The IB Career-related Certificate (IBCC) Life in the 21st Century places many demands on students. Enabling students to become self-confident, internationally minded learners must be integral to their education. The International Baccalaureate (IB) has developed a framework of international education incorporating the vision and educational principles of the IB into local programmes to address the needs of students engaged in career-related studies. *This video will shortly be available in French and Spanish The IB Career-related Certificate (IBCC) increases access to an IB education and is specifically designed to provide a flexible learning framework that can be tailored by the school to meet the needs of students. What is the IB Career-related Certificate (IBCC)? The IBCC’s flexibility allows schools to meet the needs, backgrounds and contexts of students with each school creating its own distinct version of the IBCC. The IBCC framework is built around three interconnected elements: The IBCC enables students to:
Extender Khan Academy BadgeStack BadgeOS™ is a powerful free plugin to WordPress that lets you easily create achievements and issue sharable badges as your users succeed. Activate the free BadgeStack extension to instantly create Levels, Quests and Badge Achievement Types — and start badging! Each BadgeOS site can be customized to your goals, community, visual identity, and the right mix of social and self-directed activity. You define the achievement requirements and choose the assessment options. As members progress, they earn digital badges they can share anywhere, from Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, to their own blog, or resume. Ready to Build? Get it Now Want to Know More? Dive Deeper Need Expert Help? Reach Out Many organizations are using BadgeOS to enable achievement recognition and community engagement.
Online learning: pedagogy, technology and opening up higher education | Higher Education Network Is online learning the answer to widening participation in higher education? Photograph: Stringer Shanghai/Reuters Higher education has always been fond of its acronyms and they don't get much more prolific than the current four letters doing the rounds. Of course, the provision of off-campus higher education is not a recent development. By definition, online learning is the meeting of technology and pedagogy – and universities are still exploring the right balance between the two. MOOC cheerleaders point to their potential for widening access to higher education. But while take-up is growing so too are drop-outs. Where do you sit in this debate? The debate will take place in the comments section below this article Josie Taylor is director of the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University with more than 20 years' experience in research, development and evaluation of interactive media and innovative pedagogies This content is brought to you by Guardian Professional.
Grad Engineering Programs Probe Intersection of Science, Art When engineers seek solutions to a problem—such as how to build a bridge to traverse a river—they tend to draw upon designs that have worked in the past. It takes an artist to provide a "more creative approach," says Christie Lin, a graduate engineering student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. By collaborating, engineers and artists can push the limits of what is already known about their respective fields, explains Lin, who studies nuclear engineering at MIT, where she is also part of the Art Scholars group. Margaret Duff, a doctoral student at Arizona State University's Fulton School of Engineering, agrees with Lin. "Engineers tend to make very small, incremental improvements on things that have already been done, and they don't really allow their creativity to take full force," she says. Both Lin's and Duff's schools are part of what some are calling a new movement in engineering schools toward the interdisciplinary study of science and art. [Learn about design M.B.A.'
Why Don't They Apply What They've Learned, Part I - Do Your Job Better By James M. Lang For two years I taught in a special program in which the same cohort of students took two consecutive courses with me: freshman composition in the fall and introduction to literature in the spring. In the composition courses, I worked hard to help students move beyond the standard strategies they had learned in high school for writing introductory paragraphs: Start with a broad statement about life ("Since the beginning of time, people have been fighting wars ...") and narrow down to a specific topic. In both years that I taught the two-course sequence, I was startled to see many students come back from winter break and—on their very first papers in the spring class—revert directly back to those tired strategies that I had worked so hard to help them unlearn in the fall. One such student came into my office early in the spring semester to show me a draft of her paper, and it included a lame reverse-pyramid (i.e., general to specific) introduction. D'oh! James M.
How Creativity Works': It's All In Your Imagination iStockphoto.com What makes people creative? What gives some of us the ability to create work that captivates the eyes, minds and hearts of others? Jonah Lehrer, a writer specializing in neuroscience, addresses that question in his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works. Lehrer defines creativity broadly, considering everything from the invention of masking tape to breakthroughs in mathematics; from memorable ad campaigns to Shakespearean tragedies. Lehrer joins NPR's Robert Siegel to talk about the creative process — where great ideas come from, how to foster them, and what to do when you inevitably get stuck. Interview Highlights On comparing Shakespeare with the inventor of masking tape "I think we absolutely can lump them all together. "... On how Steve Jobs redesigned Pixar studios to maximize collaboration and creativity On forcing people to meet and mingle ... even if it's in the bathroom " ... Nina Subin/Courtesy Houghton Mifflin Harcourt "It's near midnight.
Remembering Pearson's Virtual School Operator Opening Physical High Schools Blended Learning | News Pearson's Virtual School Operator Opening Physical High Schools By Dian Schaffhauser05/29/12 Education publishing and technology company Pearson will be opening physical versions of its virtual schools in five cities starting in August 2012. Connections Education, a business Pearson acquired in September 2011, has announced plans to create Nexus Academy charter schools in three cities in Ohio and two cities in Michigan, catering to grades 9 through 12. Up to now, Connections Ed has focused on providing virtual school options for traditional school districts and other education entities. The new schools will be tuition-free and open enrollment public high schools, limited to serving between 250 and 300 students. The focus will be on college preparation. Curriculum will come from Pearson as well as McGraw-Hill, the companies said in a statement. Each school will have a school board and will be authorized through charter school organizations in each state.
Theory and Practice of Onlilne Learning Second Edition Awarded the Charles A. Wedemeyer Award by the University Continuing Education Association. The Charles A. Wedemeyer Award recognizes publications of merit that make significant contributions to research in the field of distance education. Athabasca University Press is pleased to announce the publication of the 2nd edition of the Theory and Practice of Online Learning at edited by Terry Anderson. The second edition is now available through AU Press. The second edition features updates on all chapters from the first edition and the addition of 4 new chapters (on Mobile Learning, Social Software, Distance Education Philosophy and Financial Decision Making). close window