60 Things Students Can Create To Demonstrate What They Know  by Ryan Schaaf, Notre Dame of Maryland University When I was a high school student, I had the privilege of having a wonderful English teacher. She was kind, often helped her students, and created a wonderful classroom environment that was rare in my high school experience. To this day, I regard her as a great educator; one of the very best. Due to her help, I improved my writing abilities to the point I moved ahead to an Honors course the very next year. As I now reflect upon her and my learning experiences fondly, I had only one criticism - I did the same type of work day in and day out. Although repetition is a tried and true method for learning, performing the same academic exercises over and over again really left a great deal to be desired. I wanted to express myself in new and different ways. After all, variety is the spice of life. Nowadays, many educators use the same methods over and over again in their lessons for students to express themselves and demonstrate their new knowledge. Today’s students want to express themselves in a variety of different ways. They want their academic work to be relevant, engaging and fun. Below is a diverse list adapted from resources found at fortheteachers.org of potential student products or activities learners can use to demonstrate their mastery of lesson content. The list also offers several digital tools for students to consider using in a technology-enriched learning environment. 60 Things Students Can Create To Demonstrate What They Know Audio Recording (try Vocaroo) Acceptance Speech Advertisement Avatar (try Voki) Blog (try Edublogs) Book Jacket Brochure Bulletin Board Cartoon Class Book Collage (digital and non-digital) Comedy Comic Strip (try BitStrip) Commercial Dance Debate Demonstration Discussion (try Voicethread) Diorama Drawing Experiment Flow Chart Games (digital and non-digital) Google Earth Tour Graph Graphic Organizer Infomerical Interview Photo Portfolio (try Evernote) Puppet Show Learning Log Literature Circle Magazine Maps Mind Map (try bubbl.us) Mural Music News Report (try Fodey) Poetry Reenactment Role Play Scavenger Hunt (try QR codes) Scrapbook Sculpture Show & Tell Simulation (digital and non-digital) Slideshow Socratic Discussion Song Story Map Speech Tag Cloud (try Wordle) Theatrical Play Timeline (try Timegrinder) Video Webpage (try Weebly) Word Splash Word Wall Wiki (try Wikispaces) 60 Things Students Can Create To Demonstrate Understanding The post 60 Things Students Can Create To Demonstrate What They Know appeared first on TeachThought.

50 Of The Best Free Apps For Teachers by TeachThought Staff What are the best free apps for teachers? That’s a pretty general and subjective idea. The best for them as human beings-health, finances, and entertainment? The best for them in the classroom? To connect with other educators? To stay on top of emerging tools and trends in education? To use with students? For iOS, Android, or Windows Phone? Can we assume there’s WiFi access? Is data use an issue? What about data privacy? And what do we mean by "free" Truly free? Are in-app purchases available? Necessary? Is it a free version that has hideous banners everywhere? To say that there is a lot to consider is an understatement. That said, we’ve taken a wide-lens view of the modern teacher and taken a stab at what might be considered 50 of the best really, truly actually free apps available for iOS. They may have some paid options, but they’re each entirely useful without spending a penny. While we do look at music, health tracking apps, and other teachers-as-a-human-being apps, we focus mostly on the kinds of digital content that will help you teach more effectively to a wider range of students in more compelling and dynamic ways than ever before. All free. 50 Of The Best Free Apps For Teachers Terry Heick Owner 50 items   62 views 50 Of The Best Free Apps For Teachers Listly by Terry Heick From TeachThought, the best free apps for teachers, from iOS, Android, and Windows Mobile.   Follow List   Embed List 1 Coursmos Added by Olga Matveeva on Jan 15, 2014 2 Shadow Puppet for iPhone & iPad Shadow Puppet is a digital storytelling app for iPad designed for kids. Students record mini-movies or presentations that combine photos and their voice. See examples of Shadow Puppet in the classroom. Added by Emily Voigtlander on Mar 06, 2014 3 Evernote Evernote for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch gets you effortlessly organized with notes that sync between all your devices. Be productive anywhere. 4 Duolingo - Learn Languages for Free Learn another language from your phone in your spare time. 5 Google Drive - free online storage from Google All your files in Drive - like your videos, photos, and documents - are backed up safely so you can’t lose them. Easily invite others to view, edit, or leave comments on any of your files or folders. 6 Dropbox Dropbox is the place for your photos, docs, videos, and other files. Files you keep in Dropbox are safely backed up and you can get to them from all your devices. It’s easy to send large files to anyone, even if they don’t have a Dropbox account. 7 OneDrive - Cloud storage for files & photos Google Drive and Dropbox not your thing? The OneDrive app for iOS lets you easily work with your personal and work files when you’re on the go. 8 Microsoft Word The core Word experience is free, including viewing, creating and editing documents. 9 Storehouse - Photo & Video Collages, Stories, Albums Turn a collection of photos and videos into a shareable story. 10 Pocket: Save Articles and Videos to View Later Don’t lose track of the interesting things you find by emailing yourself links or letting tabs pile up in your browser. Just save them to Pocket. View more lists from Terry Heick 50 Of The Best Free Apps For Teachers The post 50 Of The Best Free Apps For Teachers appeared first on TeachThought.

