The Problem with "Personalized Learning" James Paul Gee: People who never confront challenge and frustration, who never acquire new styles of learning, and who never face failure squarely may in the end become impoverished humans. They may become forever stuck with who they are now, never growing and transforming, because they never face new experiences that have not been customized to their current needs and desires…Success in the 21st century at work and in life requires collaboration, collective intelligence, and smart teams using smart tools. In our fast-changing world, a world that faces many serious crises, being able to cope with challenge, to persist past failure, to learn in new ways, and to adapt one’s skills and style to other team members are all 21st-century skills. This is the problem with adaptive platforms that attempt to “personalize” learning to each individual’s inherent strengths.
Genius Hour Part I This week it unfolded. Passion…geniuses…or a combination of both? We kicked off our IBPYP Exhibition these last few weeks in grade 5 at Yokohama International School. Our idea is to have the kids explore their passions and interests under the theme of “How We Express Ourselves.” Frontloading: To begin, students watched videos we found on Inspire My Kids. But until this week, we had mostly been discussing, getting a grounding in passion. Hands-on Time: I first read about it here on Inquire Within and considered starting it during Exhibition. Students brainstormed interests. After brainstorming, they thought about what they needed and went at it. The Next Day: The first thing the next morning, students came in and started talking. Wait. The Energy: When they got back into their passion hour, they didn’t want to stop for anything. Some reflections so far: Absolutely self-motivated. A Day In a LIfe Of Auggie from YIS Academics on Vimeo. Like this: Like Loading...
Take one sheet of paper and really get to know your pupils | Teacher Network | Guardian Professional A one-page profile is exactly what it says on the tin. It's one page of information which has three questions. What do others like and admire about you? The pilot worked so well that we soon found ourselves introducing one page profiles across whole year groups and then across the whole school. I want to stress that this is not just another paperwork exercise. I cherish the conversations I can have in the corridor with our children now that I know who loves ballet and who plays cricket. So how do we use the profiles through the school year? The making of one page profiles slots neatly into different aspects of the PHSE curriculum and during the spring term, when the children work on the SEAL (social and emotional aspects of learning) unit Good to Be Me, they are revisited and updated. Introducing one-page profiles hasn't all been plain sailing. But in late 2010 Ofsted inspectors visited. Earlier this year a production company came to Norris Bank to make a film about one-page profiles.
Perfect failures Rags to riches: Spanx founder Sara Blakely says failure is a key part of her business plan. Photo: The Guardian Most of us have heard the stories of Michael Jordan not making the cut for his high school basketball team, of 30-year-old Steve Jobs being fired from his own company, or Oprah being told she ''wasn't fit for television". Stories such as these are etched in the social psyche, perhaps because it is comforting to know that some of the most brilliant among us have had some super-sized blunders. Also, it is because fear of failure isn't unusual. One tale has continued to get strong attention on social media recently. Advertisement It is the story of Spanx founder Sara Blakely, who last year became the youngest self-made female billionaire in history. ''My dad encouraged us to fail,'' she told Entrepreneur magazine. And ''fail'' she did. A demoralising seven years spent flogging fax machines almost broke her and resulted in frequent tears. If at first you don't succeed ...
Welcome to Dylan Wiliam’s website Professional development Finally! The revised Embedding formative assessment pack for schools and colleges to run their own two-year professional development programme on formative assessment is now available worldwide. In Europe, this can be ordered through SSAT, in Australasia through Hawker-Brownlow, and in North America from Learning Sciences International. Further details of the pack are here. Also, a series of high-quality video presentations by Dylan Wiliam, with a total running time of over two and a half hours, is now available world-wide.