Will Richardson: My Kids are Illiterate. Most Likely, Yours Are Too
I'm a parent, and I'm not happy. My two kids go to "great" schools, they get great grades, and by all accounts they're very successful students. Unfortunately, they're illiterate. Right now, in their classrooms, they're not "designing and sharing information for global communities to meet a variety of purposes." Nor are they "building relationships with others to solve problems collaboratively and cross-culturally." And as far as "managing, analyzing and synthesizing multiple streams of information?" Those are all key components of what the National Council of Teachers of English feels a "literate person" should be able to do right now. Yours? Let me be clear, I'm not at all bashing their teachers, who sincerely care about my children and want them to do well in school. Technology, specifically the Web, expands the learning opportunities our connected children and their teachers have. As parents or educators or both, we're all learners first and foremost.
10 Ways to Promote Student Engagement
Student engagement is another of those buzz phrases popular in higher education. As with many regularly used terms, everyone assumes we are talking about the same thing; but when asked for definitions, either we are hard pressed to come up one or what’s offered is a decidedly different collection of definitions. Here’s an article that includes clear definitions and, based on a creative synthesis of research, offers 10 ways to promote student engagement. The authors propose definitions broad enough to include more specific descriptions. Based on this synthesis of research, student engagement can be promoted in the following ways: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Reference: Zepke, N., and Leach, L. (2010). Excerpted from Ways to Achieve Student Engagement.
Have You Mastered 21st Century Teaching Skills?
Susan L. Davis blogs for Voices from the Learning Revolution and Getting Smart, where this post first appeared on August 23. The back-to-school flurry has begun. Teachers all around you are decorating bulletin boards, organizing their gradebooks, and collaborating on which ice-breaker games to use with their advisories. But have you mastered the 21st century skills every teacher should know? 1. Do you pop your topic into your preferred search engine and skim the first page of responses for something that looks good enough – just like our students do? Do you know how to conduct a “clean” search that doesn’t predict what it thinks you are looking for based on your past searches? If you found yourself stuck on the first question, here are some resources to help you get back up to speed. Alan November is the guru of all things related to Information Literacy, if anyone can claim that title. 2. Do you still bookmark sites on your desktop or laptop? 3. 4. My Point About the author
Five Factors that Affect Online Student Motivation
Understanding what motivates online learners is important because motivated students are more likely to engage in activities that help them learn and achieve, says Brett Jones, associate professor of educational psychology at Virginia Tech. Based on an extensive review of the literature on student motivation, Jones has developed the MUSIC model of student motivation, which identifies five main factors that contribute to student motivation: eMpowerment, Usefulness, Success, Interest, and Caring. “The primary purpose of the model is to provide instructors with a guide that they can use to make intentional decisions about the design of their courses,” Jones says. In an interview with Online Classroom, Jones explained his model and its implications for online course design. We’re providing an excerpt of it here. 1. eMpowerment – Students feel empowered when they feel that they have some control over some aspects of their learning. 2. 3. 4. Remember that interest isn’t universal. 5.
20 Must-See Facts About The 21st Century Classroom
The Current State Of Technology In K-12 7.62K Views 0 Likes What is the next device most students will soon purchase? How many schools have a digital strategy? Find out in the current state of technology in K-12.
How to Ignite Passion in Your Students: 8 Ways Educators Can Foster Passion-based Learning
What should students learn in the 21st century?
By Charles FadelFounder & chairman, Center for Curriculum Redesign Vice-chair of the Education committee of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee (BIAC) to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)Visiting scholar, Harvard GSE, MIT ESG/IAP and Wharton/Penn CLO It has become clear that teaching skills requires answering “What should students learn in the 21st century?” on a deep and broad basis. Teachers need to have the time and flexibility to develop knowledge, skills, and character, while also considering the meta-layer/fourth dimension that includes learning how to learn, interdisciplinarity, and personalisation. Knowledge - relevance required: Students’ lack of motivation, and often disengagement, reflects the inability of education systems to connect content to real-world experience. Meta-Layer: Essential for activating transference, building expertise, fostering creativity via analogies, establishing lifelong learning habits, and so on.
iNACOL » Role of Teacher
A fairly common misconception about online learning is that in the online environment the teacher is less important than in the classroom. While there are online learning courses that are intended to be “teacherless” (or with a reduced teacher role), in general teachers remain central to the learning process in the online virtual classroom. Anyone familiar with technology in the 21st century—recognizes that the role of the teacher is changing. The teacher and school system (including education materials such as textbooks) can no longer be the only conduit of information to students—there is simply too much good information available. The online teacher’s role can be broken down into several categories: Guiding and Individualizing Learning: The online teacher is guiding student learning in the online course. References for footnotes can be found on the resources page or click on the footnote number for a direct link.