  Moving Students From Digital Citizenship To Digital Leadership by TeachThought Staff Digital Citizenship has become one of the more symbolic phrases that represents the significant impact technology has made on our behavior and interactions. What is the definition of digital citizenship? A couple of years ago, Terry Heick offered that digital citizenship is "The quality of habits, actions, and consumption patterns that impact the ecology of digital content and communities." In short, it’s taking care of the "things" we depend on in digital spaces. This isn’t an easy concept for many students to wrap their head around, as it involves aspects of scale, permanence, and credibility that they are just beginning to wrestle with. Citizenship as an idea of its own is both crucial and crucially misunderstood, often reduced to political notions (Be heard-Vote!) or those ecological (Always Recycle!). Consider how infrequently many adults consider how the work they do, the things they buy, or the food they eat affects national or global citizenship. This is all big picture thinking that is, somehow, easy to miss. The Visual Which brings us to the visual above. Sylvia Duckworth recently got together with Jennifer Casa-Todd (you can also check out her blog) to illustrate an interesting twist on this idea-moving from mere "citizenship" to inspired leadership in digital spaces, using two definitions from George Couros (who has better hair than Terry Heick, so we get it). Digital Citizenship: Using the internet and social media in a responsible and ethical way Digital Leadership: Using the internet and social media to improve the lives, well-being, and circumstances of others. The idea behind the shift? A kind of empathy-moving beyond see one’s self, and moving towards seeing one’s self in the physical and digital company of others. As digital technology and social media become more deeply embedded in our lives, and more nuanced in their function, this is a shift whose time has come. The question becomes, then, what’s the next evolution of this idea? Moving Students From Digital Citizenship To Digital Leadership; image attribution Sylvia Duckworth The post Moving Students From Digital Citizenship To Digital Leadership appeared first on TeachThought.

So I Think I Figured Out The Source Of All Human Suffering by Terry Heick I was driving down Shelbyville Road yesterday, pulling down the visor to block the golden, blinding light from the setting sun, and I figured out the primal source of all human suffering. Not the moment by moment thinking mistakes that create suffering in a Zen-killing way. Rather, a kind of flaw in our collective condition. It goes something like this: Imagine a universe so vast that the size is inconceivable-so incredible that our language and spatial reasoning and capacity for understanding are entirely insufficient to see, describe, or truly make sense of it. What we exist within and make sense from overwhelms our frame for existing, and our capacity to make sense of anything. It’s a kind of broken loop. That’s only a problem of perception though. Imagine within that chaos, there is a large boulder moving silently in sweeping ellipses around a huge furnace of hydrogen (that is the only source of warmth for billions of miles). And on that boulder were living things (the ones that can’t conceive where they are and what they’re doing there) in a sea of limitlessness. Among the living things on this boulder was a species whose members looked remarkably similar. Almost identical. But something got crossed in the way these creatures see and think and believe: though these living things were nearly identical, they were infatuated with their differences. Here they all were, huddled together on this boulder hurtling through space at 45,000 miles per hour. That’s mortifying. In response, they wanted badly to connect and huddle closer and make each other smile. To see what that the other person was thinking and feeling and curious about and was afraid of-to see what they thought about being on this cosmically random boulder. (There was an agreement between this species and the boulder, and then the boulder and the sun called gravity that kept them from flying off into the abyss.) This species, in their evolution, ultimately formed systems-of government and business and communicating and the like. But these systems pit one against one another under this illusion of competition. They were designed all wrong by the species due to their limitations. These systems were designed to emphasize differences, instead of encouraging one person to lean on the person next to them. These living things were programmed to love and comfort, but participated in systems that made them judge and compete. The