7th Graders Publish Their Own Textbook
Mac Life wrote an article titled Super 7th Graders Publish Their Own eBook to the iBookstore. It explains the project in more detail. "Each student has to choose an organisms they wanted to study and were required to submit their topic for approval. Andrea collected work from 69 students and entered it into iBooks Author. iBooks Author is free but only works on Macs running 10.7 Lion or higher. iBooks Author is a fantastically powerful tool. There are some disadvantages to using iBooks author for crafting your own learning materials. Check out what Andrea and her students say about writing their book. I think the comment by CNEBBY in the Customer Reviews of Creatures, Plants and More sums up the project well: "This is an awesome example of what kids can do when they are properly motivated by a skilled teacher."
10 Things in School That Should Be Obsolete
Flickr: Corey Leopold By Greg Stack So much about how and where kids learn has changed over the years, but the physical structure of schools has not. Looking around most school facilities — even those that aren’t old and crumbling — it’s obvious that so much of it is obsolete today, and yet still in wide use. 1. At Northern Beaches Christian School students learn everywhere. 2. 3. 4. 5. Corridors at Machias Elementary are used for informal learning 6. 7. 8. Learner Centered Classroom at Riverview Elementary School. 9. 10. Greg Stack is an architect for NAC Architecture and specializes in developing best practices for the planning and design of educational environments.
Wheaton High to model project-based learning for Montgomery County schools
This is project-based learning, where educational instruction moves away from a traditional academic setting to an active classroom that encourages collaboration and communication among students. As the Montgomery County Public Schools system plans to replace the Wheaton High School building in Silver Spring, officials aren’t just aiming for physical classroom overhauls. They’re also planning to redesign the curriculum, expanding a project-based learning environment that will resemble adult work settings and real-life situations. It is part of a larger quest to “redefine the school” and prepare students for “21st century education,” Schools Superintendent Joshua P. “Critical competencies for workers now include skills and knowledge acquired beyond a high school education as well as the ability to apply learning, think critically about information, solve novel problems, collaborate, create new products and processes, and adapt to change,” Starr said. School projects aren’t new.
www.inquiryhub.org
A Step-by-Step Guide to the Best Projects
Manor New Technology High School in Manor, Texas, is a 100 percent project-based learning school. They are part of the New Tech Network of schools and their approach has yielded remarkable results, including a 98 percent graduation rate, with all of their graduates accepted to college. The success of their PBL approach is largely attributable to the fact that their process is designed to stimulate student inquiry. Additionally, their process can be applied to any project in any subject, which means there is a consistent approach across grades and subjects at Manor. We followed a sophomore world studies class through a three-week project called Controlling Factors, created by teaching partners Mary Mobley (English) and Michael Chambers (world history). Here is a breakdown of key steps, with some examples from Mobley and Chambers's project: What do you think about this Schools That Work story?
Project-Based Learning Professional Development Guide
An overview of the Edutopia professional development guide for teaching how to use project-based learning in the classroom. Edutopia.org's Project-Based Learning professional development guide can be used for a two- to three-hour session, or expanded for a one- to two-day workshop, and is divided into two parts. Part one is a guided process, designed to give participants a brief introduction to project-based learning (PBL), and answers the questions "Why is PBL important?", "What is PBL about?", and "How does PBL work?" Part two assigns readings and activities for experiential PBL. Students Follow the Butterflies' Migration: Teacher Frances Koontz shows students a symbolic butterfly sent from children in Mexico. The Resources for PBL page includes a PowerPoint presentation (including presenter notes), which can be shown directly from the website or downloaded for use as a stand-alone slide show, and sample session schedules. Continue to the next section of the guide, Why Is PBL Important?
Introducing the Inquiry Hub
Hello & welcome! ...
Hip-Hip Hooray for Summer! Three Tips to Spark Your Learning
When I was a kid, some of the things I enjoyed most about summer were swimming and banana splits! Yes . . . you heard right. Banana splits! They were my fave summer treat for many years, and I will always remember them with great fondness. As this summer has started, I've seen my PLN (personal learning network) sharing great ideas of how to spend the time in fun and frolic! In my opinion, if we decide to do summer learning at all, it should be fun, meaningful and engaging. So today, I offer you three tips on how to do some summer learning and still keep those banana splits coming! 1) Attend Free Webinars Professional Development can take many shapes. 2) Join a Summer Book Club We frequently talk about the importance of summer book clubs for our students, but don't often enough choose to do one for ourselves. 3) Jump into a Month-Long Article Read Last week Doug Rice, a blogging buddy from the business world, shared a post called Small Business Article Reading Schedule.
High Tech High and Networks of Ideas : Mindworkers
Posted on | July 10, 2012 | Comments Off High Tech High and Author Reflected Today I published a long-in-the-works case study of High Tech High, the collection of schools in San Diego County that follow the same design and operating principles. Each of the 11 HTH schools is small, a maximum of 125 students per grade, and personalized. Each of the schools follows a project-based curriculum that requires students to make connections to the adult world, through projects and internships that are critical in helping students set their sights higher and aim toward college. Finally, the schools work around the principle that it is the teacher who designs the curriculum. Like all visitors, I was charmed by the schools: Students having fun while fully engaged in projects. But it was a public policy puzzle that drew me to HTH. Thus far the answer seems to be a loose network of teachers and administrators who are willing to spend the time understanding HTH in some depth. Comments
