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eFolioMinnesota™ Follow the Five Steps below for a successful electronic portfolio. As you work on your site using the electronic portfolio tool, you can easily access online assistance and Quick Tips. Collect: Collect the information for your electronic portfolio. Add new content to your site as you gather your resources. 8 Switches To Update Project-Based Learning In The 21st Century - 8 Switches To Update Project-Based Learning In The 21st Century by Thom Markham Here’s some simple math: 1.8 billion youth need to be educated for 21st Century life. What’s ‘good’ education? It’s important to understand that this is a global movement. This provides educators with a window of opportunity to share best practices around PBL and contribute to a worldwide, collaborative conversation on personalized learning, inquiry, and the way educators ‘hold’ students in their minds eye. This opportunity to help shape—not drive or direct, but shape—the outcome for PBL across the globe applies to U.S. educators as well, of course. Call it the NCLB hangover, but the end result is watered-down PBL, often supported by trainers and consultants, that isn’t designed to doesn’t change the equation between teaching and learning. It’s beyond time for U.S. schools engaged in PBL to shift their emphasis. How can U.S. 1. This is far too complex to reduce to a simple series of steps on a great graphic.
Become a Teacher in Missouri, Teacher Preparation & Certification Missouri With a Bachelor’s degree in hand and a desire to make a difference, you can become a certified teacher with the help of the American Board. In May 2008, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt signed alternative teacher certification legislation approving the American Board as a route to full teacher licensure. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) fully recognizes the American Board certification for all school districts and charter schools in the state. Why Choose the American Board? The American Board offers a flexible, affordable route to earn your Missouri teaching certificate. Many, like 2013 American Board Missouri Teacher of the Year Birdie Pruessner, have selected the American Board as their route to certification. With the American Board, you can earn your Missouri teacher certification in a manner that is both cost-effective and efficient, compared to the estimated $5,000-7,000 cost and 2 years of coursework required of the other option in Missouri. or
Resources for Getting Started with Project-Based Learning Just getting started with project-based learning (PBL)? Our curated list of resources for educators new to PBL should help you. Before you get started, be sure to check out Edutopia's PBL page, including information about the research behind effective PBL practices. You can also connect with Edutopia's community to learn and share PBL tips. PBL Defined and Clarified What the Heck is PBL? video What Should "Gold Standard" PBL Include? Stories and Examples My PBL Failure: 4 Tips for Planning Successful PBL, by Katie Spear (2015) Here are four lessons learned from a failed PBL unit: align with the school calendar, allow planning time, carefully create the topic and guiding question, and collaborate with peers. Other Tips From Teachers and Experts Bookmark this page to reference it for updates.
The Blaine Game: Controversy Over the Blaine Amendments and Public Funding of Religion In June 2008, a church-state watchdog organization and several other groups filed a lawsuit in Florida seeking to remove from the state’s November ballot two proposed amendments to the Florida Constitution. The proposed amendments, if passed, would eliminate legal obstacles that currently prevent Florida from funding religious schools. One of the proposed amendments would permit parents to use state-funded vouchers to send their children to private schools in Florida, including religious schools. Featuring:Ira “Chip” Lupu, F. Interviewer: Jesse Merriam, Research Associate, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life In this Q&A:What are the Blaine Amendments? What are the Blaine Amendments? The Blaine Amendments owe their name to James G. Why was public funding of religious organizations such a big issue in the 19th century? Funding of religion was such a contentious issue because of the increase in Catholic immigration in the mid-to-late 1800s. In 2006, the Florida Supreme Court held in Bush v.
Want Better Project-Based Learning? Use Social and Emotional Learning Today's guest blogger is Thom Markham, a psychologist, educator, and president of Global Redesigns, an international consulting organization focused on project-based learning, social-emotional learning, youth development, and 21st-century school design. An unfortunate legacy of the cognitive model that dominates education is the belief that everything important in life takes place from the neck up. This belief is the primary reason that many teachers struggle with project-based learning (PBL). At its best, PBL taps into intangibles that make learning effortless and engaging: Drive, passion, purpose, and peak performance. Outside of education, the success of PBL is no mystery. These factors can be condensed into three bullet points: Caring relationships People perform better when they feel attended to. Organizational experts tell us to "search upstream in time and place" to identify the barriers to solving a problem. Step 1: Redefine rigor Step 2: Establish a "drive and thrive" culture
A Blaine Amendment Update (July 00) An earlier article in this series concerned so-called "Blaine Amendments," after a constitutional amendment proposed by then Congressman James Blaine in 1875, with the encouragement of Pres. Ulysses Grant. The primary purpose was to prohibit aid to Catholic schools. "The dissent relies to a great extent on external, peripheral sources such as the Blaine amendment, introduced in Congress more than 100 years ago...The Blaine amendment was a clear manifestation of religious bigotry, part of a crusade manufactured by the contemporary Protestant establishment, to counter what was perceived as a growing "Catholic menace." A second recent example has found The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty taking on this issue publicly, in particular waging a legal battle to remove Blaine restrictions in Massachusetts. "[N]othing in the establishment clause requires the exclusion of pervasively sectarian schools from otherwise permissible aid programs, and other doctrines of this court bar it.
