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From Management to Engagement

From Management to Engagement
As educators, we are always looking for management strategies to try in the classroom. Note I said "strategies" -- not "solutions." Many Edutopia bloggers have written about strategies and ideas for classroom management. I've also written a blog on PBL management strategies, but many of those same strategies can be used in non-PBL contexts. When picking strategies, we have to know that because they are strategies, some may not work. However, there is a larger, more important issue to consider before venturing into management strategies to solve a problem in the classroom: engagement! It is crucial to focus on engagement rather than management. Here, Pink is talking about the three things that are needed for engagement, but they still hold true when we think about our classrooms and what we are asking of our students. Autonomy If you want your students to be engaged, facilitate self-directed activities and learning models. Mastery Our students like getting better at stuff. Purpose

I Let Them Fail. I let my students fail. I actually walk away and allow it to happen. I don’t intervene. I don’t just try to make it easy. Because when I let them fail, they engage. Why Standardized Tests Don't Make Sense The 90-Second History Of Education 9.81K Views 0 Likes Well here's an insanely detailed infographic to peruse. It's the history of education and details the past, present, and future. 5 Hallmarks of a Creative Project Why is it that we definitely know a creative project when we see it, but we are hesitant to assess creativity, fearing that it is too squishy or subjective? Creative projects are the tangible products of creative behavior and creative thinking. If we want students to produce creative works, we need to structure student work so that the outcome is a natural result of these behaviors. A project is creative when it: 1. A project that answers a question with an obvious right answer doesn’t leave much room for creative thinking. We are probably all familiar with the concept of essential questions, questions “that pose dilemmas, subvert obvious or canonical truths, or force incongruities upon our attention.” Read more about Bloom’s and creative project work here. Most importantly, questions must be meaningful. 2. There is no shortage of research that shows that creativity does not thrive in competition. 3. That’s right. Creative work is deeply original, making it also deeply personal. 4. 5.

Are textbooks an obstacle to learning? SmartBlogs In “We Don’t Need No Stink’n Textbooks,” Tom Whitby convincingly argues that textbooks are as obstructive to learning as they are ubiquitous in American classrooms. He suggests that most teachers’ inability to emerge from their comfort zones — of which textbooks are an essential component — hinders them from utilizing the incomparably better resources available throughout the Internet. Whitby is certainly correct: Textbooks are an obstacle to learning, and teachers rely on them extensively nonetheless. However, moving beyond textbooks requires a more penetrating solution than curating the Internet under the guise of a digital textbook as suggested in the article. The reliance on textbooks runs deeper than habit; it’s a product of intellectual laziness. In other words, we need to elevate the conversation. Textbooks have given several generations of educators a “pass” on confronting the difficult conversations surrounding the big ideas of a classroom.

10 Characteristics Of A Highly Effective Learning Environment 10 Characteristics Of A Highly Effective Learning Environment by Terry Heick For in-person professional development from TeachThought on how to create an effective learning environment in your classroom or school, contact us today. Wherever we are, we’d all like to think our classrooms are “intellectually active” places. The reality is, there is no single answer because teaching and learning are awkward to consider as single events or individual “things.” So we put together one take on the characteristics of a highly effective classroom. 1. This is not a feel-good implication, but really crucial for the whole learning process to work. The role of curiosity has been studied (and perhaps under-studied and under-appreciated), but suffice to say that if a learner enters any learning activity with little to no natural curiosity, prospects for meaningful interaction with texts, media, and specific tasks are bleak. 2. Questions are more important than answers. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

3 Ways to Use Wordle for More Than Fluff The visual word clouds created by Wordle and other word cloud services on the web aren’t anything new, they’ve been around for a few years. However, like a great many newer web 2.0 tools, I quite often see a lot of ineffective use of these tools in the classroom. That’s not to say I think the teachers themselves are ineffective, in fact it’s usually the most tech savvy and educational effective teachers that are using tools like Wordle. However, as even these tech savvy teachers keep up with the changing landscape of educational tools, not enough time is often available to closely examine a new website to carefully dissect what the tool is capable of, and how it might be used most effectively. The most common use I see for a website like Wordle, that allows you to input any text and create a frequency word cloud (see image at beginning of article) is to “creatively” display student’s work out in the hallway on a bulletin board. Visual Data Improving Student Writing

Why Speaking Softly Is An Effective Classroom Management Strategy You don’t always have to make big, dramatic changes to see classroom management improvement. Sometimes it can be a slight adjustment. A small change in the way you do things, in how you speak, move, or relate to students, can make a big difference. Your voice is a good example. Most teachers talk too loud. But it isn’t true. Students tune out teachers who bark commands and instructions. This is why students often grudgingly follow directions or ignore them altogether. To encourage good listening, and a desire to follow directions, a soft-spoken approach is in order. Here’s why: Your students will become still. When you lower your voice, your students will intuitively stop moving so they can hear you. They’ll stop all the annoying behaviors that frustrate you, interrupt your train of thought, and cause you to repeat yourself. Your students will lean in and look at you. It’s best to speak just soft enough that the students in the back of the room have to strain ever so slightly to hear you.

