edutopia When looking at how engaged students are in playing games, it makes sense to capture some of the ideas that game designers use to engage the player. This idea of applying gaming mechanics to non-game situations is known as gamification. What defines a game is having a goal or objective. Providing a Playful Context In addition to adding to the fun of the activity, having a story can provide context for student learning. To get started, try including a paragraph with each assignment that tells a little story. Expand this idea to creating a theme or story for an entire unit. In a PE class, adapt the story from popular video games to give your students tasks that they must complete. Reimagining the Objective Get students involved in the story. Many math games are really just playsheets where the content is the same as what would be found on a worksheet, but fun graphics and a story take place around the math problem. The Role-Playing Student
11 Ways Finland’s Education System Shows Us that “Less is More”. | Filling My Map When I left my 7th grade math classroom for my Fulbright research assignment in Finland I thought I would come back from this experience with more inspiring, engaging, innovative lessons. I expected to have great new ideas on how to teach my mathematics curriculum and I would revamp my lessons so that I could include more curriculum, more math and get students to think more, talk more and do more math. This drive to do more and More and MORE is a state of existence for most teachers in the US….it is engrained in us from day one. There is a constant pressure to push our students to the next level to have them do bigger and better things. When I arrived in Finland I did not find big flashy innovative thought provoking math lessons. So, what is the difference? Less IS more. They believe it. Conversely in the US we truly believe “more is more” and we constantly desire and pursue more in all areas of our lives. Finland on the other hand believes less is more. Less = More 1. (But wait! 2. 3.
edutopia For decades, my grandmother boycotted Mother's Day. "Mothers should be appreciated every day!" she'd argue. I'm all for teachers being appreciated, don't get me wrong, but Teacher Appreciation Day (May 5) ruffles my feathers. As a teacher, I never felt particularly appreciated by my principal, colleagues, students, or parents. Of course, those administrators, colleagues, students, and parents are not an exception in our society, and they themselves rarely feel appreciated. In the Classroom When I taught, I worked diligently to build a classroom community where kids appreciated each other. Imagine, please, what this was like for our class -- the way kids anticipated receiving positive feedback at the end of the day, how this motivated them to be kind members of our community, how they started focusing their attention on what their classmates were doing well, and what it felt like for all of us to hear 24 declarations of appreciation to close the day. Colleagues Appreciating Each Other
edutopia Problem solving is at the heart of engineering. No wonder, then, that engineering teacher Alexander Pancic leverages his own problem-solving skills to improve his students' learning experiences at Brighton High School in Boston, Massachusetts. "I've been trying to get my students to make the step, when they encounter a problem, of asking, 'What do I need to know to try to solve it?'" Students who are accustomed to doing worksheets, Pancic says, "get used to having everything they need to know included in the problems. Life isn't like that. You encounter real-life problems and have to figure out, what do I need to know? Teachers interested in creating more student-driven learning experiences, especially in the STEM fields, are likely to benefit from Pancic's strategies and the resources he finds useful. Learning from Authentic Challenges Pancic's teaching approach has evolved since he discovered a resource called PBL Projects. Finding the Right Fit Doubling Up on Learning
Meet the School That Hates Rules — Bright “Hi Lucy. How are you today?” The young girl looked up at me as I gave her a friendly wave. “Hello,” she replied. “Awesome! “Five.” It wasn’t exactly an extraordinary conversation, but it was big for Lucy. Lucy was timid around me when I started my internship, so I was surprised that she was more talkative now. Lucy’s ease at interacting with adults may seem remarkable in a child of her age, but that’s the norm at democratic schools like this one. But a Sudbury school day isn’t a free-for-all. During School Meeting sessions, students and staff jointly vote on new rules, hiring decisions, and how to spend tuition. All students eventually serve as members of the Judiciary Committee (JC for short), hearing arguments from alleged rule-breakers and deciding the appropriate consequences, if any. Having witnessed the dynamics of the JC as an intern, I believe it’s a far more effective deterrent to disruptive behavior than detention or parent-teacher conferences. Illustrations by Marina Muun
