8 Examples of Transforming Lessons Through the SAMR Cycle The SAMR Model for integrating technology into teaching, developed by Dr. Ruben Puentedura, has gained a good deal of exposure in recent years. “SAMR” is an acronym that stands for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. The SAMR model provides a technique for moving through degrees of technology adoption to find more meaningful uses of technology in teaching and move away from simply using “tech for tech’s sake”. We recently discussed the SAMR model during an Academic Technology Work Group meeting at The College of Westchester. We examined the video, SAMR in 120 Seconds. Following are 8 examples of the SAMR process, each taking an example of a typical classroom exercise that does not use technology and walking it through each phase of SAMR. The goal of this exercise was to help me (and readers) better understand the SAMR model, and to really see how lessons and assessments can be transformed while considering the benefits of evolving them through these stages.
Maurice Elias: A View on Emotional Intelligence and the Family | Edutopia Maurice Elias, Ph.D. is a psychology professor at Rutgers University and director of the Rutgers Social-Emotional Learning Lab and the Developing Safe and Civil Schools Initiative. He is a regular blogger on Edutopia. In this interview, he talks about educating teachers about emotional intelligence, the importance of teaching self-control, and the role of social and emotional learning at home. Check out a video of him talking about why SEL should be an integral part of academic life. 1. What is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence is the set of abilities that we like to think of as being on the other side of the report card from the academic skills. Back to Top 2. We felt that when you looked at the literature on education reform, which is a very long, long literature, it's replete with failure. We can't learn in the absence of dealing with our emotional state. 3. There are three types of obstacles. The next set of objections that comes along is, it's not the school's job. 4.
Dimensions of Growth - an overview | Habits of Mind Are your students using their Habits of Mind well? This is a profound question, because if they are not using their Habits of Mind well it becomes the teachers responsibility to help them develop more mature, more effective Habits of Mind. This means teachers need to have a clear picture of what development looks like so they can set clear learning goals, create assessment and design learning experiences to ensure students are in fact developing, improving, extending and maturing their Habits of Mind. Understanding what growth looks like for a Habit of Mind is the first step to truly infusing and sustaining your work with Habits of Mind. The Five Dimensions of Growth, described here, represent the ways in which you can get better at a Habit of Mind. Meaning: This is the WHAT of the Habit of Mind. Capacity. Alertness. Value. Commitment. These dimensions of growth are critical to your work with Habits of Mind. Read more & Buy the Poster insightHabits of Mind's blog
iTeach with iPads | Innovating learning and literacy with iPads in kindergarten Classroom Exercise Makes Learning Lively These techniques are wonderful for raising the students' energy level, for relaxing them. They can be done with the entire class at the beginning of class which is the best time to do it or if kids are losing focus or they're tired, you can, if you give the kids permission, they can go off to the side of the room, take a few minutes to do any one or a series of these techniques to get refocused and re-energized and then go back to their work. You take what's called the athletic ready stance, where your feet are comfortably apart, little wider than shoulders width, the knees are slightly bent and the back is straight. And this technique, you simply rotated the hips with the arms flopping out from the body, your head turns with your shoulders. You don't force it though. But the hips lead. The palms pushed together here in a nice symmetric fashion and the knees are slightly bent.
Habits for success in school and life SmartBlogs Take a moment to join us in a snapshot of a classroom we recently observed: Students are hard at work designing a travel brochure as a part of their study of Ireland. They need to think about how much it will cost by air or by sea and develop a good rationale for why one way is preferable to another. These students have to analyze, evaluate, make decisions and communicate to an audience. We like to call these mental qualities “Habits of Mind” — attitudes or dispositions that are necessary for thoughtful work. Habits of Mind Managing your impulsivity is a habit of mind that can take years to develop. The 16 Habits of Mind are drawn from a modern view of intelligence that casts off traditional abilities-centered theories and replaces them with a growth mindset for remaining open to continuous learning, another important habit. It may take many years for the Habits of Mind to become internalized. Build awareness.