13 Ways to Learn in 2013 Sharebar In The eLearning Coach New Year’s tradition, I’m presenting another list of compelling ways to learn online this year. Opportunities for learning seem limitless, applications get smarter and the content gets richer. I just hope we don’t all evolve into robot heads at some point. Enjoy! 1. This collection of speech collections will thrill speech lovers as well as history buffs. 2. If you don’t have access to a college library you can pay for online access to a journal database, make the trip to your nearest university or try this Directory of Open Access Journals first. 3. Learn to write and design a comic book or graphic novel. 4. Expand your knowledge of current events and other cultures by reading newspapers from around the world. 5. Twitter Chats are scheduled online meetups that take place through Twitter. 6. Google Art Project: Istanbul Museum of Modern Art 7. Fulfill the auditory needs of your brain with SoundCloud. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. Need more ways to learn?

The Art of Facilitating Teacher Teams In my last post I reflected on what makes an effective team of teachers. This is something I've been contemplating a great deal as this year I'm leading a team of instructional coaches. We work with a number of middle schools that are "transforming" and a central element in our theory of action is that leadership and instruction will transform by way of strong, effective, high functioning teams. At these sites, my coaches support the development of grade level teams, department teams, leadership teams, and cross-site teams of teachers and administrators. This fall we've pursued an inquiry around our own coaching and facilitation actions. We're attempting to name the precise moves that we need to take in order to develop strong teams. So what steps do we take to develop strong teams? Domain One: Planning We determined that the first coaching action to break down is how we plan for meetings. This last point is something we think about when considering participation. At the Opening

Teachers' Expectations Can Influence How Students Perform : Shots - Health Blog hide captionTeachers interact differently with students expected to succeed. But they can be trained to change those classroom behaviors. iStockphoto.com Teachers interact differently with students expected to succeed. In my Morning Edition story today, I look at expectations — specifically, how teacher expectations can affect the performance of the children they teach. The first psychologist to systematically study this was a Harvard professor named Robert Rosenthal, who in 1964 did a wonderful experiment at an elementary school south of San Francisco. The idea was to figure out what would happen if teachers were told that certain kids in their class were destined to succeed, so Rosenthal took a normal IQ test and dressed it up as a different test. "It was a standardized IQ test, Flanagan's Test of General Ability," he says. After the kids took the test, he then chose from every class several children totally at random. But just how do expectations influence IQ? Still, people have tried.

15 Conflict Resolution Tips For Educators 10 Ways To Become A Better Online Learner 9.15K Views 0 Likes There are some quick and easy ways to become a better online learner. Whether you're taking a class or just researching, here are the DOs and DON'Ts. 8 Exam-Prep Activities Students Actually Like After Christmas break students will return to school for 8 days of review prior to taking their End of Course Exams. I can give my students a review packet with hundreds of problems, but that would only lead to them giving up, sleeping, and not even trying. So below are 8 fun activities I created to motivate and engage my students in their final exam reviews. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. These are 8 fun review games that is sure to get students motivated to review for their final exams! Visit my blog for printables, instructions, and examples!

How Do We Define and Measure “Deeper Learning”? Big Ideas Culture Teaching Strategies Flickr:Saxtourigr In preparing students for the world outside school, what skills are important to learn? Simply defined, “deeper learning” is the “process of learning for transfer,” meaning it allows a student to take what’s learned in one situation and apply it to another, explained James Pellegrino, one of the authors of the report. To deconstruct the definition of deeper learning further, the researchers came up with what they call three domains of competence: cognitive, intrapersonal and interpersonal. “The kinds of tasks we need to assess take kids more time to enact and more time to score.” These three broad competencies are related to each other, Pellegrino said, and there’s good evidence that shows they can lead to success in not only education, but also in career and health. If deeper learning is the ultimate goal, can it be taught? “Students can’t learn in an absence of feedback,” Pellegrino said. “Collaboration is a skill, not a deficit.”

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