How do you reconcile… principles of standards-based grading; “begin with the end in mind and work backwards;” understanding by design; and other more convergent learning ideas with… project-, problem-, challenge-, and/or inquiry-based learning; creativity; innovation; collaboration; and our need for more divergent thinkers? Yesterday was the final day of our Next Generation Leadership Institute, an...
Category: learning
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I think I’m going to be on NPR’s All Things Considered today
May 14, 2012 by Scott McLeod 0 Comments I think I’m going to be on NPR’s All Things Considered today as part of its All Tech Considered segment. I was interviewed last week about the New York City Schools’ new social media policy for employees. Regular readers know that I’ve written about this in the...
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You’ve got 6 hours of student effort per day. What will you ask of it?
We want to uncover what propels sustained energy in all students regardless of peers, parents, poverty, or tenure. What occurs systemically that, done differently, could quickly galvanize students? The resource available tomorrow morning is six hours of student effort. What will you ask of it? First, get an outcome picture clear. It’s not of students...
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Lessons come from doing
Let’s consider the things that TED Ed asks the learner to do: watch a video, take a multiple-choice quiz, write brief constructed responses, and read through a bibliography. If I took the name TED out of this scenario, I would suggest that many educators would say that this format is exactly the type of traditional...
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Teach students higher order or critical thinking skills? Not if the Texas Republicans have their way.
The Republican Party of Texas states in its official 2012 political platform: We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs...
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What does the research say about school one-to-one computing initiatives?
Today’s resource is a re-issue of an older version. Last November we rolled out our first CASTLE brief. We’ve now got a new, much better template for our briefs so here’s the revised edition, authored by Dr. Nick Sauers, 1to1 Schools, and myself: If you downloaded the old one, please use this one instead! Our...
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‘Rock star’ professor lectures + Lower-cost instructional facilitators = The future of higher education?
if Harvard is offering online courses with world famous professors, what exactly is the justification for offering an inferior product at a much higher cost? It is not at all clear why the “research university” model, with its extremely high costs and inflexible structure, should be the delivery system of choice for postsecondary education across...
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Blaming students and technology instead of us
Here’s a comment that was just left over at BigThink on an old post of mine: I am a senior English teacher. Here is my problem with using technology in the classroom: I walked into an AP class this past year and stood in the back for the lecture. I took notes about what the...
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Want students to be more creative and innovative? Give them the gift of time. [VIDEO]
I love this 2-minute video. Watch it and you will too! If we want students and graduates who are more creative, innovative thinkers, we must find better ways to free them from the constraint of time. At the end, the video states Creativity is not inspired by the pressure of time but by the freedom,...
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Crack student ‘engagement’ and you’ve cracked 21st century schooling
Upcoming travel and events December 3-5 – International School of Amsterdam, The Netherlands February 3 – Virginia Is for Learners Innovation Network, TBD, VA February 25-26 – Missouri Educational Technology Leaders CTO Clinic, TBD, MO March 10-13 – Central & Eastern European Schools Association (CEESA) Annual Conference, Budapest, Hungary June 8-9 – Roanoke County Public...