6 Common Misconceptions About Blended Learning Infographic Blended Learning Infograpics 6 Common Misconceptions About Blended Learning Infographic 6 Common Misconceptions About Blended Learning Infographic When implementing blended learning, stakeholders may have preconceived notions about this model of learning. The following outlines some common blended learning myths. The 6 Common Misconceptions About Blended Learning Infographic contains more details, plus questions to ask yourself when considering implementing blended learning: Myth #1: Students work in isolation In order to be considered blended learning, students need opportunities to interact with peers and the instructor in live, real-time settings. We live in a social age. Because teachers are not tied up with direct instruction during physical classroom time, online learning options can serve as a means to increase interaction and personalized contact time between students and teachers. Myth #2: Students complete online content by working primarily asynchronously at school and at home
6 Handy Tools for Adding Text to Pictures June 25, 2015 In today’s selection we curated for you some useful apps and web tools to use to add text to pictures and create classroom posters. Students can use these tools for different educational purposes including visually explaining a given topic, creating greeting cards, designing inspirational quote posters and many more. 1- Picfont ‘With Picfont you can easily : . 2- Phrase.it Phrase.it is a web tool that allows you to edit and customize your images through adding speech bubbles and different image effects. 3- Typic Take your photos further with Typic! 4- Fotor Photo Text ‘Fotor's Add Text feature allows you to pull fonts directly from your computer as well as from our many online fonts so you can add text directly on your photos. 5- Quick- Add text to photos fast ‘The fastest app for adding text to photos. 6- AddText
Persistence does not equal failure Sometimes students think that if they need to persist at a task in class then they must not be smart enough. They learn not to value persistence because they see it as a sign that they are not smart enough to "get it" the first time. Of course that's a generalization, but there's more than a little truth to it as well. This series of blog entries is about the Teachers Handbook that we all carry in our head. Consider this scenario. The message is that getting finished is what's important. Consider this strategy as an alternative to asking who's finished their work. Some of the students who got to the last question may not have needed to persist - that would be a sign that the work was too easy for them. Another student was focused, tried 5 different ways to work through a problem until finally they solved it, but because they had work through it only got up to question 6. Although we might encourage students to "be persistent" our actions often speak louder than words.
9 Ways To Use Social Networks In eLearning - eLearning Industry The eLearning is a term mostly serving to describe deliberate education with advanced technical user-friendly and intuitive teaching methods. Few of us, however, acknowledge the role different social networks play in teaching us to organize the conventional learning process thus merging it with eLearning step by step. Here you can get a rundown of using social networks in eLearning and how they make it ever more readily accessible and integrated for students. Getting to know how to operate these useful branchy GUIs on their own can make you a power user. 1. Running low on reading/writing focus at the lecture? 2. The notorious Instagram. 3. A great finding for a scatterbrain student, this web app will help you organize all the material you need to process. 4. This one should not be a stranger to anyone. 5. Originally designed as a database to remember everything, Evernote is a very useful tool for writers. 6. Is your browser bookmark folder a painful display? 7. 8. 9. Get 2 Free eBooks
International Children's Digital Library Offers Tons of Free eBooks for Kids June 11, 2015International Children’s Digital Library (ICDL) is an iPad app that offers a plethora of free books specifically selected for kids and young learners. The app is a fruit of the partnership between the University of Maryland's Human-Computer Interaction Lab and the International Children's Digital Library Foundation. ICDL features a large collection of children’s books from over 60 countries and in different languages. Some of the features ICDL offers to its users include: The full ICDL collection (thousands of books)Completely freeBooks in dozens of languagesiPad support for rotation (automatically shows two pages at a time in landscape view)All books have summaries in English and the native language of the bookSpecial support for readability - by zooming text (for many books)Many books translated into other languages Follow us on : Twitter, Facebook , Google plus, Pinterest .
Teaching Persistence: How to Build Student Stamina January 14, 2014 by Norene Wiesen Teaching persistence in the classroom is an important part of setting up learners to succeed. Students who have mastered persistence are able to work through challenges, deal constructively with failures and adversity, and achieve the goals they have set for themselves. It’s a lot like running a marathon. The runners who make it to the finish line are the ones who persist in showing up for practices and trainings, learn to anticipate slumps and pace themselves, engage in positive self-talk during tough times, take steps to effectively prevent and treat injuries, and adjust expectations to fit reality – even if “finishing” means having to crawl the last mile. Like a runner who has not trained to run longer distances, learners can’t persist in their learning if they haven’t developed the stamina they need to keep going when things get tough. To help learners build stamina and persistence, it’s important to create the right learning environment: Expect More