The Montessori Method: An Education For Creating Innovators Imagine an education system that trained students to be creative innovators and leaders without the use of grades, tests or homework. It actually exists and it’s called the Montessori Method. The Montessori Method focuses on fostering a hands-on, self-paced, collaborative and enjoyable learning experience. It teaches students to start small with their ideas, to build them through experimentation and to solve the problems that come up along the way with a sense of stimulating curiosity. One of the most striking aspects of Montessori education is its similarities with the “fail fast, fail forward” do-it-yourself hacker mentality that has built many of the most innovative companies in Silicon Valley. Even the popular innovation frameworks in the global start-up scene, like agile development and lean startup methodology, share similarities with the experimental process of Montessori learning. 1. Montessori and The Importance of Lifelong Learning Want to learn more about the Montessori Method?
Tie-Dye Looking T-Shirts This was a big hit today in my afterschool class today – a pseudo tie dying project but without all the unsafe ingredients. My sample had just a couple of circles on it, but these creative students filled their shirts with lots of color, I love it!! 1. I found cheap white t-shirts at my local Dollar Tree store. Each student started by a placing small baby food jar inside their shirt, and stretching a small rubber band around the top. 2. 3. Thanks to Athena and Hannah for letting me share their beautiful designs. The Three New Pillars of 21st Century Learning The textbook, The lecturer and the classroom are three pillars of modern-day schooling that date back hundreds of years. Each was invented to solve a problem. The textbook was invented because information was scarce, the lecturer because teachers were few and the classroom because learning was local. There’s just one catch – these problems don’t exist anymore. To put it simply – we need new pillars for learning. Pillar #1: “I’m only one of my students’ teachers, but I’m the most important because I teach them to connect to all the others.” This is perhaps the most fundamental shift in our assumptions – how we envision the role of the teacher in the classroom. Pillar #2: “My students should learn from me how to learn without me.” Being a lifelong learner is in the mission statement of most schools, but this goal has never been more attainable than it is today. Pillar #3: “My students’ knowledge lies not only in their minds but in their networks.”
SMART Goal Setting: A Surefire Way To Achieve Your Goals I encourage you to pick up a pen and a piece of paper and jot down the goals you want to reach. Look at each goal and evaluate it. Make any changes necessary to ensure it meets the criteria for a SMART goals: S = SpecificM = MeasurableA = AttainableR = RealisticT = Timely Specific Goals should be straightforward and emphasize what you want to happen. Specific is the What, Why, and How of the SMART model. WHAT are you going to do? Ensure the goals you set is very specific, clear and easy. Measurable If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Choose a goal with measurable progress, so you can see the change occur. Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. Attainable When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. Goals you set which are too far out of your reach, you probably won’t commit to doing. The feeling of success which this brings helps you to remain motivated.
Problem Solving with Design Thinking with Mary Cantwell "Think of today as a prototype. What would you change?" Tim Brown Session Description: Join us for a conversation about design thinking, a holistic approach to problem-solving. Design Thinking | Could this be (the only) authentic 21st century pedagogy? Design Thinking is a process for practical, creative resolution of problems or issues that looks for an improved future result. To Get Started: Read What is Design Thinking? Encouraging Empathy Then... Additional Ways to Deepen Your Understanding of Design Thinking Videos: Articles + Books: Design Thinking Schools / Programs / Initiatives: Purely for Fun (Yet Very Useful)
7 Tenets of Creative Thinking In school, we learn about geniuses and their ideas, but how did they get those ideas? What are the mental processes, attitudes, work habits, behaviors, and beliefs that enable creative geniuses to view the same things as the rest of us, yet see something different? The following are seven principles that I've learned during my lifetime of work in the field of creative thinking -- things that I wish I'd been taught as a student. 1. Artists are not special, but each of us is a special kind of artist who enters the world as a creative and spontaneous thinker. 2. You must show passion and the determination to immerse yourself in the process of developing new and different ideas. 3. When producing ideas, you replenish neurotransmitters linked to genes that are being turned on and off in response to challenges. 4. Your brain is a dynamic system that evolves patterns of activity, rather than simply processing them like a computer. 5. Aristotle believed that things were either "A" or "not A."
AccessArt: Visual Arts Teaching, Learning & Practice The Principalship:The Changing Role of the Technology Director Like many educators in my current position—school technology directors, chief technology officers, or others who have responsibility for all things that plug in, use batteries, beep, or depend on a digital network—I never imagined this as a job when I was growing up. My high school guidance counselor in 1970 did not suggest this as a career choice because such a job did not exist then. Even when I was hired by my current school district in 1991, my title was "audiovisual director," and I replaced a fellow whose primary tasks were silk-screening school logos on record players, developing black-and-white film, stocking overhead projector lamps, and supervising the guy who fixed 16mm film projectors. Although my previous experience in education was as an English teacher and librarian, my same-age peers have come to technology leadership positions through a number of pathways, with math and science teaching being the most common. Evolving Challenges Forget about IT as you know it today.
8 Tips and Tricks to Redesign Your Classroom Remake Your Class is a 3-part video series that covers how one educator transformed his classroom with the help of his students, some community volunteers, and design experts. Editor's Note: Author David Bill is a designer and educator who consulted with The Third Teacher+ on the Remake Your Class project highlighted in the videos below. The tips in this post go along with the companion video. We are excited by the simplicity (and low price tag!) of this great redesign. Hope you'll share any of your own tips in the comments area below. If you're thinking of completing your own classroom remake project, good for you. The tips below can be used for smaller scale remakes right way. Whether you are looking to reorganize one corner or redesign the entire room, here are eight tips that may help you throughout the process. 1. Students are your primary users and should be at the center of such a remake process. Create Visual Inspiration Students Define Pain Points 10x10x10 Student Helpers 2. 3. 4.
Going Deep: STEM in the Connected Classroom “Everybody in this room understands that our nation’s success depends on strengthening America’s role as the world’s engine of discovery and innovation. And that leadership tomorrow depends on how we educate our students today—especially in science, technology, engineering, and math.” – President Obama to a gathering of CEOs, scientists, teachers, and others. September 16, 2010 My timing is impeccable! I’d have to confess though that this attention also worries me. If any of this sounds familiar, it’s the same approach and attitude that led to technology getting a shady reputation in education. STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) is not a separate subject, and you don’t “do” STEM just by doing any one of its pieces. STEM demands that we teach lessons and pursue projects that connect all the subjects represented in its acronym. The STEM connection A STEM unit often starts off with a science activity that introduces the concept and leads to the initial research.
Qu’est-ce qu’il faut que je change pour faire apprendre en 2016 Une chose certaine c’est que le changement est là pour rester. Le monde de l’enseignement et de l’apprentissage est un monde en constant changement. Apprendre c’est changer. Henri Boudreault publie son site : La nouvelle variable à considérer, qui a souvent été négligée dans le but d’éviter le changement, c’est la diversité. En formation professionnelle il y a une diversité d’apprenants qui ont une diversité d’objets de formation à apprendre, ce qui devrait initier une diversité de méthodes et de modalités de formation à mettre en oeuvre. Si l’on veut réellement changer, voici ce qu’il faut considérer : La diversité des apprenants : La diversité des objets de formation : La diversité des méthodes La diversité des facteurs qui favorisent l’apprendre; La diversité des potentiels ; La diversité des théories de l’apprentissage; La diversité des représentations; La diversité des relations d’enseignement; An@é