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Deeper Learning: Performance Assessment and Authentic Audience

Deeper Learning: Performance Assessment and Authentic Audience
In a conversation with a veteran educator -- a man with years of experience teaching English and acting as a headmaster -- I was confronted with a prejudice so ingrained in my teaching that I was almost embarrassed to admit it. He said, "You know, when I ask a student to write a paper and turn it in to me, that's ridiculous; I'm the worst audience they could have." I was intrigued. He went on, "Who am I to assume that someone will want to write their best work, something truly personal and creative, for me? That hit me like a rolled-up newspaper. As I absorbed this veteran educator’s words, I realized that not only was I wrong in my assumption that I (or any teacher) is a meanigful audience, but also that my assumptions about how grading and assessment work were so far removed from modern research that I might as well have been a 21st-century doctor treating humours. Fortunately, there are many approaches we can take within our own classrooms to change this situation. This matters. 1. 2. Related:  lebromeoprofession

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

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.

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

Eight Ways of Looking at Intelligence Big Ideas In “Thirteen Ways of Looking At A Blackbird,” poet Wallace Stevens takes something familiar—an ordinary black bird—and by looking at it from many different perspectives, makes us think about it in new ways. With apologies to Stevens, we’re going to take the same premise, but change the subject by considering eight ways of looking at intelligence—eight perspectives provided by the science of learning. A few words about that term: The science of learning is a relatively new discipline born of an agglomeration of fields: cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, neuroscience. As with anything to do with our idiosyncratic and unpredictable species, there is still a lot of art involved in teaching and learning. 1. Situations can be internal or external. Situational intelligence, in other words, is the only kind of intelligence there is—because we are always doing our thinking in a particular situation, with a particular brain in a particular body. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Related

Tips for Online Forum Discussion Summaries Photo by Flnz Ask an online tutor what they like most about their job, and be prepared for a lengthy answer. They will probably wax lyrical about things like having contact with people from all over the world. The chance to share and learn alongside a great range of individuals. Ask your online tutor what they like least about the job, and you invariably get the same two-word answer: forum summaries! We all know that providing summaries of often complex and lengthy forum discussions on an online academic course is a Good Thing. a forum summary does just that — it summarises. Of course the downside of forum summaries is that they can be very time consuming to produce. Here are a few tips to help you with forum summaries: Tip 1: Do it! Make sure you summarise all discussions. Tip 2: Use students’ names If you’re going to name some contributors (e.g. Tip 3: Don’t use students’ names Or rather, don’t always use students’ names in summaries. Tip 4: Be there Tip 5: Don’t skive

How to Implement Deep Learning Characteristics in the Classroom | The Educato... Deep learning is the foundation on which I instruct my students; whether it is through the use of practical thinking skills, human dimension activities, and/or data gathering. There are other deep learning characteristics I implement daily, but these are most commonly used in my classroom. These strategies help to... Deep learning is the foundation on which I instruct my students; whether it is through the use of practical thinking skills, human dimension activities, and/or data gathering. Engaging students actively in their own learning, and encouraging understanding of presented materials, should be the main goal of all educators. Practical thinking skills are an essential part of my lesson planning. Human dimension activities also play an essential role in my lesson planning. Data gathering is incredibly significant to the way I plan my lessons. As you can see, deep learning is pivotal to successful teaching and learning in my classroom. Like this: Like Loading...

Six favourite teaching online activities A guest post from Lindsay Clandfield. Lindsay is a well-known ELT author, teacher and teacher trainer, and a person who never seems to run out of original and inspiring ideas! I’ve been lucky enough to work with him on a variety of projects over the years. He was one the first online moderators on our The Consultants-E online courses, and set the standards very high indeed. Below he shares more of his great ideas, this time for online teaching activities. You can check out my own guest post of six favourite teaching online activities on Lindsay’s blog! Photo by Flnz To celebrate the launch of our new book, Teaching Online (published by Delta Publishing), Nicky and I decided to invite each other for a guest post on our respective blogs. The following then, are my favourite six activities that I use regularly when teaching online courses. 1 My window, my world This is a getting-to-know-you activity. It’s a great way to get a window into what the other people on your course are like.

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