10 Team-Building Games That Promote Collaborative Critical Thinking One of education’s primary goals is to groom the next generation of little humans to succeed in the “real world.” Yes, there are mounds of curricula they must master in a wide breadth of subjects, but education does not begin and end with a textbook or test. Other skills must be honed, too, not the least of which is how to get along with their peers and work well with others. This is not something that can be cultivated through rote memorization or with strategically placed posters. Students must be engaged and cooperation must be practiced, and often. 10 Team-Building Games That Promote Collaborative Critical Thinking 1. This team-building game is flexible. You can recycle this activity throughout the year by adapting the challenge or materials to specific content areas. Skills: Communication; problem-solving 2. This activity can get messy and may be suitable for older children who can follow safety guidelines when working with raw eggs. Skills: Problem-solving, creative collaboration 3.
Deeper Learning: Why Cross-Curricular Teaching is Essential It is time that teachers and administrators realize that public education has reached a dam in the river. We have gone about as far as we can go with isolated instruction and learning. While it may have served the purpose for the older generations, it does not meet the deeper learning needs of students today and tomorrow. Fortunately, deeper learning can be accelerated by consolidating teacher efforts and combining relevant contents, in effect, opening new spillways of knowledge. Deep learning is like taking a long drought from a well of knowledge as opposed to only sipping from many different wells. Requirements Undaunted, educators are committed to providing students full access to the well of deep-learning knowledge that will unlock their potential. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Cross-Curricular Teams Teachers must take the first stroke and swim across the hall and start a collaboration with another teacher from a different department. Aligned Cooperative Conceptual Aligned Collaboration
Blending in K-12: How Teachers are Using Technology to Change the Classroom In September 2015, the Research and Education group at Instructure released the “Blending in K-12: How Teachers are Using Technology to Change the Classroom” infographic. The report shows how important mobile technology has become in K-12, especially for use during class time. You might think the LMS is primarily for flipped classrooms or learning outside of school, but the vast majority of Canvas usage still happens during the school day in face-to-face classrooms.Teachers are successfully using mobile technology inside their physical classrooms, citing the freedom it gives them to move around and individualize instruction for students. To read the infographic in full, click here or on the image below. Jared Stein Jared has worked in online, blended, and technology-enhanced education for over a decade. Website
Evaluar por competencias con Google Apps No cabe la menor duda que hacer las cosas de forma diferente a cómo lo hemos estado haciendo durante mucho tiempo supone un esfuerzo. Los tiempos han cambiado y hay que dar paso a las metodologías docentes activas para mejorar el proceso de aprendizaje de nuestros alumnos. En la implantación de estas nuevas metodologías, el proceso de evaluación pasa a jugar un papel muy importante: ya no sólo evaluamos conocimientos, evaluamos también competencias; y el fin de la evaluación no es el de "clasificar" a nuestros alumnos sino el de guiarles en el aprendizaje, medir su evolución y sobre todos enseñarles a "aprender a aprender" apoyándonos en los procesos de autoevaluación y coevaluación. Sin duda el tema da mucho de qué hablar y seguiremos insistiendo en próximos post. En esta ocasión os vamos a hablar de las dianas de evaluación y de cómo podemos trabajarlas con Google Apps. Sin duda, otro paso más para abordar metodologías docentes activas en el aula apoyándonos en las TIC.
Critical Thinking Abilities Weak versus Strong Critical Thinking Critical thinking involves basic intellectual skills, but these skills can be used to serve two incompatible ends: self-centeredness or fair-mindedness. As we develop the basic intellectual skills that critical thinking entails, we can begin to use those skills in a selfish or in a fair-minded way. In other words, we can develop in such a way that we learn to see mistakes in our own thinking, as well as the thinking of others. Or we can merely develop some proficiency in making our opponent's thinking look bad. Typically, people see mistakes in other's thinking without being able to credit the strengths in those opposing views. We call these thinkers weak-sense critical thinkers. Another traditional name for the weak-sense thinker is found in the word sophist. Sophistic thinkers succeed only if they do not come up against what we call strong-sense critical thinkers. Perhaps even more important, strong-sense critical thinkers strive to be fair-minded.
