The Best Resources For Learning About Effective Student & Teacher Assessments As I’ve mentioned, I’m part of a group of teachers working with The Center For Teaching Quality that’s preparing a policy report on Teacher Working Conditions and how they relate to student learning. I’ve previously shared some of the materials I’ve found useful in my research — see The Best Resources For Learning About The “Value-Added” Approach Towards Teacher Evaluation. You might also be interested in The Best Posts For Learning About The NEA’s New Policy Statement on “Teacher Evaluation and Accountability.” Also: The Best Resources On The Newly-Released California Educator Excellence Task Force Report. I thought I’d share some more resources in this new list. Here are my choices for The Best Resources For Learning About Effective Student & Teacher Assessments: Today, Jay Mathews wrote a column in the Washington Post titled Intriguing alternative to rating schools by tests. NEA Partners With Teach Plus & Creates Online Rating System For Student Assessments Here’s an excerpt: Wow!
Why Should You Care About Badges? Jump to Navigation Why Should You Care About Badges? How are we using badges to enable a complex, robust ecology of learning to support more just & equitable social futures? About The Speaker(s) Cathy N. Resources Video: What Is a Badge? Ways to Participate Back to top Part of a Series: Opening New Pathways to Opportunities Add to my calendar Live Sep Sign up for our Newsletter Sign up for our monthly newsletter Share related resources Catch all our webinars Discover valuable news Hear from DML experts Connect to the DML field Give us feedback Who Is Behind This Site > Community Guidelines Terms of Use Supported by the MacArthur Foundation
Six Steps to Master Teaching: Becoming a Reflective Practitioner Becoming a master teacher takes continuous effort. To avoid the loss of enthusiasm or static practice, teachers need to focus on their own professional development. Notably, the single most significant indicator of student success is an excellent teacher; nevertheless, no one can be professionally developed without his or her consent. To remain vitalized, teachers need to spend time outside the classroom with other dedicated individuals. The educational mandates from state, federal and local legislators are not targeted at improving teaching and learning. Although many are well-intentioned initiatives to assist school success, they are not sufficient for improving teaching excellence throughout an entire professional career. The Need for Mentors Over the course of a lifetime, master teachers are continuously improving their craft, listening to their students, re-tailoring lessons and finding the gaps in instructional practices. Think of great athletes. 4) Design Curriculum That Works
How To Teach Critical Thinking Using Bloom's Taxonomy The various levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy are well known to teachers, students, and the rest of the education world at this point. You need to slowly ascend the pyramid in order to effectively reach your goal(s). That’s great. But what happens when you try to apply other time-tested methodologies to the famous taxonomy? This happens. The visual guide you see below is from Flickr via Kris McElroy’s Pinterest board (she shares a lot of fabulous resources so check ‘em out!). Level One From the base knowledge level of the taxonomy you can see that you start with the usual ‘who’ ‘what’ ‘where’ and other questions. Level Two You’re asked to re-tell and dive in a bit deeper into the topic you’re researching or discussing. Level Three How do you actually apply the skills you’re learning? Level Four Like a good scientist (this is close to the Scientific Method after all), we must analyze the results that are now coming forth. Level Five Time to remix and synthesize some new ideas or formulations. Boom.
How High-Performing Nations Teach Global Skills By Heather Singmaster Education specialists have been looking to practices in other countries for quite some time. Many of the questions remain unchanged: What explains the Finland phenomenon? What is it about Singaporean math? A far deeper question is starting to emerge: how do high-achieving nations teach global skills? Here is a summary of what four nations have done: China In China, there was a major overhaul of the education system in the mid-1990s. China is currently involved in another round of education reform, the 2020 education reform plan, which will update the curriculum to meet real-world needs. China also has announced a new plan to send 50,000 principals to study successful schools in other countries in order to gain new perspectives and learn best practices. Singapore In 2010, the Singapore Ministry of Education announced a plan to strengthen their curriculum around a framework of 21st century competencies. Competencies for a Changing World: Korea India
Resources and Lesson Plans for Social and Emotional Learning Kentucky's Jefferson County school district shares details about administration, school culture, professional development, and curriculum -- materials that you may adapt for your class or school. Click on any of the titles below to download a PDF of one of Jefferson County Public Schools' resources for success. PDF files can be viewed on a wide variety of platforms -- both as a browser plug-in or a stand-alone application -- with Adobe's free Acrobat Reader program. Resources On This Page: Elementary School - Professional Training Documents CARE for Kids elementary-school professional development plan 640K Expectations of CARE for Kids schools 244K CARE for Kids implementation calendar, grades K-1 460K CARE for Kids implementation calendar, grades 2-5 260K CARE for Kids general implementation calendar 452K First steps: Implementing CARE for Kids 220K CARE for Kids implementation goals, year 2 240K Elementary School - Classroom Tools/Activities Worksheet: How to build relationships 216K Reading List
10 Ways to Create Comics Online Creating cartoons and comic strips can be a good way to get reluctant writers writing. While creating comics you and your students can work through the elements of fiction in a context that is fun and familiar to them. Witty Comics provides a simple platform that students can use to create two character dialogues. Artisan Cam is more than just a comic creator, it is a comprehensive collection of online art activities. The Super Hero Squad invites kids to create their own super hero comic strips and comic books. Pixton is a drag-and-drop cartoon creation tool which allows anyone regardless of artistic ability to create comics. Strip Generator allows anyone, even people who claim they can't draw, to create a good-looking black and white comic strip. PikiKids provides a variety of layouts to which students can upload images then edit the images or add text bubbles and titles. Write Comics is a free, simple tool for creating comic strips.
Know Your Digital Instruction Techniques: Defining the Big Three Individualized Instruction, Differentiated Instruction, and Personalized Learning are big buzz terms in todays digital education world. Unfortunately, these three digital instruction techniques all-to-often seem to be thrown around as a single, interchangeable idea. The problem is, these terms do not mean the SAME thing. In fact, the three actually have significantly different definitions, execution methods, and learning outcomes. Individualized Instruction Definition: instruction that is paced to the learning needs of different learners. The simple breakdown of this definition is that when individualizing instruction, educators assign standard goals for their entire group of students, but must also allow each individual student to progress at his or her own pace/understanding while meeting learning needs and goals. Differentiated Instruction Definition: instruction that is tailored to the learning preferences of different learners. Personalized Learning The More You Know...