How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses | Wired Business He started by telling them that there were kids in other parts of the world who could memorize pi to hundreds of decimal points. They could write symphonies and build robots and airplanes. Most people wouldn't think that the students at José Urbina López could do those kinds of things. Kids just across the border in Brownsville, Texas, had laptops, high-speed Internet, and tutoring, while in Matamoros the students had intermittent electricity, few computers, limited Internet, and sometimes not enough to eat. "But you do have one thing that makes you the equal of any kid in the world," Juárez Correa said. "Potential." He looked around the room. Paloma was silent, waiting to be told what to do. "So," Juárez Correa said, "what do you want to learn?" In 1999, Sugata Mitra was chief scientist at a company in New Delhi that trains software developers. Over the years, Mitra got more ambitious. Over the next 75 days, the children worked out how to use the computer and began to learn.
18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently This list has been expanded into the new book, “Wired to Create: Unravelling the Mysteries of the Creative Mind,” by Carolyn Gregoire and Scott Barry Kaufman. Creativity works in mysterious and often paradoxical ways. Creative thinking is a stable, defining characteristic in some personalities, but it may also change based on situation and context. Inspiration and ideas often arise seemingly out of nowhere and then fail to show up when we most need them, and creative thinking requires complex cognition yet is completely distinct from the thinking process. Neuroscience paints a complicated picture of creativity. And psychologically speaking, creative personality types are difficult to pin down, largely because they’re complex, paradoxical and tend to avoid habit or routine. While there’s no “typical” creative type, there are some tell-tale characteristics and behaviors of highly creative people. They daydream. According to Kaufman and psychologist Rebecca L. They observe everything.
Teacher to parents: About THAT kid (the one who hits, disrupts and influences YOUR kid) Amy Murray is the director of early childhood education at the Calgary French & International School in Canada. The following post, which appeared on her blog, Miss Night’s Marbles and which I am republishing with her permission, is a powerful open letter directed to parents about THAT kid, the one other kids go home and talk about, the one who is violent, curses and gets angry in class, the one who parents worry will hurt, disrupt and perhaps influence their own children. Murray is also the co-founder of #Kinderchat (www.kinderchat.net), a twitter-based global community for educators of young children. She is a speaker and trainer on learning through play, self-regulation, behavior management, and the use of technology within the classroom. (IStockphoto) Dear Parent: I know. You’re worried that THAT child is detracting from your child’s learning experience. Your child, this year, in this classroom, at this age, is not THAT child. I know, and I am worried, too. That’s okay, you say.
Teacher to parents: About THAT kid (the one who hits, disrupts and influences YOUR kid) Amy Murray is the director of early childhood education at the Calgary French & International School in Canada. The following post, which appeared on her blog, Miss Night’s Marbles and which I am republishing with her permission, is a powerful open letter directed to parents about THAT kid, the one other kids go home and talk about, the one who is violent, curses and gets angry in class, the one who parents worry will hurt, disrupt and perhaps influence their own children. Murray is also the co-founder of #Kinderchat (www.kinderchat.net), a twitter-based global community for educators of young children. (IStockphoto) Dear Parent: I know. You’re worried that THAT child is detracting from your child’s learning experience. Your child, this year, in this classroom, at this age, is not THAT child. I know, and I am worried, too. You see, I worry all the time. But I know, you want to talk about THAT child. I want to talk about THAT child, too, but there are so many things I can’t tell you. local
‘If only American teachers were smarter…’ ( Jonathon Rosen for The Washington Post ) Teachers. In this school reform era, they have been targeted as “the” problem for failing schools. Are they? In this post, Jack Schneider, an assistant professor of education at the College of the Holy Cross, looks at the teaching corps and what is true about America’s teachers, what isn’t, and where to go next. By Jack Schneider If only American teachers were smarter. There’s a kind of logic to this argument. The proposed solution, then, is to recruit teachers with better grades from more prestigious schools. If only it were so simple. If assertions about the poor academic preparation of American teachers were accurate, the policy fix would be easy. Adequately educated though they may be, we could still work to select teachers from a more elite slice of college graduates. Yet consider the challenge of such a proposition. The first problem is scale. The second obvious problem is that of pay. So how can we address this problem?
