Group items tagged

This article discusses the importance of differentiation and especially the need for students to "redo" their assignments until they get them correct. By allowing students to "redo" they are improving their higher level thinking skills. Good and short article with practical reminders.

I love this article! Great reminders for all of us as educators to simply differentiate learning for our students. -vary the length or quantity of the assignment. -extend or curtail the duration of the assignment. -change the language of the assignment. -scaffold the learning activity from hard to medium to easy. -compact the activity and teach only what they don't know. -give them learning activities that let them perform the same learning objective with multiple mediums like summarizing a story they have read through narrative, drama, song, poetry, art, or design They also discussed the ability to redo assessments and I agree with this but somewhere in my teaching experience this has been engrained in my head only once. But I realize the feeling of success this allows a student.

In this blog, Ben Johnson reiterates the misconceptions in education about all students getting concepts in education at the same time. He goes on to discuss the importance of true differentiation in the classroom and that it is not creating an imbalance among students but a way for all students to succeed. He emphasizes the things teachers already do in the classroom to help students succeed and ends with a suggestion to allow students to redo their work in all areas (not just English and history).

This teacher makes a really strong argument that you should not feel that you have nothing important to say. This is the way to make some strong networked relationships. I like her quote "This has led to many great conversations with other educators about teaching issues." Blogging has connected her to peers throughout the world. I find that being an online educator is lonely so this may be the way to go to share resources and to discuss with others that share our online world.

I really enjoyed reading this article because I'm feeling the same excitement as the author did when she first began blogging. While I'm just learning how to "officially" blog, I have been using Edmodo with my students as a way to connect with my students outside my classroom. It allows us to communicate and ask questions to one another outside of normal school hours, yet in a more structured classroom like forum, unlike Facebook. But because it works similar to Facebook, the students love it and don't mind logging on and doing their assignments. One day when I was out sick, I was able to log on an have real time discussions with my students. If they had questions about the assignment they were able to ask. They can also turn in their assignments via Edmodo instead of waiting for the next day/week. My feelings are if the students are into it, then it's something we need to be doing as well to keep up with them. Teachers who use Web 2.0 tools such as blogging have an advantage over those that don't because these are the social networks that students know and are familiar with. Also, the author of this article points out the fact that teachers have a new way of connecting to each other and share ideas. From what I remember when I was younger, the traditional teacher's only way of communicating and sharing ideas or concerns with other teachers were via phone or before/after school meetings. I don't know how often that actually happened, but now with blogging you can share your information any time with any body.

This article provides four points to increase parent involvement and communication: 1) Make a case for increased parent involvement, 2) Reach out to parents who want to make a connection, 3) Find ways to involve families in school culture, 4) Make the commitment to join the conversation with other teachers and parents. Within each of these four points, there are various links to more actively engage with tips, articles, and discussion groups.

Every school has a need to increase parent involvement for a variety of reasons, with such intended results as a better sense of "community" among families, faculty and students, improved student achievement, and the like. This can be a challenge for all these entities. It's helpful from time to time to have reminders of strategies that work.

This article by Sharon Boller is a response to Ruth Clark's article "Why Games Don't Teach". Here Boller discusses Clark's inconsistencies and explains how GBL can work in the classroom. Most importantly, Boller discusses the level of engagement, the feedback mechanisms, and the "rehearsal and practice" that GBL offer.

This article discusses how some colleges and Universities are offering free course work online.  Essentially without it being official - someone could get a college degree for FRE!

A great resource site full of rubrics to evaluate web 2.0 tools including cooperative learning ,mind maps, online discussion boards, multimedia presentations etc.

"Kurt Wootton, co-author of A Reason to Read. "In my view, the repetition must not come before allowing students to participate in the creative tasks, but rather repeated practice walks side-by-side with the creative process."" I find this statement to "hit the nail on the head" as the debate between rote memory and creative "aha" moments continue. The analogy of the musician practicing for hours playing scales as well as note for note renditions of other's work is appropriate to this discussion. The book, "Outliers",by Malcolm Gladwell, addresses the 10,000 hour rule. To paraphrase; To become world class at anything, it takes 10,000 hours of focused practice. The author's examples range from Bill Gates to The Beatles. When two sides are set up as an US vs THEM debate, it misses the oppoprtunity to combine perfect practice with creative inspiration. Putting together a perfect meal is based on proper choices of various food combinations. Putting together a perfect learning environment is very similar in that a combination of repetitive learning and creative opportunity helps the learning as well as creative process.

"Kurt Wootton, co-author of A Reason to Read. "In my view, the repetition must not come before allowing students to participate in the creative tasks, but rather repeated practice walks side-by-side with the creative process."" I find this statement to "hit the nail on the head" as the debate between rote memory and creative "aha" moments continue. The analogy of the musician practicing for hours playing scales as well as note for note renditions of other's work is appropriate to this discussion. The book, "Outliers",by Malcolm Gladwell, addresses the 10,000 hour rule. To paraphrase; To become world class at anything, it takes 10,000 hours of focused practice. The author's examples range from Bill Gates to The Beatles. When two sides are set up as an US vs THEM debate, it misses the oppoprtunity to combine perfect practice with creative inspiration. Putting together a perfect meal is based on proper choices of various food combinations. Putting together a perfect learning environment is very similar in that a combination of repetitive learning and creative opportunity helps the learning as well as creative process.

