Systems Thinking As the Door to Continuous Improvement MISSION: ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is a membership organization that develops programs, products, and services essential to the way educators learn, teach, and lead. 1703 North Beauregard St. Alexandria, VA 22311-1714 Tel : 1-800-933-ASCD (2723) Fax : 1-703-575-5400 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. EST Monday through Friday Local to the D.C. area: 703-578-9600, press 1 Toll-free from the U.S. and Canada: 1-800-933-ASCD (2723), press 1 All other countries (International Access Code): +1-703-578-9600, press 1 ASCD recognizes and respects intellectual property rights and adheres to copyright law. Chapter 2. Each school is a complex living system with purpose. Every staff member must be regarded as a trusted colleague in the examination of assumptions and habitual practices. Whether the system is incompetent or competent depends on how it is understood by key stakeholders. The school as a system of interlocking and interacting elements
Cyberprofs Weekend Reading: Reinvention Edition Two years ago, there was a big push on my campus to adopt a new class schedule, one that regularized the start time of evening classes and created a new Monday-Wednesday option for courses. The totally predictable wholly unforeseeable effect, as I’ve noted before, was to depopulate MWF (or just F) classes. It turns out that if students have the option to build their schedule around a shorter week, many of them will do so. Yesterday’s big push on campus is, of course, to “offer more Friday classes in the fall.” Can it be spring break yet? Here are this week’s links: Craig Mod, a former designer at Flipboard, discusses “How We Will Read”: I find I struggle with other “social” reading applications because they require excessive amount of work to get the books into their system. In this week’s video, Jason Priem discusses altmetrics, total impact, and the decoupled journal: Have a great weekend! Photo “Four Mile Lake Winter Trail” by Flickr user ex_magician / Creative Commons licensed BY-2.0
Khan Academy Carrefour éducation Vous faites partie de ces futurs suppléants? Inutile d’avoir des sueurs froides, il est possible d’être bien préparé pour la suppléance et de faire bonne figure auprès des élèves et des employeurs. Pour ce faire, suivez ce guide qui vous permettra d’utiliser les nombreuses ressources d’Internet afin de dénicher du boulot, de gérer la discipline et d’avoir à votre portée une quantité d’activités simples mais éducatives. Les derniers mois de l’année scolaire constituent une période fructueuse pour les suppléants. Prenez grand soin de la présentation de votre dossier. Vous vous sentez prêt à vous faire connaître auprès des employeurs? De plus, les futurs enseignants qui étudient la possibilité d’aller travailler ailleurs au Canada auront tout intérêt à s’inscrire, gratuitement, sur le site Éducation Canada. C’est parti! Ca y est, vous faites maintenant partie de la liste des suppléants d’une commission scolaire. La gestion de classe, tout un défi! Un peu de tout! Suppléance d’abord *
How I make time for social, networked learning « Connecting the dots Stressed out? Overloaded with information? Never enough time in the day? I choose to spend a fair chunk of my day wandering like a knowmad through the events and artifacts of #change11, #ds106 and #cck12. Creativity through connectivity Although I am a learning ‘designer’ in the public sector, I don’t think of myself as overly creative or artistic. I find that connective learning repeatedly triggers serendipity that draws me back day after day: that delightful unearthing of little gems of insight that I likely wouldn’t have been exposed to by other means. Now that I’ve chosen to experiment with HootSuite and Diigo and live Twitter events such as #lrnchat, I find it hard to remember a time without these tools. Being a fairly organized person, I started putting up sandbanks against the information flood long before I’d ever heard about social media. Taming the email beast I send and receive about 50 emails a day but I keep my inbox and sent folder to a dozen items or less. Focus!
The Teacher Residency Question (This post also appears at Rick Hess Straight Up.) I’ve gotten a number of questions and comments regarding NCATE’s big Blue Ribbon Panel report, both after my remarks at the National Press Club and in response to yesterday’s post. Thought it worth taking a couple moments to expand and explain a bit, especially because teacher residencies are one of our current “everybody loves ‘em” enthusiasms. First, let’s be clear. I dig the idea of clinical residencies. Something like the Boston Teacher Residency (BTR), or the approach employed in Long Beach, makes all kinds of sense–for those programs, districts, and teachers. But, let’s just stipulate that clinical experience is, broadly speaking, a cool idea. First, even if today’s boutique efforts are found to “work,” how confident can we be that large-scale imitation will deliver similar benefits? Second, who exactly does the residency model make sense for? So, again, high-quality residency programs are swell. -Frederick Hess
Learning isn’t linear Flipping is the new black. Flipped classrooms. Flipped learning. And now flipped Bloom’s Taxonomy. Shelley Wright has written a a brilliant post about flipping Bloom’s Taxonomy, complete with wonderful examples of the process in action in Science, Media Studies and English classes. To me, it’s not so much about flipping as about rethinking altogether. Like this: Like Loading...
plpnetwork - home It Takes Two To Talk Language Development Book DVD "Rarely do we see a guide that provides information so thoroughly grounded in current research yet so well organized and accessible..." Michael J. Guralnick, Ph.D. Director, Center on Human Development and Disability, University of Washington read full quote If you're a parent concerned about your child's language development, Hanen's It Takes Two to Talk® guidebook and companion DVD can support you in giving your child the extra help he needs. Designed specifically for parents of children with language delays, It Takes Two to Talk is based on the following important principles: Learning happens naturally - Children learn language best during everyday routines and conversations with the important people in their lives Parents are their child's most important language teachers The earlier a child receives the extra help he needs, the more his language skills will improve How does It Takes Two to Talk® Help? Practical ideas for everyday situations Easy-to-use resources Evidence-based strategies
Et si l’on arrêtait d’utiliser des manuels scolaires Au vu des ressources disponibles en ligne et des pratiques individuelles des enseignants on peut se demander s’il faut encore maintenir des manuels scolaires ? Si l’on fait l’hypothèse que les ressources libres disponibles se multiplient, que la maîtrise des enseignants dans l’élaboration de supports pour leur enseignement augmente et que les élèves ont pris l’habitude eux aussi d’aller chercher leurs ressources, on peut s’interroger sur l’intérêt d’utiliser des manuels scolaires. Cette remarque, qui pourra sembler une provocation envers une « industrie » dont le chiffre d’affaire passe largement par ce marché et qui donc se verrait progressivement diminuer, voire disparaître, n’a pour objectif que de poser une question importante que l’on esquive dans de nombreux débats, tant elle recouvre d’autres éléments qui seraient affectés indirectement par de tels développements. Outre la dimension économique, c’est l’usage qui doit être questionné. Mais cela n’est pas pour demain matin…
The Rapid eLearning Blog Creating great interactive learning experiences requires a few core building blocks: relevant content, pull versus push, and real-world decisions. With those building blocks you're able to structure effective learning scenarios that are meaningful to the learner and helps meet the objectives of the course. One of those building blocks in creating relevant content or content that is placed in a meaningful context. Essentially, you want to recreate the types of scenarios that are similar to the ones the learner has in real life. This allows them to see the content in ... Read the full article After last week's post on the different drag & drop interaction examples, I had quite a few emails asking for tips on how to create drag and drop interactions for elearning. Sliders are used as a means to make adjustments/selections or as a simple way to navigate content. It helps to look at what others are doing to get ideas and inspiration for your own work. Create ...