Teaching Creativity – The Case for Mind Mapping If thinking is about making connections between pieces of information, then creative thinking is making the connections that no one else has seen. However, when we tell students to find relationships between seemingly disparate ideas, we often get blank stares—why? According to thinkers like Ken Robinson, it’s because our education system kills creativity. It is no wonder that students can’t make connections between ideas when they reach college. We have strong evidence that Da Vinci, Descartes, Darwin and virtually every other iconic thinker traversed disciplines and distant plains of inquiry to reach powerful insights. Teaching Mind Mapping? I believe they can, particularly if they get access to helpful technology. Back in the 1980s, I became familiar with old fashioned mind-mapping back, and I used it to analyze and prioritize personal projects. And students value this too. Image from ConceptDraw Mind Map Web Page Can the tools we use to teach lead to creative thinking?
Scrapbooking, Greetings, Slideshows and More at Smilebox 70 Tools And 4 Reasons To Make Your Own Infographics Infographics are everywhere. Some love them. Some hate them. But however you feel, it’s fun to learn a little bit in a short period of time. Why Should Classrooms Use Infographics Before we dive into the list, let’s talk about WHY you might want to make an infographic: 1) you run a blog or website that you want to display visually-engaging information and grab the attention of your readers. 2) you want to grab the attention of students by boiling down theories and content into key concepts that can inspire more in-depth learning. 3) you’re a student who wants to show off your understanding of concepts by analyzing, digesting, and then remixing it all into an elegant infographic. 4) you’re a teacher who wants to get students engaged and doing new projects. What Makes A Good Infographic? Tools To Make Your Own Infographics These tools are just the beginning.
Web 2.0 Teaching Tools Super Resources Introducing Glogster Glogster [31UGEB] Glogs: a Timeline Tool: and More Ideas: Things to think about: What makes a good poster? Other Possible Tools: Are you Curious? Engage: Meet RoVen. Explore: In small teams, drive the rover and calculate the distance traveled in a particular amount of time. Elaborate: Using Create A Graph, develop a digital graph of data to display results. Evaluate: Gallery walk. Extend: Calling all learners— when your graph is complete, check out the link of your choice! Additional Teacher Resources: Sequence of Events: Instead of having kids put Billy and Susie’s trip to the store in order, what about having them investigate the steps the rover goes through to land?
10 Awesome Tools To Make Infographics Advertisement Who can resist a colourful, thoughtful venn diagram anyway? In terms of blogging success, infographics are far more likely to be shared than your average blog post. This means more eyeballs on your important information, more people rallying for your cause, more backlinks and more visits to your blog. In short, a quality infographic done well could be what your blog needs right now. Designing An Infographic Some great tips for designing infographics: Keep it simple! Ideas for infographic formats include: Timelines;Flow charts;Annotated maps;Graphs;Venn diagrams;Size comparisons;Showing familiar objects or similar size or value. Here are some great tutorials on infographic creation: Creating Your Infographic Plan and research.If required, use free software to create simple graphs and visualisations of data.Use vector graphic software to bring these visualisations into the one graphic. Free Online Tools For Creating Infographics Stat Planet Hohli Creately New York Times Many Eyes Wordle
Classroom Freebies Too: Classroom Management Idea Our first grade team met with our kindergarten teachers for a sharing session. They had just attended a Nellie Edge seminar and came back with a wealth of ideas. This one's such a simple classroom management idea, but I think it's so USEFUL. Have students leave a "reserved" sign to save a place or materials they are using. This works well at center time, math time, or any other time when students are using materials and temporarily leave an area. I created Reserve My Spot! Download the packet HERE.
PROBLEM BASED LEARNING DESCRIPTION As an MBA, you will have to be an accomplished problem-solver of organizational design and change situations. You will also have to be a self-directed learner your entire professional life, as knowledge in the field of management will change, and you will continuously be meeting new and unexpected challenges. The consideration of these factors such as these dictates the wisdom of a problem-based, student-centered, self-directed program that will allow you, the student, in collaboration with your group and instructor, to design an experience tailor-made to your individual needs. What Is Problem-Based Learning (PBL)? Problem-based learning (PBL) is an approach that challenges students to learn through engagement in a real problem. Problem-based learning is student-centered. Learning takes place within the contexts of authentic tasks, issues, and problems--that are aligned with real-world concerns. Where Did PBL Come From and Who Else is Using It? Why PBL? How Does PBL Work? Phase 1. Phase 2.
10 Minutes to Make – Impact – Priceless (The ease/reward of a unit slideshow) | Language Sensei As Foreign Language teachers we are continually focussing on teaching in ‘context’. It is the link between the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ that really helps to deepen both the learning (and the will to learn) within our students. One of the ways that I have started to experiment with setting context is through visuals – visuals from the target language country. It started, as many of my things do, with a one-off kind of thing – almost a fluke as it were. I was leading into seasonal activities – and wanted to incorporate both those that are popular here, and in Japan (my Target Language – TL). How was I to hook them – to set them up for what they were going to delve into? So I hit the search engine – and looked for images – images of Japanese people doing, experiencing some of the activities that I knew were going to come up from my students – and also things specific to Japan. Quite quickly I had a set of 10-15 images that suited what I needed. Colleen
Problem-based learning Problem-based learning (PBL) is an exciting alternative to traditional classroom learning. With PBL, your teacher presents you with a problem, not lectures or assignments or exercises. Since you are not handed "content", your learning becomes active in the sense that you discover and work with content that you determine to be necessary to solve the problem. In PBL, your teacher acts as facilitator and mentor, rather than a source of "solutions." Problem based learning will provide you with opportunities to examine and try out what you know discover what you need to learn develop your people skills for achieving higher performance in teams improve your communications skills state and defend positions with evidence and sound argument become more flexible in processing information and meeting obligations practice skills that you will need after your education A Summary of Problem-Based Learning: This is a simplified model--more detailed models are referenced below. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.
When 'Do You Have Weapons?' Is Heard More Often In Schools Than 'Do You Have Dreams?' In 2012, at the entrance of a West Philadelphia high school, an armed officer asked the poet Denice Frohman if she had a weapon on her. Standing before firearms and metal detectors, Frohman held up her weapon: a book. The officer was unamused. This March, at the 2014 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational at the University of Colorado Boulder, Frohman described the encounter in a spoken word performance with fellow poet Dominique Christina. "I asked them if they have dreams," Frohman recites in the video. The poets attribute the students' struggle to "No Child Left Behind," an educational reform policy often criticized for forcing public school teachers to "teach to the test." School can be, the performance suggests, either a force of erasure or, much more ideally, a source of empowerment. In the poem, Frohman recalls the sense of revelation she felt when she first read a Latina author in school. "The wind in my chest stood up. Watch the video above to see their performance.
Getting Grades out of the Way Patrick Henry Winston “What was class average?” I feel like I have been asked a 1,000 times, and I confess, each time it makes me cringe. It tells me the student is fixated on evaluation, not on the material. It tells me the student is competing with other students, rather than aspiring for a level of knowledge. It tells me the student thinks we grade on a curve, which is prohibited by a sensible MIT rule. In the fall of 2006, just after yet another student in 6.034, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, asked the class-average question, we of the staff decided that we had had enough, and that it was time to start over in a search for a better way of certifying skills. We should find a way to deemphasize grades so as to make room for big ideas We should test understanding, not speed and general intelligence We should not care whether a student demonstrates understanding early in the semester, or late, as long as the student demonstrates understanding.