Archive: 2018
Personalized Learning Experiences: Why? And How?
There are many ways to provide personalized learning experiences within a classroom through a mixture of technology and simply shifting the focus of some traditional instructional methods and activities. Here are a few ways to get started.
A Simple, Free, Powerful Badging System
Badges occupy an interesting space in education. Everybody knows what they are, most people have at least one or two, and they hold a lot of promise for improving education. But they still don't see the widespread use one might expect. Here, we look at a company trying to change that.
Empowering Our Daughters to Love Math is about More than Numbers
By: Jennifer Agustin. Whether you’re a parent or an educator looking to ensure equity for every child or a business professional seeking to establish a smarter, more profitable company, diversity in any field is proven to help. That being said, we should think bigger when it comes to empowering girls to love math. We must focus on the impact math can have on girls’ overall critical thinking, confidence, and eventual career paths, no matter their ambition.
Early Learning Strategies for Developing Computational Thinking Skills
We live in a world with Smartphones and Smarthomes, and understanding how devices work allows us to approach technology as a partner to help us solve problems. Here's how we can start giving kids these skills sooner rather than later.
Deep in South Carolina’s ‘Corridor of Shame,’ Teachers at New Tech Network Strive for a Big Turnaround
By: Mark Keierleber. Colleton County is in southeast South Carolina, part of a poor, rural region branded in a documentary as the “Corridor of Shame” for historically inequitable funding and poor student achievement. New Tech Network is helping build momentum for change.
Learning Leadership Skills Outdoors: Place-Based Ed in the Puget Sound
By: Roberta McFarland. Students in the Waskowitz Environmental Leadership & Service program participate in place-based learning experiences that help them develop leadership skills as well as choose their next steps for college and career.
Scaling PBL: 3 Steps for Defining Quality With Your Staff
By: Jenny Pieratt. The undertaking of scaling PBL is akin to a marathon, and we need be sure that our teachers will make it to the finish line by way of sustainable practices that uphold deeper learning along the way. Here's my take on designing these types of experiences.
21st-Century Skills We Need to Cultivate in Students
By: Angela Burgess. I recently attended a conference panel comparing the traditional school model (in which teachers strive to transfer what they already know to students) to one in which focus is on teaching students how to learn. Here's what I took away.
Social and Emotional Learning Skills are Essential to Formative Assessment Practice
By: Mary Ryerse and Tom Vander Ark. Just as formative assessment informs the teaching and learning of math, reading and science skills, it can also provide essential guidance for the teaching of discrete SEL skills. Learn more about the relationship, and how to make the most of it, here.
Evidence That Makes it Evident: Improving Assessment by Emulating the Trades
By: Elliot Washor and Charles Mojkowski. The expanded vision of the graduate has widened the gap between the competencies educators want for all graduates, and the evidence of competence educators are actually collecting. Here's one way we can begin to change that.