The article discussed the idea that higher order thinking skills can not be disconnected from the content of the classroom. The author stated in a traditional teacher-centered classroom higher order thinking skills such as "analysis, problem-solving, investigation, participation in developing reasoning and meaning, questioning, discussing, engaging students, and relevance are short-changed." Think of the possibilities for all students in the room to be able to engage in meaningful conversation, investigation and analysis with the use of group work and web 2.0 technologies.

I found a link from the Newstand that connected me to an article from mashable.com, which discusses a new educational program from the people at TED talks. The program allows teachers to turn any YouTube video, including TED talks into a lesson. The article aligned this new tool with the phenomenon of flipping classrooms. To flip a classroom means to prepare a lesson that students can complete at home. The pedagogical foundation of flipped classes is connected to project-based learning. The proponents of this approach believe if students can cover lessons at home, then classroom time could be used for collaborative student projects. The new TED-Ed program allows for teachers to create a unique URL, where student can access the video as well as a series of questions. The types of questions vary from multiple choices, to short answer, to more high order thinking questions. These HOT questions expand the ideas from the video into high order thinking akin to Bloom's Taxonomy. The TED-Ed team is also producing their own educational videos, which are a collaboration between educators and animators. At this point there aren't many of the TED-Ed videos produced, but the ones I explored are quite interesting. The mashable.com article has links to TED-Ed. I am not the biggest proponent of flipped teaching, but I am intrigued by TED's involvement.

When looking for various assessments in relation to technology, I stumbled upon this article that discusses assessments, not only in relation to all students, but students with special needs.  Technology has really made a breakthrough with communication barriers among children with autism.  Technology assessments have helped with data collection, communication, and allowing various learning techniques to create new methods of retaining information.  In relations specifically to children with autism, the internet is a social network for them and allows them to communicate without the need for speech.  It is very interesting and worth a read through.

"Creativity and innovation are the keys to continued advancement in business as well as education (Sharda, 2010)."  In this article, Sharda discusses how e-learning systems based on digital storytelling can enhance creativity and innovation.

This article discusses 5 technology tools to help teachers incorporate differentiated instruction into any lesson. These tools appeal to different learning styles and individual strengths. Advanced students can be challenged and struggling students can receive help. The 5 programs/tools cited are Museum Box, The Elements, Garage Band, Intro to Math, and Dragon Dictation.

Each of the apps listed in this article deserve a glance, some especially for the younger grades and special education. Garage Band appeals to all ages - my colleague uses it to set poems to music in her 2nd grade class. I hope to have students use it this year as background to a video. The Elements app is awesome! (I just spent an hour checking it out - I was completely swept away and so not focused on the task at hand.) I can also imagine an group project with Museum Box, that would appeal to the ultra-organized students. This article really showcases just how technology and all the ensuing apps has something for every student to latch on to and feel success with.

This link is to the NY Times series about technology and neuroscience. Perhaps it might interest some of you as per our discussions (particularly the Growing Up Digital article).

What a good series of articles, Julie. I am going to pass these along to colleagues.

This is the article about deep reading of fiction and how that works in your brain compared to other forms of reading, as per the discussion about students not reading deeply.

This article discusses how students can gain real-world experience by blogging and podcasting.. They are able to hone writing skills, learn to take and give criticism and direction, use software in the production of the blogs and podcasts. They are using the essential skills of managing, analyzing, creating and evaluating, etc.

The Dublin City University of Ireland site popped out at me. As I got into exploring the site, it reminded me of all the things we have discussed on "communication" and online education. The President of the university, Professor Brian MacCraith said of the learning experience at DCU "Online platforms are changing the traditional teaching and learning paradigms. Technology is providing an enhancement of choices and flexibility. Learning happens any time, any place." The website also displayed specific and detailed regulations for students to be good digital citizens! Along with lots of other great stuff!

This article by John F. Bauer and Rebecca S. Anderson helps explain valuable criteria and sample rubrics for evaluating online classroom formal and informal discussions, explaining the rationale for different rubrics for each and providing sample of each.

For anyone who is interested in literary theory and philosophy, this is an interesting article about Facebook and how it related to Foucault's concept of heterotopia. My AP students have had discussions about how social media changes our view and perspectives on time.

You do not have to join to view some of the basic features of this site. However, if you do decide to join you gain access to lesson plans, illuminated texts, discussion groups and so on. All you need to do is participate in the site - if you add a lesson or make comments in discussion groups you accumulate points. I joined because I was very interested in making illuminated manuscripts with my students using either powerpoint or the adobe group materials. I was really impressed with Prezi for the power of that tool but sometimes I just want student work to stay within our classroom and not be shared on the web so I like the idea of the illuminated manuscripts.

The Skeptics Guide to the Universe is a weekly Science podcast produced by the New England Skeptical Society (NESS) in association with the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) : discussing the latest news and topics from the world of the paranormal, fringe science, and controversial claims from a scientific point of view.