Building Rigorous Projects That Are Core to Learning (Keys to PBL Series Part 2) Steven: A lot of people think that Project Based Learning is fluff. So what we did, instead of having a three-column rubric that has "Unsatisfactory, Proficient and Advanced," we added a fourth column. It is the "Standards," what has to be taught. Peggy: Students are going to address the content that they need to learn through this PBL approach. Lisa: I start with the standards in mind. Steven: Our students still take assessments, district assessments, and benchmarks. Peggy: There's really two main reasons that a teacher should use a PBL approach. Steven: It's a shift in the delivery of instruction. Establishing Real-World Connections in Projects (Keys to PBL Series Part 1) Peggy: Usually by starting with an authentic problem in the community, or in the neighborhood, you anchor the unit with a driving question. So students are given this question, for example, "What's in our water? And how did it get there?" And then the students choose different paths to explore that question. Sheela: Start to examine what's happening in your local community. Lisa: It's knowing people. Sheela: We find that the best way is to take the kids out into the community. Peggy: Once you're aware of this type of approach to teaching, it's like you have little antenna out.
How a TEDx Mission Makes Learning Relevant To Students’ Lives How a TEDx Mission Connects Students to Real-World Goals (Transcript) Cameron Brown: All right, your thirty seconds begins right now. Student: Let’s confess the U.S. is a mess. We are a mess. Student: Our TED Talk is about the fact that our country needs to step up their game and improve themselves. Cameron Brown: One of the great things about using missions to teach is that students really get hooked right from the start, something that we try to make really relatable to them. Student: I think really the nice part about this was we were only given a general subject. Cameron Brown: To me, my favorite part about the Quest model is that it’s so grounded in skills and real-world topics that students are interested in. One of the unique aspects of hosting this TEDx event is that the students, they really take ownership of it. The presentations are gonna start in a couple minutes from now, all right? Within this model as a teacher it challenges you to be a learner as well. [ laughter ]
Those Boom-Whacking Blues - National Association for Music Education (NAfME) By NAfME Member Joann Benson Ah . . . It’s May. The birds are singing, the flowers are blooming, and the kids are coloring in LOTS and LOTS of little bubbles . . . what to do to catch their attention in music class? I have just the thing; teach them a 12 bar blues pattern using Boomwhackers!!! There is something so, so satisfying about bonking a tube and creating music. I’ve done this with fourth graders, but fifth and third could definitely benefit with a little tweaking. We begin by reviewing the C major scale, often times playing the “Whacky Do-Re-Mi” from Plank Road publishing. Next, I have the children identify the pitch names of the notes involved in each chords, identifying those lucky boomers who play in more than one chord. Or The “Amen Cadence” of IV……………..I Now, for the really fun part . . . The kids practice it a few times and then – VOILA! For an extra challenge, I put an interlude between each verse. About the Author:
Socrates Knew A Thing Or Two About Training Minds: Questioning As The Engine Of Training - eLearning Industry Socrates knew that without their participation his students would never be complicit in the ideas they discussed, and therefore would not feel they had a voice in their own development as a thinker. And he knew that it is best to examine ideas in a group. In other words, his sessions were not instructor-led; not didactic. They were a group endeavor focused on the interrogation of a thesis –or hypothesis– until the thesis was either adapted or abandoned. The best way to identify and solve a problem is by using our natural curiosity.Only when an answer is followed by yet another question does learning proceed. Here is my attempt to restore questioning to its rightful place; as the engine of training and learning. My Reasoning The vast majority of answers, which we readily give to our students beginning in school and extending into the workplace, are of course facts. Boeing has thousands of engineers who know the objective facts of their profession. The same is true in your industry.
How schools fuel female STEM participation Adding project-based learning and mentoring opportunities to STEM programs may better ensure that female students do not get left behind. In the United States, women hold fewer than 25 percent of jobs in STEM fields, despite accounting for 47 percent of the workforce, according to the nonprofit Million Women Mentors. “It’s really important for us to continue to encourage young girls and women in STEM fields, and the words and actions of administrators really matter,” says Melissa Moritz, deputy director of STEM initiatives at the U.S. Department of Education. “Never underestimate the power you have to encourage more girls to pursue their dreams, which for many could be in a STEM field.” To close the gender gap, administrators can have females working in STEM fields regularly visit classrooms and host students at their workplace, says Talmesha Richards, chief academic and diversity officer at Million Women Mentors, which aims to get more females to pursue STEM careers.
How can schools better engage girls in STEM? Dive Brief: Talmesha Richards from Million Women Mentors and Melissa Moritz, deputy director of STEM initiatives at the U.S. Department of Education, recommend schools engage girls in STEM subjects at a young age. Schools can invite professional women who work in STEM fields to classrooms for regular visits, as well as bringing students on field trips to STEM workplaces in order to spark interest and foster awareness. Real-life connection and real-world experiences are crucial, the experts say, and suggestions for increasing engagement include challenging sexist media portrayals of which people work in STEM jobs, experimenting with innovative classroom instruction, incorporating mentorship and starting STEM exposure in pre-K. Dive Insight: There's been great news related to girls' performance in STEM subjects recently, with National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) results on literacy in engineering and technology showing for the first time girls now lead the way.
