions students are asked will be delivered online and answered online instead of on paper.
  • The assessments will test students on practices such as making sense of problems, reasoning abstractly and quantitatively, constructing viable arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others, modeling with mathematics, using appropriate tools strategically, communicating precisely, and looking for and making use of structure.
  • “Students will be assessed on extended problem-solving and performance tasks and will need to show their reasoning
  • “need to help teachers implement the Standards for Mathematical Practice and connect them to math content. That is a big change for them.”
Shannon McClintock Miller

QR Code Treasure Hunt Generator from classtools.net - 0 views

www.classtools.net/index.php

shared by Shannon McClintock Miller on 04 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • Shannon McClintock Miller on 04 Mar 12
     
    This is a GREAT tool....very easy to set up a scavenger hunt using QR Codes.  Very easy for students to use and answer the questions.  
Deron Durflinger

MOOCs, Large Courses Open to All, Topple Campus Walls - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...o-all-topple-campus-walls.html

shared by Deron Durflinger on 06 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • “In a classroom, when you ask a question, one student answers and the others don’t get a chance,” Mr. Thrun said. “Online, with embedded quizzes, everyone has to try to answer the questions. And if they don’t understand, they can go back and listen over and over until they do.” Just as a child who falls while learning to ride a bike is not told “You get a D,” but is encouraged to keep trying, he said, online classes, where students can work at their own pace, can help students keep practicing until they master the content. “The goal should be to get everybody to A+ level,” he said
    • Deron Durflinger
      Deron Durflinger on 06 Mar 12
       
      Why is the concept of everyone learning at their own pace so difficult for people to understand? I like the learning how to ride a bike analogy!
  • “I wish that the always-available, always-replayable and free nature of this style of learning can help to elevate education/knowledge for all of human kind.”
    • Deron Durflinger
      Deron Durflinger on 06 Mar 12
       
      Learning for all...for free!
Shannon McClintock Miller

QRhacker.com ....create qr codes with images - 0 views

www.qrhacker.com

shared by Shannon McClintock Miller on 10 Mar 12 - No Cached
  • stomization maximum Beta!
Shannon McClintock Miller

Vook - 0 views

vook.com

shared by Shannon McClintock Miller on 26 Mar 12 - Cached
  • Shannon McClintock Miller on 26 Mar 12
     
    Create and publish your own eBook
Deron Durflinger

Iowa universities adjust to burst of interest in online learning | The Des Moines Regis... - 0 views

www.desmoinesregister.com/...burst-interest-online-learning

online online learning Competency-Based individual education 1:1 learning meter van

shared by Deron Durflinger on 30 Apr 12 - No Cached
  • “I work almost full time while getting my master’s degree,” he said. “As an undergraduate, it allowed me a better balance between school, my work and my social life.”
  • online courses are a cost-effective way for universities to meet increased demand while coping with steep reductions in state funding in recent years, administrators say.
  • The number of online courses offered at Iowa’s three public universities has grown by nearly 25 percent from 2005-06 to 2010-11, data from the Iowa state Board of Regents show.
  • ...8 more annotations...
  • Last year, Iowa’s universities launched an effort to share language courses online. The first was in classic Greek, which an ISU student took from a U of I professor in Iowa City. This year, three ISU students enrolled in classic Greek. The universities may expand to Arabic or Chinese, officials said.
  • “the octopus room.” The classroom’s brain is a motion-sensing camera that follows an instructor around the room. Microphones triangulate the location of a voice so that the camera can focus on the person speaking. Six black arms with video monitors are attached to the “brain” in the center. This allows students in the class and those taking it online to see and hear each other.
  • They do a very good job of simulating the classroom experience,” he said. “But you have to have the discipline to stay up with it. If you get a week or so behind, it’s hard to catch up
  • blend of in-person and online instruction. Students taking finals at the U of I’s secure testing rooms, for example, might be enrolled in a daily Spanish language course where two days of class every week are completed online. That allows the instructor to focus classroom time on refining conversation and reading skills, faculty said.
  • “Part of that land-grant mission is educating the masses, and the masses have changed.”
  • Offering experienced faculty teachers and classroom space filled with well-equipped laboratories is a key way for Iowa’s universities to differentiate themselves from online-only colleges, officials said.
  • However, disciplines that don’t require physical space may one day be based mostly or entirely online, said Marcus Haack, a U of I professor who teaches future principals and superintendents in an education leadership program that many participants take online.
  • In 40 years in this business, I’ve learned we will never put the brakes on technology. It’s always going to expand our opportunities, our thinking and creativity
    • Deron Durflinger
      Deron Durflinger on 30 Apr 12
       
      How can we channel the power of this learning/teaching style at Van Meter?
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