2 Poems
Parker Palmer Parker Palmer introduces the most evocative book about teaching, The Courage to Teach, with this Rilke poem. Ah, not to be cut off, not through the slightest partition shut out from the law of the stars. The inner—what is it? if…
More State Control—And Why That’s A Good Thing
With the great unbundling of NCLB, control is being ceded back to states and they continue to aggregate control from districts. State leadership matters more than ever. Every state should have a Chief for Change like Huffman at the helm. Every state should have an RSD led by a proven operator like Barbic. Every state should have a robust authorizing shop with pathways for high performers, first timers, innovators, improvers and conversions.
Building a Thoughtful Blend
Innosight Institute’s report The Rise of Blended Learning defines it as “any time a student learns at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home and at least in part through online delivery with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace.” To their definition, I add a requirement that the shift to an online environment for part of the student is intended to boost learning and operating productivity. Here's a description of rotation and flex schools and tools.
Governors Assist on Idaho's Technology Task Force
Former Governors Jeb Bush and Bob Wise assist Tom Luna on the Students Come First Task Force meeting on June 13 & 14. There they shared the 10 Elements of the Digital Learning Now! campaign.
ASU Dean Regier Announces Knewton Math Partnership
Q & A with Philip Regier, Executive Vice President and Dean of ASU Online, followed by the press release regarding ASU partnering with Knewton.
For School Choice Movement, Whistle Stops are Only the Beginning
Urban and rural families, Northerners and Southerners, Republicans and Democrats, teachers and politicians, and most importantly the students are all doning their symbolic yellow scarf to show their support for school choice.
6 Insights on Student Ownership for Your PBL Classroom
At this year's PBL world, our team asked educators, "How do you foster student ownership in your PBL classroom?" Here is what we learned.
Elevating and Empowering World Language Teachers
A Getting Smart paper produced in partnership with Rosetta Stone, that explores the potential of world language educators to lead the shift to school and district-wide blended, competency-based, deeper learning models. A follow-up to “The Next Generation of World Language Learning.”
Recovery in sight? Not for schools
With leading papers all reporting on recovery, can we assume the crisis is over? Stock portfolios may be on the mend, but folks that rely on property tax—states, counties, cities, and schools—will feel the impact of reset values and defaults for years to come.
Lidia and the Gift of the Collective Brain
"The way we learned was, when one classmate learned how to do something, they'd teach another classmate...and that classmate would teach another classmate." Lidia, young girl in Peruvian Amazon, using her new laptop.