#PSP2012 VIDEO – KR Sir Ken Robinson concludes the morning sessions of “Teaching and Learning at Home and at School” by inviting educators and parents to collaborate in the design of a covenant of shared principles to transform our schools. First, Robinson identifies an agenda of issues on which we need to focus as we move forward: vexing economic, cultural, and personal challenges with which our education system has not caught up. Then, Robinson asserts that our current system is incapable of dealing properly with these challenges, owing to a ‘command and control mentality’ among political leaders, and invites stakeholders at the grassroots level — in our classrooms, and in our homes — to create an agenda not just for reform, but for transformation. Further information and related resources are provided below the embedded video.
Reframing and Refining the Worksheet Worksheets matter! I know we hear a lot of talking points that tell us to get rid of them, but I think it's much more complicated than that. That call for "no more worksheets" comes from a place where that is all there is. By that I mean classrooms where students do nothing but worksheets. Often these worksheets are de-contextualized from relevant work, and this is where there's an opportunity to reframe and refine the traditional worksheet. There is a time and place for drill and practice or individual practice -- even in a PBL project. A recent visit to a PBL school jumpstarted my brain on this issue. Worksheets That Model a Career Tool Students consistently worked on a piece of paper shown below. As we design worksheets, let's consider making them look like the real-world work that students are doing -- or could be doing. Worksheet used at ACE Leadership Academy Credit: Andrew Miller Other Tips for Worksheets Include the Driving Question Where Students Can See It Rubric and Reflection
Best Education-Related Videos of 2013 I love end of year “best of” lists. My own list is what I found to be the most powerful education related videos of 2013. They all, in some way, address the mind, heart, and spirit of education. Each touched me in some way to help illuminate the purpose and core of education. They are in no particular order expect for the first one which is my number one choice and one that I believe all educators should be required to watch. Rita Pierson: Every kid needs a champion Favorite Quote: Every child deserves a champion – an adult who will never give up on them, who understands the power of connection, and insists that they become the best that they can possibly be. Ken Robinson: How to escape education’s death valley Governments decide they know best and they’re going to tell you what to do. Sugata Mitra: Build a School in the Cloud We need a curriculum of big questions, examinations where children can talk, share and use the Internet, and new, peer assessment systems. Hackschooling makes me happy
Ideas that Work In this Q-and-A, Scott Burdick, principal at Pine Valley Elementary School in South Dayton, N.Y., discusses how his school uses data and technology to help personalize student learning in math. How is your school/district personalizing learning in the math classroom to ensure students are on a path to college and career readiness? We’ve implemented an adaptive diagnostic assessment tool to support our need to get actionable data about each student. After students are assessed through our online adaptive diagnostic assessment, teachers get reports on the skills each student needs to work on. English language learners comprise the most rapidly growing segment of students in K-12. Historically, there are stark achievement gaps between ELLs and their peers. However, as schools and districts across the country prepare all students to be college and career ready, there is a tremendous opportunity to look at how we can best support ELL students and help them reach their maximum potential.
John Hattie – Why Are So Many Of Our Teachers And Schools So Successful? John Hattie – Why Are So Many Of Our Teachers And Schools So Successful? I wanted to sit on this until the holidays were finished to make sure that people noticed. I’ve spoke about John Hattie on several occasions on this blog. You see, Hattie’s research is clearly at odds with the dominant narrative of educational reformers in the United States. If you’re not familiar with Hattie’s larger body of work, I would recommend you review these two videos. If you haven’t had enough, I would recommend this interview… Or this keynote speech that he gave. Now how to we get politicians and policymakers to pay attention to this kind of research, as opposed to the ideologically-biased stuff that dominants the American conversation? Other entries I have posted above Hattie: Like this: Like Loading...
Big Thinkers: Judy Willis on the Science of Learning Judy Willis: Hi, I'm Judy Willis and I am a neurologist. I've been a neurologist for 15 years and after the 15 years my patient practice really changed. I started getting so many referrals for kids whose teachers thought they had ADD, obsessive compulsive disorder, staring spells, seizures petit mal epilepsy, and the increase was huge and yet the kids had no greater incidence of it. And I saw the notes were coming from the school so I visited the schools. The problem was that the way they were being taught was lectured. There's a part of the brain that is an emotional filter. So if a person is in a state of stress, the amygdala gets highly active. So we need to keep that switching station in a state of low stress. So if there is something new in the classroom, a new picture, a great bulletin board, something that's interesting, something that captures their curiosity. So how do you get students to focus their attention? The other one I'll use is color. What else does a videogame do?
Reteach and Enrich: How to Make Time for Every Student Calvin Baker: Most of us grew up, classic American education, you know. You can go through a unit where these was math, social studies or English, and at the end of the unit, you had a test. Then you moved onto the next unit, because you had to get through all the chapters by the end of the school year. Katie Dabney: In the past, we would just move on to the next chapter in the book, and sorry if you didn't get that. Lindsey Flora: So these formatives are a way of assessing everything that you have learned about prime and composite numbers. Crystal Deryke: So we're gonna go ahead and get up our math offices. Nancy Varela: Is this a test that you have to take really fast? Everybody: No. Katie Dabney: What we do is we teach an objective, and that objective is calendared out for us. Nancy Varela: And so how many reteaches are you looking at? Lindsey Flora: I'm looking at five I reteach, yep. Nancy Varela: Crystal, do you have your number yet? Crystal Deryke: Yes, nine. Matt Hough: Eight.
Singapore's 21st-Century Teaching Strategies (Education Everywhere Series) Adrian: I think it is important to make school fun. And when school is fun, you don't get kids waking up in the morning and saying, "Do I have to come to school again?" So we embrace technology, because it helps us make learning more engaging. Ho: The kids are really from a very different world now. Teacher: What you want to do right now is, okay, think of the Socratic questions. Adrian: Ngee Ann Secondary School is a typical school in Singapore where we take in students with different academic abilities, and we have about 1,512 students in this school. Lee: In the early 1990s, the teachers really are the monopoly on knowledge, and they are the one that comes to the class to deliver that knowledge so that the students can acquire them. Teacher: Velocity defines the rate of change of the sense of time. Adrian: We look at technology very meaningfully. Ben: Okay, so same thing, we will have two students at every terminal. Student: [speaking foreign language] Teacher: Okay.