Learner-Centered
Big Picture: Student-Centered & Competency-Based Learning
Radical personalization is the core innovation of the Big Picture school model--it was flex before we knew what to call it. Their approach to internships remains a best practice. Twenty years after Littky’s groundbreaking work at Thayer, the rest of us are finally talking about student-centered competency-based learning.
For The Ambivalent Student: Four Projects to Get Them Interested In School
Even the most ambivalent child can take an interest in school if you utilize the right techniques. One way to get a child interested in learning is to incorporate projects that they will be interested in. The following four projects will help an ambivalent student take an interest in school and learning.
Review: JFF’s Curricular Opportunities in the Digital Age
“Historically, most classrooms have been “curriculum centered” rather than “student centered.” David Rose, a Harvard developmental neuropsychologist, and Jenna Gravel, a doctoral student, open their recent paper Curricular Opportunities in the Digital Age. If you’ve been working with adpative technologies, you won’t find any new information here. If you teach in a traditional environment, this would be a good paper to discuss in a professional development session, but pair it with The Rise of Blended Learning.
Jobs for the Future Launches Project On Student-Centered Learning
Jobs for the Future (JFF) recently released three papers as the beginning of a series in its new project "Students at the Center: Teaching and Learning in the Era of the Common Core." The first three papers focus on: What student-centered teaching and instruction looks like; How school districts can approach student-centered learning; and The brain function behind effective learning.
Building with Rammed Earth
This year I had the great fortune of getting to know some thoughtful charter school leaders from across the country. They were convened by the Partners forDeveloping Futures, a group that makes grants to promising charter schools who are led by people of color. I just returned from a trip to New York City where our group visited three schools that were in their early stages of development and exemplars of school design.
Customizing Without Computers
I saw the future of high schools yesterday. It wasn't about cool digital aps, laptops, or talking to other young people on the other side of the world. It was re-engineering schooling around young people and their lives. Only in its second year,ACE Leadership High School, a charter school in Albuquerque, has the key to to unlocking our young people's hearts and minds.