How Digitial Portfolios Document and Motivate Learning « Just Start for Kids and Schools. By Allison Zmuda Recently, I did an interview with Tony Wagner where he extolled the power of digital portfolios to document meaningful accomplishments both inside and outside of school. I wanted to explore more deeply into digital portfolios through someone that has created one of the best platforms out there — David Niguidula. Niguidula led the original research on digital portfolios while managing the technology group at the Coalition of Essential Schools and Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University.
His work has focused on issues of technology, assessment, and school reform. You can see more of his work at his web site, www.richerpicture.com. Zmuda: Let’s first get clear on terminology. Niguidula: A digital portfolio is an online collection of student work for a particular purpose and audience. Zmuda: So, what have you seen educators call portfolios that are not necessarily the kind of portfolio you described in the first question? Addressing the culture is critical. The lesson you never got taught in school: How to learn! | Neurobonkers. A paper published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest evaluated ten techniques for improving learning, ranging from mnemonics to highlighting and came to some surprising conclusions.
The report is quite a heavy document so I’ve summarised the techniques below based on the conclusions of the report regarding effectiveness of each technique. Be aware that everyone thinks they have their own style of learning (they don't, according to the latest research), and the evidence suggests that just because a technique works or does not work for other people does not necessarily mean it will or won’t work well for you. If you want to know how to revise or learn most effectively you will still want to experiment on yourself a little with each technique before writing any of them off. Elaborative Interrogation (Rating = moderate) A method involving creating explanations for why stated facts are true.
An example of elaborative interrogation for the above paragraph could be: Reference: A Compleat Guide to the Corporate Reform Movement. Leonie Haimson, who leads Class Size Matters in New York City and was a co-founder of Parents Across America, has worked with other parents and with educators to compile a comprehensive list of corporate reform organizations and to identify the lingo of the reformers. She asks your help in reviewing the list and letting her know about errors and omissions. Review the list of organizations and definitions. You can let her know your thoughts at the email she provides or in your comments here. Many parents, teachers and concerned citizens are confused by the superabundance of well-funded advocacy organizations, consulting companies, and research groups promoting the corporate education reform agenda. This is a working document, and if you see an organization mistakenly included here, or you have suggestions for other changes, please email us at info@classsizematters.org with your comments.
One can also tell if an organization is allied with the corporate reform movement by its rhetoric. A Teacher's Perspective On Pinterest. Having heard so much hype surrounding Pinterest , I decided to check it out and in particular look at how much value it has for educators. Could it perhaps tie in to the work students do using creative software and technologies? For those who aren’t familiar with Pinterest, it is essentially a virtual pin board, where users can pin any visual or audio link from the internet; so anything from photographs and product images to video clips and articles can be captured in one place.
It’s been around since 2008, but has really taken the social media world by storm over the past 12 months. Like a virtual scrapbook, but a very public one, it is essentially an online space for collating the items that you love. It is one place where sharing content from other people is actively encouraged – it is all about the social activity of interaction and sharing and gaining followers, rather than keeping ownership of your work. Mimi Ito: Connected Learning: An Agenda for Social Change. A teenager who developed her creative writing skills, in large part by interacting with peers on the Internet, and who was eventually offered admissions to selective colleges on the basis of her strong writing samples. A young man who learned how to make a living as a professional web comics artist by connecting with knowledge and communities of artists on the Internet.
A public school in Chicago experimenting with a two-week period each term where students work on complex and collaborative projects where they need to define roles, problem solve together, and share their work with a broader community. All of these are examples of what my colleagues and I have been calling "connected learning" -- learning that is highly social, interest-driven, and oriented toward educational, economic, or civic opportunity. • Close the gap between the no-frills learning that too often happens in-school and the interactive, hands-on learning that usually takes place out of school; What Students Want From Their Teachers.
So over the course of several lunch periods, I went from table-to-table, asking, “What qualities do you look for in the best teachers? The best teachers (blank)…” While my methodology will cause my college statistics professor to cringe, the students were remarkably honest. I interviewed about 200 students and fewer than 5 answered “no work” or “allows us to sleep in class.” The answers reaffirmed that students really do want to learn and be challenged.
Not surprisingly, the answers didn’t differ much from Angela’s list either. To the best of my abilities I grouped the answers together and they are listed by frequency of response. We want teachers who make class engaging, interesting, captivating and fun. This was the run-away winner with more than the next three responses combined. Students used words like variety, creative, hands on, participation, fun, and real to describe the best lessons. I want the subject to connect to my life. Allow us to participate in the learning. Ms. Ms. Personable. Suspension, Expulsion Data Cast Harsh Light on Some Schools. Published Online: January 4, 2013 Published in Print: January 10, 2013, as Suspension, Expulsion Data Cast Some in Harsh Light An Education Week analysis of data collected by the U.S. Department of Education illustrates the wide variation in how schools use out-of-school suspension and expulsion to discipline students.
