Mindsets: Fixed Versus Growth

Assessing Maker Education Projects Institutionalized education has given assessment a bad reputation; often leaves a sour taste in the mouths of many teachers, students, and laypeople. This is primarily due to the testing movement, the push towards using student assessment in the form of tests as a measure of student, teacher, principal, and school accountability. Educators should be clear about why they include assessment in their instruction; be strategic and intentional in its use. Other Schools of Philosophy A philosophical movement is the appearance of (or the increased popularity of) a specific school of philosophy, an identifiable tradition of philosophy, or a marked change in philosophical thought on a particular subject. A school is a group of people, especially philosophers, artists, or writers, whose thought, work, or style demonstrates a common origin or influence or unifying belief. These are the famous “-isms” of philosophy. A movement or school may represent the broad views of many individual philosophers, even if they may not agree entirely in all respects, so it is more a diffusely organized or heterogeneous group of philosophers tending toward or favoring a generalized common goal. It may also consist of intellectual thought by several individuals on several related ideas or doctrines, and the distinction between schools or movements, and doctrines or theories is sometimes blurred.

TEXT: Changing Your Instructional Mindset Dylan O’Connor, Nyree Smith, and Tobi E. Afolayan are teacher leaders at the Lilla G. Frederick Pilot Middle School in Boston. Listen & Learn Audio interviews 12 (mostly cheap) Teacher Tricks that Work in an Elementary Library Learning practical teaching tips and tricks is one of my favorite forms of professional development. I love when others share simple things that can be applied quickly and easily to my teaching and improve learning for my students. Here are twelve tips and tricks that work in my library: Philosophical Journal Prompts Philosophical journal prompts. What is philosophy? Let’s turn to Wikipedia for a simple, straightforward definition: “Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language…It is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument.”

TEXT: A Beginner's Guide to Flipped Classroom The Flipped Classroom is a blended learning model in which traditional ideas about classroom activities and homework are reversed, or "flipped." In this model, instructors have students interact with new material for homework first. They then use class time to discuss the new information and put those ideas into practice. But don't be fooled. Student Needs Assessment with Google Forms and Sheets Last month, I posted information about using Google Forms to creatively engage students. This month, we are looking at using Google Forms and Sheets to gather student information for instruction. Collaborating with the classroom teachers, we design a pre-assessment using Google Forms. The classroom teacher or myself create a Google Form and then share with everyone in the group to edit. Once students complete the form, the results are automatic and viewable in Google Sheets by the team of teachers and librarians. In Google Sheets, we can manipulate the information to view how many students need more information about a variety of areas including searching the databases or finding citation information in databases.

Philosophy The Death of Socrates by Jacques-Louis David, 1787 Philosophy is the systematic study of the foundations of human knowledge with an emphasis on the conditions of its validity and finding answers to ultimate questions. While every other science aims at investigating a specific area of knowledge, such as physics or psychology, philosophy has been defined as “thinking about thinking.” At the same time, as expressed by its Greek etymology, philosophy is the love of wisdom. Traditionally at least, it is not the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake, but rather the attempt to discover the meaning and purpose of existence, including through intellectual means, but including also self-reflection, discipline, and religious practice and inquiry. Though the term philosophy is of Western origin and implies a kind of investigation typical of western culture, it has its equivalents in the various other cultures of the world, notably India, China and the Middle East.

TEXT: What Is a Flipped Classroom? And What Are Its Learning Benefits? Even before the pandemic, the idea of the “flipped classroom” was a trend with staying power because of the way in which it enhances students’ learning experience. Student-led active learning, peer-to-peer collaboration, and individualized guidance enable educators to adapt each lesson to the individual needs of their students while encouraging connection and critical thinking. Using flipped videos to explain core concepts and introduce complicated topics also frees up valuable in-person class time for more interactive discussion between teachers and students. But what is a flipped classroom, exactly? The flipped classroom inverts the traditional learning experience. Lectures are shared outside of class time for individual review as homework, and classroom time is reserved for class discussion and interactive projects.

Four Inquiry Qualities At The Heart of Student-Centered Teaching One powerful example of students taking on a different role in the classroom happens when teachers use the United Nations Global Goals for Sustainable Development as a framework for inquiry. Students explore their passions, interests, and curiosities based on the 17 U.N. goals, identifying learning objectives connected to a particular goal where they’d like to focus. Teachers then co-design standards with learners, standards with language such as gaining a deeper understanding of "x" or inspiring an audience to “do y.” Students achieve a more genuine ownership over their learning as they grapple with these authentic problems -- ones that have troubled global leaders for decades. In these spaces students take on more of the heavy lifting of learning as they are actively involved in the construction of understanding.

Anti-Transcendentalist Called "America's Shakespeare," Edgar Allan Poe created or mastered the short story, detective fiction, science fiction, lyric poetry and the horror story. His dark genius has invited children and adults to read and love literature for over 150 years. The Tell-Tale Heart Producer Brian Freeston.