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Next-Gen Learning Models Blend Tech & Experiences
Critics argue that blended and competency-based learning is just testing all the time. They chafe at what appears to be more mindless box checking. When I visit credit recovery labs and see students flying through online lessons and taking end of unit multiple choice quizzes, we worry that there is some truth to the criticism.
14 Developments to Watch for in 2014
It's been a big year for innovations in learning. If 2012 was the year of the MOOC, 2013 was the year blended learning went mainstream--even schools that were just layering tabs on top of an obsolete model called it "blended." The following are 14 developments to watch for in 2014.
Redefining What It Means to be a Successful School
A quick look down the “successful” and “highly successful” columns and it becomes clear that we set the bar pretty high. It’s also important to note that we believe successful school systems strive to achieve these outcomes for every student.
Teaching Civilized Discourse: 4 Essential Lessons for Online Discussion
To teachers of writing, publication often means posting on a bulletin board something written in the student’s best handwriting. But let’s face it, publication nowadays means posting anything online for others to consume, and that includes emails, discussion boards, and status updates. More than ever, our sentences matter.
Next-Gen Advisory: 10 Keys to College & Career Readiness
All of the great high schools that I visit have a strong distributed counseling system and advisory structure--a souped up homeroom that promotes a sustained relationship with an advisor, academic monitoring and management, and links to services.
Children as Makers
How do you encourage kids to be curious, to build things and take things apart, and to become the designers and engineers of the future? Be supportive! MAKE has a great short video about children as makers by engineering professor and maker mom AnneMarie Thomas.
Closing the Motivation Gap
The fact that the best professors in the world are making their courses freely available is an important milestone in learning opportunity, but MOOCs are largely serving the college educated seeking additional education.
Everything is Coming Up Robots
Now I find myself learning and teaching with robots. Where once I was reading through Chaim Potok’s The Chosen asking myself which learning objectives I could met through this text, now I am searching through Youtube videos of robot challenges to find a match for my objectives for the students.
Teaching Common Core Through Integrated History and Language Arts
We will walk participants through the websites to highlight how we use them in our integrated History/Language Arts model, focusing specifically on the Zoot Suit Riots and Scopes Monkey Trial. As an English teacher, it is my responsibility to support literacy across the disciplines. If History is an account of the past, Language Arts is how we tell the stories.
Consortium Points the Way on Proficiency-Based Learning
"David is a great resource for our region," said Nick Donohoe of the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, NESSC's primary benefactor. "He has a forward-thinking view of where learning needs to go, related to policies and assessment in particular," and he's particularly good at "summarizing 'edu-ese' for state legislators and local school leaders."