University School Literacy and Culture -- The Thirty Million Word Gap A summary from "The Early Catastrophe: The 30 Million Word Gap by Age 3" by University of Kansas researchers Betty Hart and Todd R. Risley. (2003). American Educator. Spring: 4-9, which was exerpted with permission from B. Hart and T.R. Risley (1995). In this groundbreaking study, Betty Hart and Todd Risley entered the homes of 42 families from various socio-economic backgrounds to assess the ways in which daily exchanges between a parent and child shape language and vocabulary development. The Early Catastrophe Betty Hart & Todd R. Mission: Betty Hart and Todd Risley were at the forefront of educational research during the 1960’s War on Poverty. Experimental Method: Hart and Risley recruited 42 families to participate in the study including 13 high-income families, 10 families of middle socio-economic status, 13 of low socio-economic status, and 6 families who were on welfare. Results: The results of the study were far more severe than anyone could have anticipated.
What Students Remember Most About Teachers | Pursuit of a Joyful Life Dear Young Teacher Down the Hall, I saw you as you rushed past me in the lunch room. Urgent. In a hurry to catch a bite before the final bell would ring calling all the students back inside. I noticed that your eyes showed tension. “Oh, fine,” you replied. But I knew it was anything but fine. You told me how busy you were, how much there was to do. I told you to remember that at the end of the day, it’s not about the lesson plan. And as I looked at you there wearing all that worry under all that strain, I said it’s about being there for your kids. No, they’ll not remember that amazing decor you’ve designed. But they will remember you. Your kindness. Because at the end of the day, what really matters is YOU. You are that difference in their lives. And when I looked at you then with tears in your eyes, emotions rising to the surface and I told you gently to stop trying so hard- I also reminded you that your own expectations were partly where the stress stemmed. Being available. It’s in you.
Brush Up On Your EdTech Vocabulary With This Cheat Sheet Do you know what a flipped classroom requires? How about a 1:1 classroom? If you’re a regular reader of Edudemic, then you probably are more than informed about what these terms mean and how they’re implemented in modern classrooms. That’s probably because we started Edudemic many moons ago on the same day Apple launched the iPad. Since then, a lot has changed in the world of education technology. The guide is designed to help you understand “the latest trends in educational technology” but really – let’s be honest – it’s a great way to finally figure out what a lot of terms mean before your next staff meeting.
5 Fantastic, Fast Formative Assessment Tools I thought I could read my students' body language. I was wrong. As an experiment, I used Socrative when I taught binary numbers. What I learned forever changed my views on being a better teacher. Why Formative Assessment Makes Better Teachers Formative assessment is done as students are learning. Here's what happened in my classroom. "We've got this, it's easy," they said. I looked at the other students and asked, "Do you have this?" They nodded their heads furiously up and down in a "yes." My teacher instincts said that everyone knew it, but I decided to experiment. I was floored. I taught for another few minutes and gave them another problem. But the end result was not what you think. I am sold. Good teachers in every subject will adjust their teaching based upon what students know at each point. Formative Assessment Toolkit Learn the strengths and weaknesses of each tool. 1. Socrative can be used for quick quizzes and also on the fly, as I've already shared. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Education of Washington's students should come before corporate welfare On Wednesday, the Washington State Supreme Court will face off with the Legislature over fully funding public education under the 2012 McCleary decision. As the state grapples with the issue of education funding, residents are left wondering how such a prosperous state -- home to a number of the world’s most iconic and profitable companies and individuals — fails to fully fund even basic education for Washington’s children. Ultimately, the answer lies in our broken and inefficient state tax system. Our state tax system is the most regressive in the nation, according to the Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy, and yet billions of dollars of taxpayer money underwrite tax breaks and subsidies each year to wealthy corporations that do not need them. This is starving our education system of even the most basic funding. The only way to properly fund education at all levels, from early learning to college, is to repair our tax system and create new revenue streams for education.