Strategies for Helping Students Motivate Themselves Editor's Note: This piece was adapted from Building a Community of Self-Motivated Learners: Strategies to Help Students Thrive in School and Beyond by Larry Ferlazzo, available March 21, 2015 from Routledge. My previous post reviewed research on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and described the four qualities that have been identified as critical to helping students motivate themselves: autonomy, competence, relatedness, and relevance. In this post, I'll discuss practical classroom strategies to reinforce each of these four qualities. Autonomy Providing students with freedom of choice is one strategy for promoting learner autonomy. Some researchers, however, believe that a third option, cognitive choice, is a more effective way to promote longer-lasting student autonomy. Competence Feedback, done well, is ranked by education researcher John Hattie as number 10 out of 150 influences on student achievement. But how do you handle providing critical feedback to students when it's necessary?
edsurge Recently, I received this message from a college professor in response to a blog post I wrote: “I truly believe in the benefits of online learning; but only for those who really want to learn. And unfortunately, those students are few and far between—maybe 5 to 10 percent ... I have found many professors at my university and at conferences agree with this. We need to develop some sort of a methodology whereby taking an online course is seen as a privilege and an opportunity to learn a subject more deeply than in a face-to-face class. Until we do this, online course [sic] will continue to be considered by students as the easy way out—not seen, not heard, just getting by.” I’ve thought deeply about this message for a while and I’d like to unpack my reflections a bit more here. Motivation’s Shaping Forces To start, motivation is not like having a size 8 foot. Human brains are wired to think deeply about the things that are most important to us. The 6 C’s of Motivation
Four Tools to Merge the Digital and Physical in Your Maker Classroom It’s a new world: the digital and tangible are merging, and educators need to help students navigate the changing terrain. The solution? Let them be Makers. I’ve been involved in digital learning and education technology for more than 30 years, and the burgeoning attempt to merge the digital and physical worlds has been one of the most interesting aspects of the evolution of EdTech to date. It’s no longer enough—if it ever was—for teachers to lecture to a row of desks; today’s teacher must be more of a coach. See, Understand, Make There are several evolving spaces in which we are seeing the blending of the digital and physical successfully fostering critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity. Perhaps most obviously, 3D printing is enabling students to imagine, design, problem-solve and create in the digital domain, and the outcome of their work is a product they can hold in their hands. 2. 3. 4. Today’s Makers Solve Tomorrow's Problems We can tackle these obstacles.
How to create digital homework that students love US History teacher Jennifer Hesseltine combined TED-Ed Lessons with an interactive blackboard to create a digital homework space that students love. Let’s redesign homework. When’s the last time your students got excited to do homework? For her TED-Ed Innovation Project, US History teacher Jennifer Hesseltine created a digital homework space that students love. 1. You can either create a lesson using any engaging video of your choice, or simply customize an existing TED-Ed Original or TED-Ed Select lesson. 2. Give this homework space a fun title and a quick description. 3. If you need help sharing a customized lesson link, read this. “Wow…just WOW. 4. Students love TED-Ed lessons and the opportunity to learn. “TED-Ed videos are more fun than normal homework assignments.” 5. I always take 5-10 minutes to show students the new lessons I have added (and always make sure to tell them about my favorites). 6. 7. Tips:
Modes and Video Games Music There's a very useful classification of music which helps explain why pieces sound dramatically more happy or sad: the major and minor scales. The major scale is the staging ground for most of the peaceful or upbeat music you'll hear, whereas the minor is a little darker and used for more music with some conflict or sorrow inherent to it. Darth Vader's theme from Star Wars and Captain Jack Sparrow's theme from Pirates of the Caribbean are both written in a minor key, and the major key dominates the lullaby scene and most tension free music. The reason music sounds so different depending on which scale it's written in has to do with the different notes that make up the scales, the minor scale has a few lowered notes which give it a less pleasant sound. The vast majority of music falls into one of those two categories, and our system of musical notation is designed around the properties of those two types of scales. i. ii. iii. iv. v. vi. vii.
Why Music Makes Our Brain Sing Photo MUSIC is not tangible. You can’t eat it, drink it or mate with it. It doesn’t protect against the rain, wind or cold. It doesn’t vanquish predators or mend broken bones. In the modern age we spend great sums of money to attend concerts, download music files, play instruments and listen to our favorite artists whether we’re in a subway or salon. So why does this thingless “thing” — at its core, a mere sequence of sounds — hold such potentially enormous intrinsic value? The quick and easy explanation is that music brings a unique pleasure to humans. More than a decade ago, our research team used brain imaging to show that music that people described as highly emotional engaged the reward system deep in their brains — activating subcortical nuclei known to be important in reward, motivation and emotion. The idea that reward is partly related to anticipation (or the prediction of a desired outcome) has a long history in neuroscience. Why the auditory cortex?
9 Tips for Engaging Your English Class with Pop Culture This guest post has been contributed by Jay Meadows. I’ve been teaching English for many years, across multiple grade levels, from middle school to high school to college. I’ve read (and have written) heaps of education books and research articles. And yet the premise for this post is so simple, I’m willing to bet that any one of our students can pin it down without a moment’s hesitation. What is the most essential ingredient to a rockstar lesson? It’s student engagement. We sometimes dress it up with the bells and bows of PBL, or strip it down to its bare components: authenticity, motivation, relatability. And for what? To better engage our students. In recent years, I’ve had the greatest success in achieving these things—and in evoking that sensation of having time-traveled—when I’ve gone out of my way to make deliberate connections between my students’ most popular interests and the “stuff” of my class. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.