It also calls into question the validity of the data for some schools. For the 2009-10 school year, the Education Department's office for civil rights collected data for more than 72,000 schools and nearly 7,000 school districts about school discipline practices, along with information on a variety of other data points, including students' access to advanced courses, student retention, and teacher salaries and attendance rates. Education Week found that at some schools, the proportion of students suspended out of school or expelled was 100 percent or very close to that.
Education Department spokesman Daren Briscoe says it's still possible for districts to revise their data. Edunators - Helping Teachers Overcome Obstacles and Focus on Learning - The Importance of Reflection in Education. Details Written by Mark Clements If I touch a hot stove and burn my hand, I immediately learn that touching a hot stove results in a burned hand. My brain makes the connection almost simultaneously.
There’s little need for reflection because the “hot stove=burn” connection is one that my mind makes almost immediately. Similarly, suppose I’m driving in bad weather and going WAY TOO FAST for the conditions. If my car spins out and I find myself stuck in a ditch, I’ve learned a lesson about driving in bad weather. Again, the connection is almost instantaneous. Academic learning however is seldom that obvious. Let’s pretend I’m a fourth grade student, distracted by everything from cafeteria food to the playground outside my classroom window. More than likely, since I’m not sure exactly WHY I failed a test, the only connection my brain makes is “Math = F”.
This is precisely why reflection is so important. Consider John Dewey’s famous quote “We don’t learn from experience. Tech Tips: Common Core Resources. A 6th grader weighs the pluses and minuses of a longer school day - Opinion. We Need Teachers, Not Facilitators! I recently heard that a conference speaker told his audience, “We need fewer teachers and more facilitators.” My first reaction was, “1986 called and would like its keynote back.” My second thought was that the speaker is dead wrong!
The use of terms like “facilitator” always makes me queasy. The desire to rebrand teaching as facilitation results more from the low self-esteem of educators than either public opinion or a serious commitment to pedagogical progress. If one truly wants to improve the educational experience of children, then we need more teachers and fewer facilitators. A popular parlor game among educators is debating the precise moment when “education went bad.” In my humble opinion, classrooms became less productive contexts for learning when teacher education became more concerned with training facilitators than creating teachers.
Today, new teachers truly are facilitators. This is great news for policy-makers and ideologues. 5 Components to a Quality Education. Will Richardson asks the question Why School? In his new book and Seth Godin also asks in this video what is school for? School fills a myriad of roles in our society. However, it is quite simple: Schools are here to educate, yet the process is complex. Here are five components that we have to focus on and use transformatively to educate in the current society: RigorRelevanceCreativityIndividualizationGrit First, rigor is essential to education and preparing students for what lies ahead. Raise the Level of ContentIncrease ComplexityOpen-Ended Questions, Instruction, and Projects Yes, students will push back, but we have to expect them to learn at high levels and they will rise to our expectations; provided that we give support and guidance along the way.
Second, a lesson can be rigorous, but it also needs to be engaging and relevant. Third, creativity is a key ingredient to both the teacher and the learner. The fifth component is grit. What Does a Whole Child-Centered School Look Like? | K 12 Education on GOOD. Many schools have a vision for providing a whole child education—one that nurtures a student’s academic, emotional, and physical needs and prepares them for the real world. Given the narrow focus on academic achievement and test scores in today’s education climate, few campuses are actually able to make that vision a reality. For the past three years, ASCD, the international education leadership association, has identified schools that are proving to be models of whole child education and recognized their accomplishments through their annual Whole Child Award. This year’s winner, Byrne Creek Secondary School, a 7-year-old, 1,250-student high school located in the Vancouver area, enables students and families to learn and connect in a culturally rich environment.
"There’s very clearly a feel within the school that students don’t need to abandon their culture" in order to succeed, says Rawnsley. The design of the building also helps create a sense of the community. Professional blog | 21st Century Educator. People learn through a process much like scientists do, discovering the world through observation. They either consciously or unconsciously hypothesize about how the world should work, collect data, compare the data they have collected to see if it fits in their theory, and then revise their theory if they feel enough evidence has been found.
In this way, people construct an understanding of the world around them using what they know as a framework for understanding. Like a scientist, each piece of knowledge a learner is connected through a personally developed taxonomy, and it is through these connections that knowledge is stored, retrieved, and built upon. Each piece of knowledge people gain has to be fit into their personal schema. At first, people will adjust their hypothesis to make facts fit which seem inconsistent, but eventually if enough contradictory data is collected, people are forced to revise their ideas.
Reflection and Evaluation | A Primary School Teacher. I truly believe that in order to grow as professionals we need to be continually reflecting on and evaluating our teaching. By reflecting and evaluating we can think about any possible changes we could make to the lesson or unit to improve the learning for our students and ultimately be the best teachers that we can be. Think about your programs. Do you have space dedicated to evaluation? Do you have evaluation questions? Do you put a lot of thought into your evaluations?
