Archive
component:how.learning-experiences
Managed Instruction vs Teacher Autonomy
Urban districts trying to ensure consistent rigor in every classroom have implemented programs of managed instruction--a common curriculum, shared lesson plans, pacing guides, periodic assessments, and associated professional development. While these programs can feel stifling, they often lead to incremental improvement.
One Game Fits All?
Is gamification the solution to student engagement? Gamification – the addition of game elements such as points and badges to non-games like ad campaigns, household chores, or public education – would seem to offer schools the perfect blend of engagement, entertainment, and education.
Free Choice Learning: What Teachers Can Learn From Museums
What does a public school classroom have in common with a museum exhibition hall? The answer has nothing to do with oversized models or informative laminated labels - and everything to do with the joy of learning.
How to Find the Magic in an Educational App
The concept of how to find the magic in an educational app came up recently during our weekly EducationalAppTalk forum. The question arose, “Why should educational apps be field-tested?” Well, we (teacherswithapps) field test apps with kids on a regular basis and have found that most often it is the kids who find the MAGIC.
Changing How We Think About Student Choice in Learning: Recombinant Education
An explosion of innovation has been transforming how we think about learning, and how we organize talent and resources to support learning experiences. School as we once knew it has become ‘unbundled.’ While Ohio has been debating charter schools, vouchers, and e-schools for years, emerging digital and blended learning models have created additional opportunities and new paradigms for thinking about student choice, and with them some demands for navigating this new learning ecosystem.
The Infrastructure of Personalized Learning
In my previous posts I’ve written about my wishes for a personalized learning environment for my children, how such an environment is not yet available, and how we as a family have begun to use a wide variety of resources to essentially prototype such an environment. I use the metaphor of a “platform” – seeing education not as a single, monolithic experience to be performed upon our young people, but as a set of services that students and parents can use to meet their own, unique educational goals.
Design Your Digital Classroom
I will be presenting a workshop titled Design Your Digital Classroom at the Illinois Computing Educators Conference on February 26th and 27th. I’m looking forward to #ICE13 once again this year because of the energy that surrounds an event like this. It’s so much fun to work with educators who are excited to participate and eager to leverage the power of technology as a tool for learning.
Writing Across the Curriculum With The Literacy Design Collaborative
The Literacy Design Collaborative is a network of teachers and partners “building out a template-based approach to the literacy demands of college and the workplace, as defined by the Common Core State Standards.” The concept is to give teachers tools (mostly offline but soon to be online) that enable them to transform the Common Core into classroom action by giving teacher the literacy resources to build student’s college ready literacy skills through their existing content lens.
Prototyping Education as a Platform
I wish school were different for my children. As a mom living in a school district with excellent schools, high test scores and property values, research-based practices, and warm, thoughtful educators who care about my kids you would think I would be satisfied. But like generations of parents before me, I want more for my kids than what I had.
Assessment All the Time? Why Not?
When talking with people who are not educators, I often think of Fannee Doollee, a character from the Zoom television series, which ran on PBS in the late seventies, who has a fascination with double letters. Fannee Doollee loves one thing but hates something very similar. For example, she loves swEEts but hates candy (notice the double EE in sweets). Similarly, in my conversation with parents and community leaders, I am always amazed at how they can advocate for one thing while mocking a possible solution.