How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses | Wired Business He started by telling them that there were kids in other parts of the world who could memorize pi to hundreds of decimal points. They could write symphonies and build robots and airplanes. Most people wouldn't think that the students at José Urbina López could do those kinds of things. Kids just across the border in Brownsville, Texas, had laptops, high-speed Internet, and tutoring, while in Matamoros the students had intermittent electricity, few computers, limited Internet, and sometimes not enough to eat. "But you do have one thing that makes you the equal of any kid in the world," Juárez Correa said. "Potential." He looked around the room. Paloma was silent, waiting to be told what to do. "So," Juárez Correa said, "what do you want to learn?" In 1999, Sugata Mitra was chief scientist at a company in New Delhi that trains software developers. Over the years, Mitra got more ambitious. Over the next 75 days, the children worked out how to use the computer and began to learn.
This is not a lesson plan. Coming into student teaching I was really confident about my lesson planning abilities. I was a bit worried about classroom management, designing assessments, and handling the demands of a first-year teacher…but lesson plans? Ha. We were teaching Frankenstein when I finally got a chance to craft my very own lesson to teach. This is not a lesson plan. Huh, I thought? My pride took a hit that day, but I had learned a very important “lesson”. Lessons About Lesson Planning As a third-year teacher I thought I knew it all. Using technology in the classroom had sparked my creativity as a teacher and led me to connecting online, reading blogs, and trying out a lot of new ideas with my students. One day I had a formal observation with my assistant principal coming in to view my class. The lesson went off without a hitch. In the post-observation discussion I was waiting for another “glowing review” of my teaching because once again “I knew it all”…and then for the second time in my career I heard:
The Complete Visual Guide To Technology For Children Technology in education isn’t just for older students. There are a ton of resources out there for early childhood educators and their students, and many young children are already able to use the technology available to them. They’re even calling today’s preschoolers “Generation C”, aka the connected generation. In years past, parents were supposed to prepare their young students for kindergarten so that they would be well equipped to start their formal education. Kids were supposed to know how to count to ten, grip a pencil, identify shapes and colors, and so on. Today, students entering school have a few more items on their must-know list – all related to technology. The handy infographic below takes a look at all of the issues surrounding technology for children. Technology For Children Today’s youngest students are expected to already have some technical know-how. Stats On Technology Use By Young Children Technology Addiction Is Real Guidelines For Healthy Technology Use
Connected Education Might Not Mean What You Think - Finding Common Ground This month has been designated "Connected Educator" Month by the U.S Department of Education. Most of us who considered ourselves connected educators write about technology and social networking frequently, or at least during months other than one designated for connected learning. That kind of speaks to how we all feel about technology. It hasn't replaced anything but it has enhanced it. Whether it's the way we communicate with teachers, students or parents, through flipping faculty meetings and parent communication, or how we as professionals interact with one another, technology has helped us grow. Not because technology is the flavor of the month but because it literally has enhanced every aspect of our job. For the past few years I have expanded my professional learning network (PLN) through Twitter. Social networking has numerous chat sessions where we engage in debate or collaborate on ideas. The Downside I'm not going to lie, there are parts that I dislike about technology.
The Role Of Empathy In Learning The Role Of Empathy In Learning Learning has to starts and end with the self: What do I know, and how can I relate to the world around me? If successful it should, by design, result in personal and social change through a combination of self-direction, reflection, and collaboration with ideas and the people who have them. The role of empathy in learning has to do with the flow of both information and creativity. Empathy and outrospection are tools not simply of emotional interdependence, but “radical social change.” How might you frame tomorrow’s lesson or your next project-based learning unit if you want the student to seamlessly transition between other perspectives and their own? The Role Of Empathy In Learning
Digital Is At Rose High School, located in eastern North Carolina and populated by students on extreme ends of the socioeconomic spectrum, we have students who are passionate and active about everything from establishing a witty presence on social media to saving orphans in Darfur, but these are often extracurricular activities that don't show up in the actual classroom. Students might spend hours posting selfies on Facebook or hours planning a benefit concert, but when they feel like they have to put on their academic persona, they tend to forget those parts of themselves. I wanted students to be able to funnel their interests into a more authentic academic experience so that they could learn about what they want to learn about and become empowered as researchers, both casually and formally. To do that, I needed to remix their idea of what research is, transform it from something boring and arbitrary into something rich and useful. When I don't know something, I look it up.
