10 Important Skills Students need for the Future
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. Content is important to a point. I learned many of these skills in college because even 20 years ago, my school, WPI, understood these ideas. Research by the Institute for the Future released in a report entitled “Future Work Skills 2020″ shows that preparing for a specific career area based on content is difficult and, instead, people should be developing certain broad skills. Here are the skills: Sense-making. Social intelligence. Novel and adaptive thinking. Cross-cultural competency. Computational thinking. New-media literacy. Transdisciplinarity. Cognitive load management. Virtual collaboration. A summary map of the skills:
Born to Learn ~ You are Born to Learn
The Learning Lab
Khan Academy: Out of the Screen, Into the Physical World
Culture Teaching Strategies 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. But the videos are just the beginning. “One of the things I hope these kids will have is a more visceral, ingrained, intuitive sense of analytical thinking about world around them than even most adults do.” Far from just watching videos, kids at the We Teach Science camp got their hands on a slew of math, science, and engineering projects. They played a “paranoia” version of the game Risk to understand the theory of probabilities using Monopoly money, where kids trade securities based on the outcome of the game. They orchestrated a crowd-sourcing project to test the wisdom of the crowds by posting a one-day online photo contest that drew more than 1,000 participants. Related
Teacher Evaluation – Let’s Just Forget It!
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. Instead, we need to spend more time looking at environments where innovative thinking and creativity are fostered. photo via academyofstgeorge.org/ 460 views, 1 today
allthingslearning
A couple of weeks ago we started a “series” based on the work of those lovely chaps at the 21st 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. It’s important to note that these are not optional skills for our students, or for us. They must be cultivated by every teacher in every subject, and at every grade level. Solution Fluency Information Fluency Creativity Fluency Media Fluency Collaboration Fluency Global Digital Citizen Like this:
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.
Barefoot In the head
New York schools enter the iZone
26 October 2011Last updated at 00:34 By Sean Coughlan BBC News education correspondent Uncertain horizons: New York's economic fortunes are now linked to education After the iPhone and the iPad, the iZone is a different kind of design experiment. It's New York's attempt to reinvent an inner-city school. The iZone project - or Innovation Zone - is challenging state schools in New York City to rip up the rule book. They're being told to find new ways to provide a more individualised education, to change the shape of the school day, explore what technology can offer and even ask whether pupils need to be in school at all. "The challenge we face is nothing less than transforming our schools from assembly-line factories into centres of innovation," said the city's mayor, Michael Bloomberg, who warns that the US school system is falling behind international rivals. If the state schools are not improved, the fear is that the city will be entering the twilight zone rather than the iZone. Global cities
22 Mind-Blowing Infographics on Education | Socrato Learning Analytics Blog
Data is extremely valuable for all of us in the education industry; we”ve got to consume a lot of it to make valuable decisions for our students and schools. However, when you spend too much time with your nose in your computer, e-reader or a book, it”s easy to forget what information looks like. That”s why I took the time to put together a list of amazing, tantalizingly visual infographics meant to titillate your mind and engage your visual synapses. There are 22 mind-blowing infographics on education below. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. Did we miss any of your favorite educational infographics? Free e-Book: 5 Tips to Improve Your Reporting for Standardized Test Reporting Download this eBook from Socrato to learn how to optimize and improve your reports to help students improve their scores on standardize tests such as the SAT, ACT, LSAT or others. Download the eBook >>
Khan Academy
Youtube 4 Teachers
VIDEO IS THE NEW PEN! (…and it’s mightier too!) The thought makes many people think the world has ended but for 21st Century kids, videoing their thoughts and creations and experiences and then publishing it to the world is as easy as picking up a pen. MANAGING THE NEW PEN’S SCRIBBLINGS (How to manage all the video) The new issue that everyone in education is how to manage and share all this video content. Recorded by their iPadsRecorded by Student iPads (Teacher Logs-in, uploads, logs-out)Explain Everything (App) whiteboard lessonsVideo tutorials for practical tasksYoutube videos discovered on Youtube itself and added to course “Playlists” This allows the teachers to manage all the videos from one place. Like this: Like Loading...