living creatures never did figure out that at any time they could stop competing. Design new systems driven by love. They could send robots to Mars, after all; they could compose symphonies and write novels and and make one another laugh. (Even had some creatures whose job it was to make other creatures laugh.) They could create new systems. They could. But the people that could had too much to lose, so they didn’t. They just stood on the rock and hurtled through space and finished out their existence with their eyes closed. The vastness of the universe troubled the creatures, so they stopped looking up; the differences between the living creatures troubled them, so they stopped looking left and right. Their own mortality troubled them too, so they stopped thinking abstractly. After that, they mostly looked down, only interrupting this pattern when they had to greet another living creature. They learned to do this efficiently by simply moving their lips into a kind of semi-circle that meant "Hello. I won’t hurt you." Then they kept walking. Eventually, they got practical. Real practical. Jobs and television and such. Most relationships were reduced to, "Are you a threat to me? If not, what can you do for me?" They invented time to mark their days on the rock. Created something called a year to mark trips around that hydrogen furnace. They had wars. Lots of them. Wars were when these living creatures grouped themselves into geographical gangs, each with their symbols clarifying their differences called flags. Then they used their intellectual affection and creative genius and capacity for design and created things called guns and bombs so that they would no longer have to stare at their differences. They erased them with gunpowder. It could be said that the differences were to blame; some creatures in fact blamed the differences. Others just wanted off the boulder. Still others thought a little bit longer about it, and thought maybe it was a lack of tolerance for difference. Some of these living creatures wanted to make the other stop existing, and to be efficient about this went onto school campuses (where people packed themselves together for learning and personal growth) with guns and started ending as many differences as they could. (While elsewhere on the boulder, some of the creatures were having weddings, where they promised to love forever without understanding what that meant.) The rest realized they were on a boulder traveling through space at 45,000 miles per hour, destined for death without exception (death was programmed into their code-something the creatures called DNA), and thought that love was the only thing that made sense. But when they tried to love others they found it difficult and troublesome and sometimes painful, so they stopped trying so much. They saved the love for the creatures that looked and sounded the most like them; those closest to them. To hell with the others. (They never said this; their behavior and thinking and racism and economic systems all implied it loudly enough.) The poor living creatures were coded to love and dream and hope and play, but one day, they (mostly) stopped. They came to see that unless everyone was in it for love, it didn’t work; those that weren’t in it for love broke the game-had the very best in living arrangements and work and power and potential. Those that abandoned love had an insurmountable advantage in terms of the things people collect, like gold and credit cards and Apple Watches. (Some people even used to collect people; they called them slaves.) In response, the living creatures learned to use distraction to cope, and medicated themselves endlessly with spirits and sports and gadgets and pills and stories told by liars (called movies) that quieted their minds-anything to avoid having to love one another as they hurtled through space. It was all very absurd. So the short version goes like this: Due to the perilous cosmic context of a very fragile human condition, the living creatures instinctively wanted to huddle together-to love one another. But self-designed systems encouraged them to be competitive and confrontational and mostly anonymous. In their marrow, they creatures wanted to love and be loved, but were tricked into thinking they were supposed to compete, scampering across the surface of the boulder in increasingly ridiculous patterns-thinking about their place on the boulder rather than the boulder’s place in the galaxy, and the galaxy’s place in the universe. They missed the point. They never realized that there was no such thing as a depressed astronomer. This was the primal source of all suffering. The post So I Think I Figured Out The Source Of All Human Suffering appeared first on TeachThought.