5 Keys to Inspiring Leadership, No Matter Your Style Forget the stereotypical leadership image of a buttoned-up person in a gray suit hauling around a hefty briefcase. Today, standout leaders come in all shapes and sizes. She could be a blue jeans-clad marketing student, running a major ecommerce company out of her dorm room. He might be the next salt-and-pepper-haired, barefoot Steve Jobs, presenting a groundbreaking new device at a major industry conference. "Our research indicates that what really matters is that leaders are able to create enthusiasm, empower their people, instill confidence and be inspiring to the people around them," says Peter Handal, chief executive of New York City-based Dale Carnegie Training, a leadership-training company. That's a tall order. 1. Great leaders are brave enough to face up to challenging situations and deal with them honestly. "The gossip at the coffee machine is usually 10 times worse than reality," Handal says. 2. 3. If you're not a suit, don't try to be one. 4. 5. The 5 Keys Series
20 Places to Educate Yourself Online for Free It seems like these days you can learn just about anything online for free, but of course some of that information is better than others. The good news is there are plenty of reputable places to educate yourself online for free, and here’s a good 20 of them to get you started. 1. Coursera The coolest thing about Internet learning is that you can take college courses which in the past were only available to people who forked over immense sums of money to attend elite colleges. Coursera brings a bunch of those classes together into one site, offering nearly 400 courses ranging from Introduction to Guitar from Berklee College of Music to Constitutional Law from Yale. Courses typically include videos and certain coursework (such as online quizzes) that must be completed in a certain amount of time, as these courses are monitored by a professor. 2. Home to more than 3,000 videos on subjects ranging from SAT prep to cosmology, art history to calculus, Khan Academy is a great place to learn. 3.
7 Key Characteristics Of Better Learning Feedback 7 Key Characteristics Of Better Learning Feedback by Grant Wiggins, Authentic Education On May 26, 2015, Grant Wiggins passed away. Whether or not the feedback is just “there” to be grasped or offered by another person, all the examples highlight seven key characteristics of helpful feedback. Helpful feedback is – Goal-referencedTransparentActionableUser-friendlyTimelyOngoingConsistent Though some of these traits have been noted by various researchers [for example, Marzano, Pickering & Pollock (2001) identify some of #3, #5, #1 and #4 in describing feedback as corrective, timely, specific to a criterion], it is only when we clearly distinguish the two meanings of “corrective” (i.e. feedback vs. advice) and use all seven that we get the most robust improvements and sort out Hattie’s puzzle as to why some “feedback” works and other “feedback” doesn’t. 1. Given a desired outcome, feedback is what tells me if I should continue on or change course. 2. 3. Thus, “good job!” 4. 5. 6. 7. References
Finding Students' Hidden Strengths and Passions Rabbi Brad Hirschfield is the President of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership and he has spent a lot of time thinking about how to inspire both. He has some ideas about how we can inspire our students by helping them find their hidden strengths and passions. To use the word "hidden" may not be quite accurate because often, strengths are hidden by lack of opportunity to display them. So what can educators do? Second, ask students to talk about times when they found out something surprising and good about someone else. Third, have students talk to their parents or guardians about "hidden talents"-- you may want to use this exact term. You may have your own ideas. Brad Hirschfield reminds us that miraculous discoveries must be discovered.
Map skills and higher-order thinking - Map skills and higher-order thinking By David Walbert The sheer quantity of maps the internet makes available is great for educators, because we can easily find visual resources to accompany lessons in science and social studies. But it also presents us with a new challenge, because it’s now more important than ever that students develop map-reading skills. And those skills are more complicated than most educators realize. This series of articles looks at map skills as a kind of visual literacy, considering what maps are, how they’re made, and the higher-order thinking skills students need to move from simply decoding maps to fully comprehending them. (Photo credit: laurenmarek/Flickr.) Get started: Table of Contents
The Cold Hard Facts About Cyberbullying (Infographic) | Global Digital Citizen Foundation This infographic was published on Visual.ly and was created by NOBullying, an organization dedicated to fighting against the human abuse and degradation that sadly exist so prominently in the digital world. via Visual.ly Explore more infographics like this one on the web’s largest information design community – Visually. Related 5 Reasons to Teach Kids to Code via Visual.ly by NowSourcing. In "Creativity Fluency" Write your Paper like a Pro via 2¢ Worth Today’s infographic is simple and to the point.
6 Tips For Creating Effective Student Groups 6 Tips For Creating Effective Student Groups by TeachThought Staff Grouping students is easy; creating effective student groups is less so. The following infographic from Mia MacMeekin seeks to provide some ideas to help make group work easier in your classroom. MackMeekin’s suggestion to consider problem-based learning in a group setting is especially useful in that it also provides a link to the design of curriculum and instruction as well, rather than merely being a grouping strategy. Create a ZPD ZoneCognitive Dissonance is GoodNumbers CountPraiseGive Them Something to DoFacilitate image attribution Mia Mackmeekin; This work by Mia MacMeekin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License; 6 Tips For Creating Effective Student Groups
Strategies to Build Intrinsic Motivation "The fox leapt high to grasp the grapes, but the delicious-looking fruit remained just out of reach of his snapping jaws. After a few attempts the fox gave up and said to himself, 'These grapes are sour, and if I had some I would not eat them.' The fox changes his attitude to fit his behavior." - Aesop’s Fables There is a general misconception that our beliefs are the cause of our actions. Just like the fox, people will tell themselves a story to justify their actions. Punishment, Rewards, and Commitment The issue with classroom management policies in most institutions is that it operates on a carrot-and-stick model. The goal of self-persuasion is to create cognitive dissonance in the mind of the one being persuaded. Punishment In 1965, Jonathan Freedman conducted a study in which he presented preschoolers with an attractive, desired, "Forbidden Toy." Weeks later, Freedman pulled the students out of class one by one and had them do a drawing test. Rewards Commitment 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.