Archive: 2013
Looking for a Few Good Schools
In order to showcase schools who exemplify deeper learning the Getting Smart team is collecting examples from around the country. Great teachers and innovative schools are finding ways to foster deeper learning for their students, Getting Smart is interested in identifying these excellent schools to profile their achievements.
Blended Learning Webinar Q&A
The Getting Smart team participated in an Education Week blended learning webinar today with Dreambox. The chat was lively and we didn’t get to all the questions.
The High School Challenge: Improvement vs. Innovation
How to help more students graduate ready for college and careers? We’re exploring the perennial question at the A+ Urban High School Summit in Denver.
To Innovate in Education, First Standardize
Standardization harms students. The much-maligned industrial model of education truly is flawed in countless ways that flow from the assumption that children are like interchangeable parts on an assembly line.
Infinity: The Size of Today’s Classrooms
There was once a time when contemplating tearing down my classroom walls fancied me wearing a yellow safety helmet and operating a wrecking-ball wielding crane machine.
Silverback Links with Linkit & Gooru
“We call it an instructional improvement system,” said Jim Lewis. As Blaine, Idaho superintendent, Lewis got fed up with the lousy systems designed for tracking student interventions and progress, so he built his own. Other districts asked to use his Mileposts tracking software and he realized they were solving a widespread need. He formed Silverback Learning Solutions in 2010 to make it better and share it more broadly.
Explain Everything A Connected Creativity App
As I dig deeper into the reality of the one iPad Classroom I am most intrigued by apps that allow me to create. On a computer I have learned to weave together digital tools to make them do exactly what I want them to do, but I must admit I am not there yet on the iPad.
Brush Up Your Shakespeare!
No one could be more surprised than I was when one of my sixth-graders said, after we had slogged through Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 29” at the end of our poetry unit, “Hey, this is fun. Shakespeare ought to be an elective.”
International Studies: Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education Systems
Will taking online courses replace studying abroad for students around the world? In this article Kirsten Winkler explores the internationalization of higher education.
Movie Review: Why are America’s Students Failing at Math?
It is not a difficult question to answer, a lot of students hate math. I know “hate” is a strong word, but when some children are asked about math, they start to sweat, shut down, and avoid math at all costs, due to negative experiences in the past.