education
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inquiry based learning
Eqao
classroom observation
Critical Literacy
assessment
Welcome to this first in a series of PBL Mania Posts. For the next few weeks I am celebrating Project Based Learning by hosting a webinar at Edtech Leaders Online, and by presenting a PBL session at the NICE Conference in Chicago. In this post I will introduce you to some awesome places on the web containing some of the very best PBL resources.
21 st Century Educational Technology and Learning
Leading School Achievement
The future. What do our students really need to know and be able to do to succeed in future education and careers? Content is a part of what they need to know. Standardized tests test content knowledge and some skills.
10 Important Skills Students need for the Future
Capacity-building series
Khan Academy
Matrices, vectors, vector spaces, transformations. Covers all topics in a first year college linear algebra course. This is an advanced course normally taken by science or engineering majors after taking at least two semesters of calculus (although calculus really isn't a prereq) so don't confuse this with regular high school algebra.
Khan Academy In just the past couple of years, Salman Khan has built a huge following for the Khan Academy . He’s created more than 2,700 educational videos that have been viewed tens of millions of times over. He’s been on CNN , NBC Nightly News, PBS News Hour , and other major media. His videos are being incorporated into school curricula across the country.
Khan Academy: Out of the Screen, Into the Physical World | MindShift
Without grading
The Learning Lab
As we believe the next generation and its organisations have to reinvent virtually every system in which we live, what and how do we need to learn both individually and collectively in order to realize that transition? Universities, schools, cities, and organizations rapidly need to invest in their learning capacities for transition. The Learning Lab researches, facilitates, and designs learning ecologies for this transition. Learning here, has of necessity become a form of creating.
Bloom's Taxonomy
I am an enthusiastic supporter and practitioner of the "Flipped Classroom." I see it as a very tangible reality for improving the learning outcomes of college students, the mainstream understands how and why it works. This infographic, which I picked up via David Wicks' blog , visually communicates several of the key concepts of the Flipped Classroom.
The Flipped Classroom: an Infographic
Project Based Learning | BIE
In Project Based Learning (PBL), students go through an extended process of inquiry in response to a complex question, problem, or challenge. Rigorous projects help students learn key academic content and practice 21st Century Skills (such as collaboration, communication & critical thinking).Born to Learn ~ You are Born to Learn
Your brain is the planet’s most powerful learning machine. But our current systems of education aren’t doing enough to unlock our true potential. This is what Born to Learn is all about.
Next steps: getting ready for inquiry
Although we are still adjusting to the routines in our literacy centers, we are ready to begin using the iPads in our content area instruction and inquiry. A little background: our faculty has both studied and been featured in a book/DVD series by Stephanie Harvey and Harvey "Smokey" Daniels entitled Comprehension and Collaboration: Inquiry Circles in Action . Inquiry-based learning has led to increased student choice and engagement, deep and meaningful questioning, and real-world advocacy and action. Our iPad grant proposal centered around incorporating the iPad into all the stages of student inquiry for our first and second graders, in addition to supporting their literacy development. Now that we have a good foundation for using the iPads in literacy centers, we are ready to integrate them into into content area instruction. Our first step will be to use multimedia to inspire student questioning and build background knowledge.
Teacher Evaluation – Let’s Just Forget It! | EdReach
I am struggling with all this talk about teacher evaluation and I can’t help but think that all of this time and energy is being wasted on something that we will never come to agreement on. Besides, with the primary focus of teacher evaluation more on standardized test scores than increasing the level of engagement in student learning opportunities can we really get where we want to go? In my opinion, we need learner-centered environments where teachers and students are all considered learners. We need to develop a community of learners where teachers are passionate about learning and sharing conversations with one another about what engaging learning environments. While I agree that moving our public education system forward is a daunting task, I don’t think that evaluating teachers is the way to get there.
Sugata Mitra
Sugata Mitra's "Hole in the Wall" experiments have shown that, in the absence of supervision or formal teaching, children can teach themselves and each other, if they're motivated by curiosity and peer interest.
Sugata Mitra | Profile on TED.com
technology in education
Sugata Mitra
Google Zeitgeist
Professor Sugata Mitra is Professor of Educational Technology at the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at Newcastle University. He instigated the Hole in the Wall (HIW) experiment, in which a computer was embedded in a wall in an Indian slum, and children were allowed to freely use it. This proved that groups of children, irrespective of who or where they are, can learn to use computers and the internet on their own, via public computers in open spaces such as roads and playgrounds. Sugata termed this as Minimally Invasive Education (MIE), and his publication was judged the best open access publication in the world for 2005. On reading about the HIW experiment, Indian diplomat Vikas Swarup was inspired to write his debut novel, which became the Oscar-winning movie of 2009, Slumdog Millionaire. Mitra’s other interests include Remote Presence, self-organising systems, Cognitive Systems, Physics and Consciousness.Barefoot In the head
When the young Earth cooled, it rained for centuries, filling up the oceans. Thunder and lightning in the Methane, Ammonia atmosphere of the primordial Earth filled its newly formed oceans with all sorts of organic molecules including several Amino acids. Through millions of years of permutations and combinations, one molecule came to be. Ribonucleic acid, or RNA. RNA had the ability to make copies of itself.A couple of weeks ago we started a “series” based on the work of those lovely chaps at the 21 st Century Fluency Project – Lee Crockett , Ian Jukes and Andrew Churches very kindly gave me permission to use their new book Literacy is NOT Enough to create a number of “guest-posts” ( now, if we could only get more writers to don their “ creative commons ” hats )! To date, I have done three posts : …and I promised that the forth would outline the “spirit” of the 5 Fluencies. Unable to edit down 6 chapters on my own, I got a “help me” message to Ian this morning… In less than an hour he had done this – Ian, you are “the man”! At the very heart of the 21st Century Fluency Project are the Five Fluencies .