Archive
component:what.educator-leader-portraits
Competency-Based Progress
Susan Patrick, iNACOL (where I'm a director) and Chris Sturgis teamed up on a great new site, CompetencyWorks. While the shift to digital is key, and extending the reach of great teachers is important, the shift from age-cohorts to to a show-what-you-know system will prove to be the most profound--and challenging--educational change of our time. That's why the conversation and community on CompetencyWorks is so important.
What the Learning Sciences Tell Us About Competency Education
At a recent meeting sponsored by iNACOL to think deeply about competency and assessment, we talked about what impact the last few decades of learning science should have on doing the best job planning and using competencies for learning.
Improving Urban Education Options: A Digital Portfolio Approach
There are three key strategies to improving urban schools: bring high expectations to life, create and portfolio of quality options, and phase in personal digital learning
iNACOL & Partners Launch CompetencyWorks to Further Competency Education
CompetencyWorks, a collaborative project led by the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) and other partners to advance competency-based education, launches today. CompetencyWorks is a place for thought leaders to share best practices, evaluate tough issues, view state policies and learn about new resources and research.
Are You a Teacher-Leader?
Teachers are master problem-solvers. They learn quickly to adjust on the fly as they react boldly and deftly in a moment’s response, whether to students’ endless questions about how to and what if, to the numerous disruptions blaring from a PA system, or to adapting their lesson plans because the Internet is down…again. When it comes to their own classrooms, teachers do not hesitate to meet daily obstacles and challenges head-on. It’s their job, after all.
Teaching Opportunity: Excellence, Leadership & Student Impact
Public Impact posted summaries of how 10 different school models leverage talent. "In each of these models, teachers have career opportunities dependent upon their excellence, leadership, and student impact. Advancement allows more pay and greater reach."
In the Future, Teachers Remain Key to Student Success
New technologies and 21st century students will change tomorrow’s classrooms but quality instruction will remain the most important indicator of student achievement, which is why we must invest in professional development for teachers today.
Like Fish to Water: Virtual Learners in 2012
I have worked as an online educator since 2005 – facilitating learning in a two-year online program that equips current educators with Master’s degrees in Educational Leadership and signifies their formal readiness to take on positions of leadership inside their schools or districts. Getting to know these professionals through weekly interactions over the course of two years allows me to maintain an important connection to “real” schools and the students they serve as I fulfill other professional roles as an education policy researcher and consultant.
Rick Hess Says Edupreneurs Need to Be Thought Leaders
Rick Hess, the edpolicy maven at Education Week, published an article this week that looked at the roles of edupreneurs in the education marketplace. He argues that unlike entrepreneurs in other markets, edupreneurs need to be outspoken in order to inform, persuade and motivate the public space in which education operates.
6 Ways Digital Learning is Changing Teaching
I visited Wireless Generation, a leading education technology company, in Brooklyn this week. In a discussion about Getting Smart, a couple dozen employees including teachers and technologists asked great questions about the future of learning. Here are two more. As someone who has, within the last decade, been a…