Building Parent Support for Project-Based Learning When a teacher, school or district tells parents, "We're going to do project-based learning," the response may vary. You're lucky if some say, "Great news! Students need to be taught differently these days!" But a more typical response might be: What's project-based learning?That's not how I was taught. Basically, they're asking for the what, why and how. What Schools and Districts Can Do Rather than begin by explaining what PBL is, start with the "why." Ken Kay, CEO of EdLeader21, made a good point about this when he spoke at BIE's PBL World conference in June 2013. To help make the case, have parents reflect on their own work. Another argument you could make has to do with student engagement. Technology is also an angle. Now that you've established the need, you can introduce the way to meet it: PBL. Explain what PBL is using concrete examples, not educational jargon. BIE's PBL Toolkit series and other books on PBL describe many different projects. What Classroom Teachers Can Do
Dipsticks: Efficient Ways to Check for Understanding What strategy can double student learning gains? According to 250 empirical studies, the answer is formative assessment, defined by Bill Younglove as "the frequent, interactive checking of student progress and understanding in order to identify learning needs and adjust teaching appropriately." Unlike summative assessment, which evaluates student learning according to a benchmark, formative assessment monitors student understanding so that kids are always aware of their academic strengths and learning gaps. Meanwhile, teachers can improve the effectiveness of their instruction, re-teaching if necessary. "When the cook tastes the soup," writes Robert E. Alternative formative assessment (AFA) strategies can be as simple (and important) as checking the oil in your car -- hence the name "dipsticks." In the sections below, we'll discuss things to consider when implementing AFAs. Observation: A Key Practice in Alternative Formative Assessment A fundamental element of most AFAs is observation.
Learning by Doing: A Teacher Transitions Into PBL I have been a high school English teacher for 15 years. Every year, I try to do something a little different because I like learning from the process. After teaching AP Literature for a while, I became an AP Reader. Then, I presented at a national conference. The First Try To be honest, I had not heard the term PBL until the job interview. I wish I could say that it went well, but it did not. The next day, the students and I had a pretty good dialogue about the process. 6 Lessons Learned My school is on the 4x4 block, so I made the following changes in January, and I am happy to say that the projects became a lot better. 1. In order to be successful, the students have to know what is expected of them. 2. One of the great things about PBL is that it has differentiated instruction built into it. 3. I had students share their work with me through Google Docs so that I could see their progress on a daily basis. 4. This helps make a project seem like a goal that can be accomplished. 5. 6.
Critique Protocol: Helping Students Produce High-Quality Work Student: Wait, should I clear out this? Jodi: I numbered the lines in your tribute poems. When somebody is giving you feedback, they can name the specific line number. Student: I like stanza one, because it has really strong figurative language. Jessica: Because our students participate in critique protocol, they have the opportunity to really understand what quality looks like, and to define for themselves their expectations for achieving it. Elaine: Starting as early as preschool, the culture of revision and of learning together is better is what sets up students to be very proficient in their ability to receive critical feedback and to give critical feedback. Anne: I have a couple of your friends' work. Sylvia: Today in class we looked at our work to see if we could fix anything. Anne: What are our rules when we are critiquing and making our friends' work better. Student: Don't be like, "I hate your work." Anne: Very good. Student: Kind. Anne: Yes. We looked at one student's work.
New Study Shows the Impact of PBL on Student Achievement Does project-based learning (PBL) raise student achievement? If you’ve been involved in PBL for long, you’ve undoubtedly encountered this question. Over the last few years as education researchers at University of Michigan and Michigan State University, we have worked to address this question through a large study of the effects of PBL on social studies and some aspects of literacy achievement in second-grade classrooms. About the Study In our study, we randomly assigned second-grade teachers in high-poverty schools that had low performance on state tests to two groups. None of the teachers involved in the study reported previous experience teaching PBL. Teacher Support We wanted the study to be realistic in terms of the degree of professional development (PD) support districts might be likely to provide to teachers, so PBL-group teachers received only three hours of initial PD in our approach to PBL and the first PBL unit. Assessment Design Results So does PBL raise student achievement?