The Ultimate Education Reform: Messy Learning & Problem Solving Have you ever gone to the doctor with a rather vague problem? The kind of problem that has no obvious solution? “Doctor, my elbow hurts.” “Doctor, I have a runny nose.” “Doctor, look at this rash.” From that ambiguity, we expect our physicians to narrow down something that could have a thousand origins to the one specific cause, then make it all better with one specific treatment. We tell the mechanic: “My car is making a funny noise, can you fix it?” A quarterback asks: “What’s the best play to run, coach?” We might ask a decorator: “I need help redoing this room. We might ask friends: “What do you think is the best car for me to buy?” Some of our ambiguous problems are mundane: “What toothpaste should I use?” From our first activity in the morning until the last thing we do before we visit dreamland each night, we are constantly engaged in a series of problems to solve — some easy, some hard. So what’s this got to do with school? I love ill-structured problems. In pursuit of the messy answer
See How You Can Magically Multiply Large Numbers In 3 Seconds Mnemonic as a technique is not a newly conceived idea. Back in 1910, there was a published book with the title, ‘ Magician’s Tricks: How They are Done’ by Henry Hatton and Adrian Plate. This interesting book presents and discusses proofs that the mnemonic idea has already been used by Harry Kellar, a magician who gained popularity during the 1800s. While it is not within the province of this book to go into a study of a system of artificial memory, there are certain conjuring tricks frequently presented to the public as “Mental Phenomena,” that have a system of this kind for their groundwork, as, for example, the following which depend, mainly, on numbers, for their effects: “Second Sight” the memorizing of a long list of words at one reacting; the instantaneous raising of any two numbers to the cube or third power… The Mnemonic system was then advanced by Ron Doerfler. How Mnemonic Works According to Wikipedia… Mnemonic…is any learning technique that aids memory. Outrageous images?
The Difference Between Doing Projects Versus Learning Through Projects The Difference Between Doing Projects Versus Learning Through Projects by Terry Heick We’ve clarified the difference between projects and project-based learning before. Projects are about the product, while project-based learning is about the process. Projects are generally teacher-directed, universal, and tangent to the learning, while project-based learning is student-centered, personal, and the learning pathway itself. Put simply, it is an approach to learning rather than something to complete. Paul Curtis recently shared this excellent visual on twitter that takes a different approach to clarifying the difference, looking at it from the perspective of curriculum planning and instructional design. Note that this is only one approach. Thoughts, comments, or related resources in the comments below. The Difference Between Doing Projects Versus Learning Through Projects
Dispelling some misunderstandings about PBL I spend a good chunk of time on Twitter, often participating in or lurking on a Twitter chat. I have seen project based learning — PBL — a topic of discussion, but at the same time, I see a lot of claims about PBL that are just not true. What bothers me about these claims is not that they are wrong but that these misconceptions lead to further problems when implementing PBL. I’d like to take some time to dispel some of these misunderstandings in hopes that they clear up other issues teachers may have with PBL. “I do projects all the time.” “I don’t have time to do a PBL project and all the scaffolding needed and lessons.” “I have to focus on standardized test prep and don’t have time for PBL.” “Students will copy each other’s products.” Obviously, there are many more concerns and misunderstanding teachers may still have about PBL. Andrew Miller serves on the national faculty for the Buck Institute for Education and ASCD.
Take Control Of The Noisy Class - Video 2 | Take Control Of The Noisy Class Video 2: How to Get Students Sat Down and Ready to Work **Important** Don’t miss the key strategies revealed at 1:00 minute, 3:00 minutes, 7:30 minutes & 9:45 minutes This video explains a four-step process to get students in the classroom, sat down and ready to work with minimal fuss and disruption. You’ll learn how to give an instruction that will get your students LISTENING straight away as well as a clever way to filter out trouble-makers before they have chance to disrupt your lesson. Make sure you download and read the FREE handout for this video (Below) as it explains further details about this method. You may need to right-click the following links and select Save Link As to download the file to your computer Now watch video 3 for a novel strategy for getting students’ attention and maintaining their focus throughout the lesson Thoughts? Talk soon, Rob Plevin, Director, Behaviour Needs Ltd
Design Thinking How to use Design Thinking as Educatorswww.designthinkingforeducators.com You can apply the 4C's:-Collaboration-Creativity-Critical thinking-Communication “Design has the power to enrich our lives by engaging our emotions through image, form, texture, color, sound, and smell. The intrinsically human-centered nature of design thinking points to the next step: we can use our empathy and understanding of people to design experiences that create opportunities for active engagement and participation.” (Tim Brown, “Change By Design,” p.115) How to Foster Collaboration and Team Spirit Teaching Strategies Flickr: woodleywonderworks By Thom Markham Once they get to the working world, most students, in almost any job, will collaborate as a member of a team. And every student needs to be prepared for that environment — partly for employment opportunity, but mainly because the deeply embedded mental model of learning and creating as an individual process is obsolete. Collaboration has become the chief way in which things are done. But collaboration doesn’t necessarily come naturally to students. Second, import and adapt the high-performance principles common in the work world to teams in the classroom. Examine individual strengths within collaborative context. Thom Markham is a psychologist, school redesign consultant, and the author of the Project Based Learning Design and Coaching Guide: Expert tools for inquiry and innovation for K-12 educators. Related Explore: collaboration