Framework - Authentic Task Design 10 design elements are suggested for the design of authentic tasks in web-based learning environments: Authentic tasks have real-world relevance Activities match as nearly as possible the real-world tasks of professionals in practice rather than decontextualised or classroom-based tasks. Authentic tasks are ill-defined, requiring students to define the tasks and sub-tasks needed to complete the activity Problems inherent in the tasks are ill-defined and open to multiple interpretations rather than easily solved by the application of existing algorithms. Learners must identify their own unique tasks and sub-tasks in order to complete the major task.
Are Apps Becoming the New Worksheet? This post originally appeared on Educating Modern Learners. My seven-year-old daughter loves school. She will line up her stuffed animals in rows and “teach” them for hours on end. When she got a special new doll for her birthday named Isabelle, my daughter took it upon herself to catch her new addition up on all that she had missed by not being in our possession until this past birthday. One particular evening when she should have been sleeping, I was brought into my daughter’s room by the sounds of her uncontrollable sobs. My daughter may one day grow up to be a teacher. Enter Technology Much of ed-tech today seeks to recreate the same old school activities: the worksheet, the lecture, the multiple-choice test This same daughter has always had a special affinity for learning apps, first on my iPhone and then on the family iPad. Her brother, who is two years younger than his sister and only about to start school in the fall, has never, ever shown any interest in learning apps.
Resources for Assessment in Project-Based Learning | Edutopia Project-based learning (PBL) demands excellent assessment practices to ensure that all learners are supported in the learning process. With good assessment practices, PBL can create a culture of excellence for all students. We’ve compiled some of the best resources from Edutopia and the web to support your use of assessment in PBL, including information about strategies, advice on how to address the demands of standardized tests, and summaries of the research. Best Practices for PBL Assessment Assessment in Project-Based Learning (Buck Institute for Education, 2014) In this recorded Google hangout, BIE’s John Larmer and a panel of educators address the driving question, "How can we effectively assess student learning in PBL?" Back to Top PBL and Standardized Tests Research on PBL Assessment Additional Resources We hope these resources will help you ensure that students learn both significant content and 21st-century skills through projects.
Games and your brain: how to use gamification to stop procrastinating 1.4K Flares Filament.io 1.4K Flares × It is Thursday afternoon. Hump day. The one thing you wished to accomplish today remains unaccomplished, sitting there as a painful reminder of your failure, goading you to check Tumblr just one more time. And there’s your answer! Turning repetitive tasks into games is the secret sauce to getting things done. Where did gamification come from in the first place? The idea behind gamification—challenge, motivation, reward— have been present in video games from the start, and it was gaming’s growth from niche to mainstream in the 2000s that helped push game mechanics into new industries and fields. The spark for the gamification boom is often traced to technology apps like Foursquare, which popularized ubiquitous badges for highly engaged users, and social games like Zynga’s FarmVille, which achieved huge commercial success on Facebook with its infinite reward system. Why our brains are so attracted to playing games Endorphins power our love for games 1.)
Authentic Tasks Authentic Tasks Characteristics of Authentic Tasks Types of Authentic Tasks Authentic Task: An assignment given to students designed to assess their ability to apply standard-driven knowledge and skills to real-world challenges In other words, a task we ask students to perform is considered authentic when 1) students are asked to construct their own responses rather than select from ones presented and 2) the task replicates challenges faced in the real world. If I were teaching you how to play golf, I would not determine whether you had met my standards by giving you a multiple-choice test. However, these tasks are not just assessments. Another way that authentic assessment is commonly distinguished from traditional assessment is in terms of their defining attributes. Traditional ------------------------------------------- Authentic Selecting a Response ----------------------------------- Performing a Task Contrived -------------------------------------------------------------- Real-life