A Common Language: 30 Public Education Terms Defined  by TeachThought Staff Communication depends on a common language. In any field, knowing what a colleague means when they use a term or phrase is the difference between talking about ideas and exchanging ideas. So the following list of public education terms is useful not so much for the definitions, but for the credibility (or at least authority) of the definitions, as they are sourced from the Department of Education itself, in this case in regards to clarify Race to the Top language and meaning. For us, they’re informative for other reasons: To see language and patterns is to see priority and thought. Put another way, you can’t discuss and likely don’t value what you haven’t identified and named. To see how many factors impact a child’s education To clarify your own misconceptions To prioritize your own work To share with colleagues We’ve included most of the definitions they provided, but left a few out that were only narrowly useful. You can find the full list here. A Common Language: 30 Public Education Terms Defined  1. Achievement gap The difference in the performance between each ESEA subgroup (as defined in this document) within a participating LEA or school and the statewide average performance of the LEA’s or tate’s highest achieving subgroups in reading/language arts and mathematics as measured by the assessments required under the ESEA. 2. College and career-ready graduation requirements Minimum high school graduation expectations (e.g., completion of a minimum course of study, content mastery, proficiency on college- and career-ready assessments, etc.) that include rigorous, robust, and well-rounded curriculum aligned with college- and career-ready standards (as defined in this document) that cover a wide range of academic and technical knowledge and skills to ensure that students leave high school ready for college and careers. 3. College- and career-ready standards Content standards for kindergarten through 12th grade that build towards college- and career-ready graduation requirements (as defined in this document) by the time of high school graduation. A State’s college- and career-ready standards must be either (1) standards that are common to a significant number of States; or (2) standards that are approved by a State network of institutions of higher education, which must certify that students who meet the standards will not need remedial course work at the post-secondary level. 4. College enrollment The enrollment in college of students who graduate from high school consistent with 34 CFR 200.19(b)(1) and who enroll in an institution of higher education (as defined in section 101 of the Higher Education Act, P.L. 105-244, 20 U.S.C. 1001) within 16 months of graduation. Core educational assurance areas: Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and to compete in the global economy; Building data systems that measure student growth and success, and inform teachers and principals about how they can improve instruction; Recruiting, developing, rewarding, and retaining effective teachers and principals, especially where they are needed most; and Turning around our lowest-achieving schools. 5. Digital learning content Learning materials and resources that can be displayed on a digital device and shared electronically with other users. Digital learning content includes both open and or commercial content. In order to comply with the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, any digital learning content used by grantees must be accessible to individuals with disabilities, including individuals who use screen readers. For additional information regarding their application to technology, please refer to www.ed.gov/ocr/letters/colleague-201105-ese.pdf and www.ed.gov/ocr/docs/dcl-ebook-faq-201105.pdf. 6. Educators  All education professionals and paraprofessionals working in participating schools (as defined in this document), including principals or other heads of a school, teachers, other professional instructional staff (e.g. staff involved in curriculum development, staff development, or operating library, media and computer centers), pupil support services staff (e.g. guidance counselors, nurses, speech pathologists, etc.), other administrators (e.g. assistant principals, discipline specialists.), and paraprofessionals (e.g. assistant teachers, instructional aides). 7. Graduation rate  The four-year or extended-year adjusted cohort graduation rate as defined by 34 CFR 200.19(b)(1). 8. High-needs students  Students at risk of educational failure or otherwise in need of special assistance and support, such as students who are living in poverty, who attend high-minority schools (as defined in the Race to the Top application), who are far below grade level, who have left school before receiving a regular high school diploma, who are at risk of not graduating with a diploma on time, who are homeless, who are in foster care, who have been incarcerated, who have disabilities, or who are English learners. 9. Interoperable data system  System that uses common, established structure such that data can easily flow from one system to another and in which data are in a non-proprietary, open format. 10. Local educational agency  As defined in ESEA, a public board of education or other public authority legally constituted within a State for either administrative control or direction of, or to perform a service function for, public elementary schools or secondary schools in a city, county, township, school district, or other political subdivision of a State, or for a combination of school districts or counties that is recognized in a State as an administrative agency for its public elementary schools or secondary schools. 11. Low-performing schools  Schools that are in the bottom 10 percent of performance in the State, or who have significant achievement gaps, based on student academic performance in reading/language arts and mathematics on the assessments required under the ESEA or graduation rates (as defined in this document). 12. Metadata about content alignment  Information about how digital learning content assesses, teaches, and depends on (requires) common content standards such as State academic standards. 