Classroom Management Strategies | Innovative positive reinforcement strategies Most teachers know that positive reinforcement is a very powerful classroom management strategy – it’s certainly the approach we recommend in Needs Focused Classroom Management. The problem is, praise phrases such as ‘well done’ and ‘This is fantastic Jonny’, tend to get very tiresome by the end of a lesson and they lose their effectiveness. To be really effective, there needs to be some variety in the way you acknowledge appropriate student behaviours so in this post I thought I’d share a few of our ‘innovative positive reinforcement strategies’ from our Take Control of the Noisy Class program. If you like them, please leave a comment in the box below… i) The victory dance. Teach students to develop their own, personalised ten second ‘Victory Dance’. ii) Visual Cheers Issue all students with a special ‘Wooo! iii) Silent Cheers. Teach students to reward fellow class-members for good work and good behaviour with a silent cheer. iv) And the winner is …
Project-Based Learning from Start to Finish via Edutopia For this installment of Schools That Work, we chose Manor New Technology High School, a public high school that is part of the New Tech Network of schools. Located just outside of Austin in Manor, Texas, it is an entirely project-based learning school that has consistently achieved outstanding results since opening. We followed a project there for three weeks to find out what makes their model so effective. By Mariko Nobori There is a small town, about 12 miles east of Austin, Texas, where a high school devoted to teaching every subject to every student through project-based learning (PBL) opened five years ago. Related What Makes Project-Based Learning a Success? At one high school in Texas, where every class in every grade is project based, the answer is devotion to a consistent process, belief in relationships, and commitment to relevance… Similar post Apps for Learning Series Gets Interactive In "Collaboration Fluency"
What You Need to Be an Innovative Educator Innovation isn't a matter of will. Like most things worth creating, critical ingredients pre-exist the product. In the case of innovation in education, many of those necessary ingredients are simpler and more accessible than they might seem -- which is, of course, good news to an industry already up to its nostrils in oh my gosh for the kids we must have this for the kids yesterday for the kids admonishments. Whether you're innovating a curriculum, an app, a social media platform for learning, an existing instructional strategy, or something else entirely, innovation in education is a significant catalyst for change in education. If our data is correct, you're probably a teacher. And if you're a teacher, you're probably interested in innovation in the classroom, so let's start there -- with project-based learning, for example. Project-based learning is an example of innovation, but probably not the way you'd expect. PBL promotes innovation in education by making room for it. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Concept to Classroom: Tapping into multiple intelligences - Explanation What is the theory of multiple intelligences (M.I.)? Howard Gardner claims that all human beings have multiple intelligences. These multiple intelligences can be nurtured and strengthened, or ignored and weakened. He believes each individual has nine intelligences: Verbal-Linguistic Intelligence -- well-developed verbal skills and sensitivity to the sounds, meanings and rhythms of words Mathematical-Logical Intelligence -- ability to think conceptually and abstractly, and capacity to discern logical or numerical patterns Musical Intelligence -- ability to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch and timber Visual-Spatial Intelligence -- capacity to think in images and pictures, to visualize accurately and abstractly Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence -- ability to control one's body movements and to handle objects skillfully Interpersonal Intelligence -- capacity to detect and respond appropriately to the moods, motivations and desires of others. According to Gardner, Explanation | | | |
Practical PBL: The Ongoing Challenges of Assessment In recent years, most students in my project-based AP Government classes have indicated, in both class discussions and anonymously on surveys, that they prefer project-based learning to a more traditional classroom experience. They find PBL more fun and believe that it leads to deeper learning. However, two types of students often resist this model. Both types of students benefit from the option of choosing their role in project cycles to increase motivation. Fair Assessment of Teamwork To increase buy-in for both types of students, the most important thing a teacher needs to do is help build individual accountability -- and, by extension, trust -- in student teams. 1) Individual Skill Areas I have developed an individual semester portfolio as the most important measure of a student's skills assessment. Oral communicationWritten communicationAssuming a roleUse of primary textsLeadershipBeing a team player 2) Role-Based Assessment 3) "Weighted" Scoring
Learning Style Inventories Global rating average: 0.0 out of 50.00.00.00.00.0 These sites have free online assessments for discovering students’ learning styles. There are descriptions about various learning styles, including Howard Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory. Also includes an article that criticizes learning style theory. Grades Links Concept to Classroom: Tapping into Multiple Intelligences This site explains Howard Gardner's multiple intelligence theory. Education Standards Request State Standards PBLU.org | Making Projects Click