Teachers should reflect and evaluate after each lesson and jot down some thoughts about what was great about the lesson and what could be improved. For example: Were the students engaged? @carpenk also brought up great suggestions. Do you evaluate your lessons/units of work? Do you have any evaluation questions you could add? Do you include your students in the evaluation process? Like this: Like Loading... What If the Highest-Paid People at School Were... the Teachers? Barnett Berry shows a picture of himself from 1979 to a group of Arkansas teachers. The educators laugh at the young, bright-eyed teacher, who is now president of the Center for Teacher Equality. He tells them it’s been decades since he's been in a classroom, but that doesn’t mean he is clueless about what they handle on a daily basis.
He also shares where he thinks the teaching profession needs to go. “There is a difference between those who teach and those who lead,” Berry said during the lecture for Arkansas teachers at the William J. He added, “Teachers need to transform teachers.” More: Op-Ed: Want to Improve School Districts? The first way to do that? Berry envisions 600,000 well-compensated teacherpreneurs in classrooms by 2030, the year children born in 2012 graduate from high school. He expands upon the teacherpreneurs concept in Teaching 2030: What We Must Do For Our Students and Our Public Schools, the book he penned with 12 teachers from around the country. Deborah Bishop, Mississippi Teacher, Uses Thousands In Game Show Winnings To Treat Students, Create Scholarships. A Mississippi teacher is the star of the show at West Harrison High School in Harrison County. Spanish teacher Deborah Bishop treated her 20 Spanish Honor Society students to a night on the town Wednesday -- dinner at a fancy New Orleans restaurant, limousine pick-up and tickets to the opera, all while dropping off toy donations at the Children's Hospital on the way.
The night was a pricey excursion, costing Bishop $3,000 out of pocket, but was all made possible by a $23,500 prize she won in September on TV game show "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? " "I told [show host] Meredith Vieira with tears in my eyes that I wanted to bring my Spanish Honor Society to the opera," Bishop told WLOX. "I'd have plenty of money to pay for it, because I didn't want them to have to worry about it. I wanted to do this for them. But Bishop's generosity doesn't stop there. "We're all very honored," student Erin Lavey told the station.
Indiana's new Superintendent is a teacher. Account Suspended. Jeff Johnson and Teacher Workload in Alberta. Algebra 1 - Common Core Resources. Internet Catalogue. Internet Catalogue. McGraw-Hill exec: tech will make us rethink age-grouping in schools. High school girl spanked by male vice principal for cheating. Recognize The Big Rocks. Professionals Don't Use Marks to Motivate. A world where grades don't exist and learning is free. Clairepontefract. 50 Shades of Mobile. Setting a Collaborative Foundation. The Flipped Faculty Meeting - Finding Common Ground. Finding the Genius in Every Child. Five Reasons I don't Assign Homework - South Euclid, OH. Ten Reasons to Be a Connected Educator.
Activity 6: Helping parents and students connect with your class blog. Who Makes the Rules in a Classroom? Seven Ideas About Rule-making - Teacher in a Strange Land. Six Big Ideas for Educational Technology Leaders. Web 2.0 for the Under 13s crowd. 25+ Favorite Quotes for Educators. What’s the big deal about Blogging. What's So Unique About Teaching Middle Schoolers? 40 Ways Education Technology Will Be Used In The Future. Standardization Will Destroy Our Education System, If It Hasn't Already. Teachers union to urge focus on teaching, learning -- not standardized testing | Metro Detroit.
Learning with Images: 20+ Tips & Resources. Inspirational Kids. Top 100 Tools for the Twittering Teacher. Laura Candler (lauracandler) on Pinterest. 5 Thoughts on Maximizing Student Voice. My top 20 tweets from ASCD's summer conference. Entertainment - Emily Temple - 10 Important Life Lessons From Children's Books. 15 Free Tools for Collecting, Storing, and Sharing Files. Building Partnerships with Schools in Developing Countries – June #globalclassroom Chats. Classroom Solutions & Top Teaching Ideas - Scholastic Teacher Blogs. Everybody loves meetings! A Designer Speaks. MY FLIPPED CLASSROOM By Crystal Kirch On Prezi.
David Truss :: Pair-a-dimes for Your Thoughts. 100 Best YouTube Videos for Science Teachers. Drop the Worry Ball author urges helicopter parents to get out of the way and let their children grow up. The(Un)Connected Classroom: When Will Education Catch-up with Technology? Matching Teaching with How Students Learn. We teach life… < Blogush. Integrating Technology: My Journey - My Blog. 5 under-watched TEDxEDU videos. Supporting Students in a #Flipclass « Educator. 39 Sites For Using iPads in the Classroom. Class Blog Map. Start With Your Superstars. Edu-pinning: Pinterest in Education « ErHead. Reflecting on my goals with staff. What do you want to talk about during this week's (2/7) #edchat?