If I Die: Facebook App Lets You Leave Sweet Last Words Facebook profiles don't die the same way people do. If I Die is a Facebook app that makes sure, even if you die, your social self can still send out your last wishes and post messages to your friends years after you're gone. If I Die lets "you" post a final message to your wall and loved one when you're dead. After installing the app, you choose three "trustees" (Facebook friends) who are charged with verifying your death. It might be a little morbid to start recording farewell messages, but Wilook, the Israel-based company behind the app, built the app because nobody really knows when death will come: "We all have things to say and don't necessarily have the audience with the patience to hear us," says Eran Alfonta, the app's co-founder and CEO. Alfonta got the idea when two of his married friends traveled to Italy without their children and narrowly escaped a fatal car crash with a truck. People have been leaving posthumous messages for a long time. Would you record a message?
Strategies for Helping Students Motivate Themselves Editor's Note: This piece was adapted from Building a Community of Self-Motivated Learners: Strategies to Help Students Thrive in School and Beyond by Larry Ferlazzo, available March 21, 2015 from Routledge. My previous post reviewed research on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and described the four qualities that have been identified as critical to helping students motivate themselves: autonomy, competence, relatedness, and relevance. In this post, I'll discuss practical classroom strategies to reinforce each of these four qualities. Autonomy Providing students with freedom of choice is one strategy for promoting learner autonomy. Some researchers, however, believe that a third option, cognitive choice, is a more effective way to promote longer-lasting student autonomy. Competence Feedback, done well, is ranked by education researcher John Hattie as number 10 out of 150 influences on student achievement. But how do you handle providing critical feedback to students when it's necessary?
Student Engagement Strategies: Get and Keep Students on Task Keeping students on task is the primary challenge for any teacher. If your high school or middle school students are doing what they should be doing, then you do not have any management problems. Getting Students on Task Classroom procedures and routines are essential for getting students on task. Once students enter the classroom, they should follow a routine up until they are dismissed from class. Routines are created by procedures. Keeping Students on Task Having lessons that students actually want to learn will be your main tool for keeping students on task. Differentiated Learning Every student is different. Differentiation is not only having multiple learning modalities in one lesson, it is using many lessons that concentrate on different learning modalities. Lesson Plans Inc. strives to create great curriculum.
Tools for Teaching: How to Transform Direct Instruction Summer is the time to look over those unit plans. As you reflect and rethink lessons, here's something to consider: How can you turn direct instruction into experiences where students instead discover? We all know that designing learning activities takes time and brainpower -- both often limited during the mad rush of the school year. For new teachers, I'd like to help you get started: Let's first take this direct instruction on the topic of imagery: The teacher begins by presenting students with a definition for imagery and gives an example of it. Now, let's transform that scenario into a lesson of student-centered discovery: First step: The teacher dramatically reads aloud a short story, asking students that whenever they can picture something -- see an image in their minds -- put a star by those words. Second step: Then, students partner up and draw a picture to go with each star they have in common. Rationale I taught high school students and used this very lesson. I hear and I forget.
Skolcoacherna The Best Student Engagement Strategies Explained - Paired Response When it comes to teaching, there are really two secrets - relationship and engagement. When it comes to relationship, the recipe is very simple - care about the students and remember that "it is not about you". Student Engagement, on the other hand, is much more challenging. There are some tips and tricks to student engagement, and one of those is the concept of "Paired Response." What is it? What does that look like? What are the steps? Assign partners -Have students paired up in advance to save on time, considering different pairings for different purposes. Peer work shows gains for all students, but it's essential for English language learners and is especially beneficial for these groups as well: Students in grades 1-3 Inner-city settings Low SES Minority students What are the crucial points?
How Student Centered Is Your Classroom? In the education world, the term student-centered classroom is one we hear a lot. And many educators would agree that when it comes to 21st-century learning, having a student-centered classroom is certainly a best practice. Whether you instruct first grade or university students, take some time to think about where you are with creating a learning space where your students have ample voice, engage frequently with each other, and are given opportunities to make choices. Guiding Questions Use these questions to reflect on the learning environment you design for students: In what ways do students feel respected, feel valued, and feel part of the whole group? Balancing Teacher Roles So let's talk about that last question, and specifically, direct instruction versus facilitation. Facilitation: open-ended questioning, problem posing, Socratic seminar, and guided inquiry Direct instruction: demonstration, modeling, and lecturing Coaching: providing feedback, conferencing, and guided practice
”Ta in en coach – och släpp kontrollbehovet” De är båda lärare i botten, men för ett antal år sedan upplevde de att de kört fast i sin lärarroll. Grundskoleläraren Anna-Karin Arenius kände sig ensam i klassrummet och hade svårt att sätta upp egna mål för sin undervisning. Gymnasieläraren Helena Isakson ville bli bättre på att stötta sina elever att nå målen. Deras lösning blev en coachutbildning. – Många ekonomiska ämnen handlar om entreprenörskap och här kände jag att jag saknade något som lärare. Jag hade ett kontrollbehov och behövde lära mig att släppa taget och förlita mig på att eleverna kan hitta sina egna lösningar och svar, säger Helena Isakson, som tidigare var biträdande rektor och gymnasielärare i ekonomiska ämnen. Nu driver de tillsammans Skolcoacherna, som ansvarar för individuell coachning i Skolverkets treårsprojekt ”Handledning för lärande”. – Det övergripande målet för coachning är alltid högre elevresultat, men det går att använda till så mycket i skolan. Hur hjälper ni dem som tappat lusten? Källa: Skolcoacherna
