50 Apps That Represent 50 New Ways To Learn 50 Apps That Represent 50 New Ways To Learn by TeachThought Staff Modern learning is in a state of flux as it struggles to find out what it wants to become. Reflecting on and refining assessment tasks It’s important educators understand where students are in their learning, and there are lots of ways to monitor this progress that can inform meaningful feedback and next steps. One example is an end of semester or end of unit assignment or portfolio task developed by the subject or classroom teacher. If you’ve designed one of these tasks, think about the process you undertook. Did the task hit the mark, in terms of quality and differentiation? At Canberra College, in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT), staff use an evidence-informed framework to reflect on and improve the quality of their set assessment tasks.
8 Things to Look For in Today’s Classroom As I think that leaders should be able to describe what they are looking for in schools I have thought of eight things that I really want to see in today’s classroom. I really believe that classrooms need to be learner focused. This is not simply that students are creating but that they are also having opportunities to follow their interests and explore passions.1 The teacher should embody learning as well. Will Richardson recently wrote this in a comment on one of my recent posts on what teachers need to be like in our current day and the focus that needs to be on learning: …we need teachers who are masters at developing kids as learners who are adept at sense making around their own goals.
40 Must-See Photos From The Past The phrase “a picture is worth a thousand words” was coined by American newspaper editor Arthur Brisbane in 1911. It’s a simple notion that applies to many aspects of our lives, but especially to historical photography. Sometimes, one simple picture can tell you more about history than any story you might read or any document you might analyze. [Read more...] These photographs all tell stories about the historical figures or events that they represent. 10 ways to encourage student reflection… Split Screen Teaching Optimal learning occurs when students are active participants in their own learning, rather than passive recipients of teacher-delivered content. For this to be effective, students really need to think about their learning. I worked with a group of teachers recently who felt their young students were not capable of writing meaningful reflections for their end of semester reports. That might be true.
Pearson Prentice Hall: eTeach: Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension by Patricia Babbitt Introduction Most Effective Strategies Practical Applications of Reading Strategies Summary Resources Remember the adventures that lived and breathed between the pages of a really good book when, as a young reader, you slipped away undiscovered into your own magical world? 10 Team-Building Games That Promote Collaborative Critical Thinking One of education’s primary goals is to groom the next generation of little humans to succeed in the “real world.” Yes, there are mounds of curricula they must master in a wide breadth of subjects, but education does not begin and end with a textbook or test. Other skills must be honed, too, not the least of which is how to get along with their peers and work well with others. This is not something that can be cultivated through rote memorization or with strategically placed posters.
edutopia Formative assessment is an important part of effective instruction. Teachers can use observations, checklists, and quick quizzes to gather data that will inform their instruction. Formative assessment identifies areas where students are excelling and struggling so that teachers can best alter their instruction to meet the needs of all students. Earlier this year, I had the opportunity to work with a school looking to strengthen its formative assessment data collection by leveraging the power of tech-friendly tools. Technology can make formative assessment a seamless part of everyday activities. Online tools and mobile devices can help teachers stay organized when collecting data that will make analyzing information easier and more meaningful.
Study Skills Guide: Improve Reading Comprehension Skills Good reading comprehension comes only with practice. The basic aspects of reading, such as word recognition, phonetics and fluence, can be mastered in just a few years. However, throughout this process reading comprehension must be emphasized. Students may be able to eloquently repeat the words that the see on a page all day, but without reading comprehension skills, they're unable to fully understand the content, predict what will happen next, recognize characters, gain insight or understanding to build upon, or relate what they're reading to their own life's experience. Alternatives To Homework: A Chart For Teachers Alternatives To Homework: A Chart For Teachers Part of rethinking learning means rethinking the bits and pieces of the learning process–teaching strategies, writing pieces, etc. Which is what makes the following chart from Kathleen Cushman’s Fires in the Mind compelling. Rather than simply a list of alternatives to homework, it instead contextualizes the need for work at home (or, “homework”). It does this by taking typical classroom situations–the introduction of new material, demonstrating a procedure, etc.), and offering alternatives to traditional homework assignments. In fact, most of them are alternatives to homework altogether, including group brainstorming, modeling/think-alouds, or even the iconic pop-quiz.
Strengthening Lessons With A Student Work Protocol As the chill in the air gets chillier, and your stacks of student work pile up like fallen leaves, why not pause, take a breath, and take a moment to look at that student work in a new way. Sure, you need to look at the work to assess student progress, provide feedback, and celebrate student successes, but you can also use it to assess, refine, and celebrate your own work. The EQuiP Student Work Protocol is one way to do just that. In part one of our series with Achieve.org, we introduced you to their work with EQuIP (Educators Evaluating the Quality of Instructional Products), an initiative designed to identify high-quality materials aligned to the Common Core.
Why Your Students Don't Remember What You Teach - Why Your Students Don’t Remember What You Teach: The Overwhelming Power Of ‘Place’ In Learning by Terry Heick A decent question: Why don’t your students remember what you’ve taught? A better question: Why don’t they understand what you’ve taught? Formative Assessment Tools & Resources Recently, Teaching Channel brought you into classrooms where teachers and students are using formative assessment to adjust ongoing teaching and learning strategies to improve student learning: We partnered with Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium to bring you videos of teachers using formative assessment as a deliberate four-step process.In Engaging Students with Productive Struggles, you'll see how math teachers are using lessons from Mathematics Assessment Project to encourage students to grapple with math concepts.In Letting Students Grapple, watch students engaging in formative assessment lessons that address misconceptions. While these videos take a deep dive into formative assessment, we also want to provide you with some quick tips and resources. These are some of our favorites:
3 Big Don’ts When Converting Instructor-Led Training to eLearning With benefits like automation, consistent messaging, wider reach, and the ability to provide 24/7 learning, eLearning is an option that more and more companies have started to embrace. But now what do you do with those PowerPoint slides that you created ages ago and had been delivering to your employees since then? If that training program is effective, don’t ditch it. You can convert it into an eLearning program without reinventing the wheel. But look out for these common mistakes that companies do when converting PowerPoint and Instructor-Led Training to eLearning because they don’t realize that eLearning and classroom learning are different: