Archive
element:what
Technically Speaking: How Common are the Common Core?
How common are the CCSS really, and who is systematically tracking state-specific CCSS modifications and additions? Doug Levin asks important questions about the Common Core. How much variation in state-specific CCSS standards language can be tolerated at a technical level to ensure interoperability across states? What is the process for ongoing governance of CCSS implementation at the technical level?
Alliance President Bob Wise Addresses the Common Core Naysayers
Following up on Alliance Senior Fellow Robert Rothman's blog post from last week, Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia, responds to individuals who are skeptical of the impact that the common core state standards will have on student achievement.
Common Core Launches Avalanche of Innovation
Common Core State Standards provide a national platform for innovation. For the first time, content developers can invest for a national market. The Core has triggered a wave of investment in engaging, personalized learning content and tools.
Competency-based Approach Can Support Personalized Learning in Ohio
Nearly 40 percent of college freshmen in Ohio need to take remedial courses because they are unprepared for college-level work. The total bill for remedial classes in 2009 came to $130 million, rising to $147 million in 2010. Remediation is most costly to students who take longer to complete their degrees and are more likely to drop out.
Riverside Virtual School Takes a Competency-Based Approach to Online Curriculum
Curriculum is personal. When created, teachers are essentially deciding what information is valuable enough to share with others. Will it challenge, engage, and inspire? Online curriculum allows for flexibility. One of the greatest things about online learning is that students work at their own pace, even with deadlines, the "when to work" is usually determined by the student. This is also one of the biggest challenges with online learning.
The Learning Mindset: Winning in the Civilian Sector
The 1% and 99% are making headlines. But I'm more worried about the 20%, the 50% and the 75%. The 20% of Iraq and Afghanistan vets age 18-24 who are unemployed, the 50% who are underemployed, and 75% who don't graduate from the programs of study that they start after they get out.
How Intelligent Scoring Will Help Create an Intelligent System
The Hewlett Foundation is sponsoring a competition that will demonstrate that automated essay scoring is already pretty good—on most traits it is as good as expert human graders. This prize competition will make it better. The reason Hewlett is sponsoring the competition is that they want to promote deeper learning—mastery of core academic content, critical reasoning and problem solving, working collaboratively, communicating effectively and learning how to learn independently.
Infographic: Getting Into the College of Your Dreams
For students today, getting into the college of their dreams begins freshman year of high school (or sooner). Students must work hard, take the right classes and couple it with the right extra curricular activities. Then, they must research colleges, apply and prepare for the big transition.
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.
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…