edutopia "Like a pane of glass framing and subtly distorting our vision, mental models determine what we see." -- Peter Senge Early in my career as an instructional coach, I worked with an enthusiastic new high school teacher who inspired most of her students to demonstrate their learning in all kinds of creative ways. Her ninth-grade English class performed skits, recorded radio plays, and published magazines that were of exceptional quality and showed mastery of learning. However, a handful of students were never in prominent roles, produced mediocre work, and weren't mastering the content. In my observations, I had noticed a trend in the teacher's interactions with them -- she didn't push them as she did the others, she let them off the hook easily, and she gave them simple tasks. I felt a mix of fear (would I know how to coach her through this?) What Is A Mental Model? Mental models are our values, beliefs, and a series of assumptions about how the world works. A Path Toward Equity
edutopia One need not look to superstars such as Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates to justify reasons for using code and programming logic in the classroom. There's plenty of literature that illustrates its positive learning outcomes. Coding in the classroom is linked to improved problem solving and analytical reasoning, and students who develop a mastery of coding have a "natural ability and drive to construct, hypothesize, explore, experiment, evaluate, and draw conclusions." But there are other compelling reasons for integrating code in the classroom. Reasons to Teach Coding 1. Wired Magazine reported that reading and writing code is the new literacy. 2. Coding in the classroom is a means of bridging the digital divide. 3. Temple Grandin, author and professor at Colorado State University and an autistic adult, said, "Without the gifts of autism, there would probably be no NASA or IT industry." Knowing there are programs for kids with ASD is good news for parents who shoulder the responsibility. 4.
edutopia We in education talk a lot about the importance of community support and engagement. But what exactly do we mean? Often, we say we want the community to vote on local referenda in ways that support schools. Even in our dealings with parents, many of our requests are for things like attending parent-teacher conferences, supporting fundraisers, and buying the kids supplies. So ultimately, many of our interactions with the greater community are of a manner that Kentucky Chamber of Commerce President David Adkisson described in a recent interview as "transactional." A Campaign to Reach 100 Percent Graduation One impressive story of community engagement comes out of Tennessee's Clarksville-Montgomery School System. But district leaders also realized that they could only do so much alone. The district has developed a list of ways to support the 100% Graduation Project that businesses and organizations can use, asking organizations and employers to choose those that make sense for them.
It Takes Courage to Make Schools Better | Edutopia Courage is not something that is reserved for leaders. Anyone who wants to see a school improve needs it -- and needs to be prepared to initiate and participate in courageous conversations. As an example, let me tell you briefly about besa. This is a main value in Albanian culture. When the King of Albania was confronted by Nazi leaders, he said that were no Jews in Albania and the Nazis were welcome to look. At times, you will be asked to go the extra mile, though likely not to the extent required of the Albanians. Planning Courageous Conversations Making one's school better requires honest conversation, and that requires courage. Questions for Discussion What is one practice in which you are currently engaged in your school that you would stop doing? If You Had Courage . . . How would you begin a conversation among those in your school about the core ethical principles that you would most want to define what you do, how you do it, and how people will treat one another? Getting Started
edutopia These days, it's not uncommon for me to hear the words "Konnichiwa, Roach-san!" echo down the hallway at the Granger, Indiana school where I coordinate the after-school enrichment program as a PTO volunteer. Beyond just celebrating culture, those konnichiwas signify that my school is leveraging diversity to enhance learning. Origami and Outreach Our origami class was born at a back-to-school night when a fifth grade mother thanked me, in emergent English, for speaking out in support of smaller classes. As the conversation came to an end, I asked Mrs. Mrs. Activating the talent and expertise of our Japanese families realized benefits far beyond the origami class. These positive experiences and interactions empowered Mrs. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, my invitation to Mrs. A Wealth of Cultural Reources Educators and engaged parents will fail to realize the full value of cultural richness if we wait passively for it to emerge. 1. 2. 3. View the PTO as more than a fundraising board.