Simple Student Engagement Strategies - Mr. Guymon's Classroom "I love seeing blank stares from my students after posing a question about what we are learning," said no teacher ever. Still, we have all been there. While many students sit like logs, waiting for someone to act on them, equally discouraging are the hogs, those four or five students who always have their hand up. I'm not immune to the situation, bet here are three strategies that I use in my classroom that help to engage all students in discussions that you might consider using too. House of Cards When students walk into my classroom, I'm always at the door to greet them. "Do I have any 7s?" I have students leave their card face up on their desk so that I know that none of them are trying to go under the radar. Hollywood Mingle Movement is a great way to get students participating. If students are growing restless, or I simply want to shake things up, I'll tell them that we are going to have a "Hollywood Mingle" to discuss this next concept or question. Pirates! Poker Face
The Qualitative Formative Assessment Toolkit: Document Learning with Mobile Technology What is qualitative formative assessment? Some call it anecdotal or informal assessment. However, such designations imply passivity -- as if certain things were captured accidentally. I believe the word "formative" should always be included with the word assessment because all feedback mechanisms should help shape and improve the person (or situation) being assessed. For my purposes, qualitative formative assessment is the ongoing awareness, understanding, and support of learning that is difficult or impossible to quantify. Carly Schuler stated that the learner needs to be mobile, not the technology. These approaches form the Qualitative Formative Assessment Toolkit (QFAT). 1. Cameras are powerful tools for capturing moments and documenting learning. 2. Learners spend time using technology as part of their learning, but not all software or applications have a "save" button, especially in moments that may be more interesting than a final export. 3. A Quick Hands-On Break Let's practice.
Inre motivation positiv för elevers utveckling och lärande: Venue: Lärarutbildning: Linköpings universitet Tomas Jungert, Linköpings universitet Har yttre belöningar (exempelvis guldstjärnor i kanten av skrivboken) en negativ inverkan på elevers inre motivation? Minskar intresset för människor att engagera sig i eller prestera väl i en uppgift när yttre belöningar erbjuds? Flera meta-analyser har visat att så är fallet. n av de mest utmanande och kritiska uppgifterna i undervisningssituationer är att motivera elever. Yttre motivation är instrumentell till sin natur och refererar till att elever engagerar sig i en skoluppgift på grund av yttre krav eller för att nå ett yttre resultat, såsom ett högt betyg eller att undvika hot om att bli bestraffad, exempelvis att få underkänt. Self-determination theory (SDT) är en teori som såväl teoretiskt som praktiskt belyser hur lärare kan stödja elever för att öka deras inre motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000). Inre motivation Olika grader av motivation Internalisering och grundläggande behov Att tillgodose de grundläggande behoven Avslutningsvis Referenser
26 Keys to Student Engagement My Joyful Jubilant Learning, colleague, David Zinger recently started an Employee Engagement alphabet. Engagement is such a hot topic in education, I thought this was a great idea for educators to follow the lead. So, here it goes: 26 Keys to Student Engagement. Authenticity: We hear it all the time, "Why do we need to know this stuff? Brain: The brain is intimately involved in and connected with everything educators and students do at school. Collaborative: Collaborating with others in solving problems or mastering difficult materials prepares students to deal with the messy, unscripted problems they will encounter in life. Disengagement: Students are sometimes labeled as lazy, unmotivated, off-task, and disrespectful. Environment: Just as architects create the environments in which we live and work, we teachers create the place and space that become home to learning. Feedback: Feedback is a powerful force. Motivation Motivation is essential to learning at all ages. You.
Make It Count: Providing Feedback as Formative Assessment Providing students with feedback on written work can, at times, feel like a burden. Dozens (perhaps even hundreds) of papers clutter your desk, and commenting on each is nearly impossible. Still, we know, both from our experiences and from research, that feedback is essential. John Hattie, Professor of Education and Director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia, believes that feedback must be timely, relevant, and action-oriented. The good news, according to Hattie, is that "students want feedback just for them, just in time, and just helping nudge forward." To that end, he encourages us to "worry more about how students are receiving your feedback . . . than increasing how much you give." So how can we provide this kind of feedback -- the kind that students actually listen to, understand, and use -- in a timely manner? Feedback as Formative Assessment Feedback in Action The tools available for providing feedback continue to multiply.
Läraren är ingen trollkarl I samhället finns en tilltagande anda att personer med någon form av makt finns till för åtgärda livets friktion. Journalistiken, politiken och den offentliga diskursen opererar helt utifrån denna föreställning. Det har lett till många humana reformer, men i skoldebatten blir en sådan instinkt närmast vilseledande, eftersom det inte går att ställa någon till svars för hur hjärnans kognitiva funktioner är beskaffade. Jag gick in på OECD:s hemsida och gjorde matematikövningarna från Pisatestet. Var och en inser att snickaren blir skickligare endast av att snickra med sina egna händer, att mästaren förevisar och instruerar gesällen, men han snickrar inte åt honom. Så komplicerat kan det inte vara. All kunskap och inlärning är praktisk. Det gör förstås läroböckernas kvalitet avgörande. Det är böckerna man till sist måste ner i om man ska lära sig något teoretiskt. Att människor har rätt till kunskap betyder att ingen har rätt att hindra någon från att studera.