13. On-track indicator  A measure, available at a time sufficiently early to allow for intervention, of a single student characteristic (e.g., number of days absent, number of discipline referrals, number of credits earned), or a composite of multiple characteristics, that is both predictive of student success (e.g., students demonstrating the measure graduate at an 80 percent rate) and comprehensive of students who succeed (e.g., of all graduates, 90 percent demonstrated the indicator). Using multiple indicators that are collectively comprehensive but vary by student characteristics may be an appropriate alternative to a single indicator that applies to all students. 14. Participating schools  Schools that are identified by the LEA or consortium and choose to work with the LEA to implement the LEA(s)’ Race to the Top plan, either in a specific grade span or subject area or in the entire school. 15. Participating students  Students enrolled in a participating school (as defined in this document), grades, or subject areas and directly served by a Race to the Top District plan. 16. Persistently lowest-achieving schools  As determined by the State, consistent with the requirements of the School Improvement Grants program authorized by section 1003(g) of the ESEA, Any Title I school in improvement, corrective action, or restructuring that (a) Is among the lowest-achieving five percent of Title I schools in improvement, corrective action, or restructuring or the lowest-achieving five Title I schools in improvement, corrective action, or restructuring in the State, whichever number of schools is greater; or (b) Is a high school that has had a graduation rate as defined in 34 CFR 200.19(b) that is less than 60 percent over a number of years; and Any secondary school that is eligible for, but does not receive, Title I funds that (a) Is among the lowest-achieving five percent of secondary schools or the lowest-achieving five secondary schools in the State that are eligible for, but do not receive, Title I funds, whichever number of schools is greater; or (b) Is a high school that has had a graduation rate as defined in 34 CFR 200.19(b) that is less than 60 percent over a number of years. To identify the lowest-achieving schools, a State must take into account both (i) The academic achievement of the "all students" group in a school in terms of proficiency on the State’s assessments under section 1111(b)(3) of the ESEA in reading/language arts and mathematics combined; and (ii) The school’s lack of progress on those assessments over a number of years in the "all students" group. 17. Personalized learning plan  A formal document, available in digital and other formats both in and out of school to students, parents, and teachers, that, at a minimum: establishes student learning goals based on academic and career objectives and personal interests; sequences content and skill development to achieve those learning goals and ensure that a student can graduate on-time college- and career-ready; and is updated based on information about student performance on a variety of activities and assessments that indicate progress towards goals. 18. Principal evaluation system  A system that: (1) will be used for continual improvement of instruction; (2) meaningfully differentiates performance using at least three performance levels; (3) uses multiple valid measures in determining performance levels, including as a significant factor data on student growth(as defined in this document) for all students (including English learners and students with disabilities), and other measures of professional practice (which may be gathered through multiple formats and sources, such as observations based on rigorous leadership performance standards, teacher evaluation data, and student and parent surveys); (4) evaluates principals on a regular basis; (5) provides clear, timely, and useful feedback, including feedback that identifies needs for and guides professional development; and (6) will be used to inform personnel decisions. 19. School board evaluation  An assessment of the LEA school board that both evaluates performance and encourages professional growth. This evaluation system rating should reflect both (1) the feedback of many stakeholders, including but not limited to educators and parents; and (2) student outcomes performance in order to provide a detailed and accurate picture of the board’s performance. 20. School leadership team  A team that is composed of the principal or other head of a school, teachers and other educators, and, as applicable, other school employees, parents, students, and other community members, and leads the implementation of improvement and other initiatives at the school. In cases where statute or local policy, including collective bargaining agreements, call for such a body, that body shall serve the school leadership team for the purpose of this program. 21. Student attendance  During the regular school year, the average percentage of days that students are present for school. Students should not be considered present for excused absences, unexcused absences, or any period of time that they are out of their regularly assigned classrooms due to discipline measures (i.e., in- or out-of-school suspension). 22. Student survey  Measures students’ perspectives on teaching, learning, and related supports in their classrooms and schools. The surveys must be research-based, valid, and reliable. Over time these results should be predictive of rates of student growth. 23. Student Growth  The change in student achievement for an individual student between two or more points in time, defined as— For grades and subjects in which assessments are required under ESEA section 1111(b)(3): (1) a student’s score on such assessments and (2) other measures of student learning, such as those described in the second bullet, provided they are rigorous and comparable across schools within an LEA. For grades and subjects in which assessments are not required under ESEA section 1111(b)(3): alternative measures of student learning and performance, such as student results on pre-tests, end-of-course tests, and objective performance-based assessments; performance against student learning objectives; student performance on English language proficiency assessments; and other measures of student achievement that are rigorous and comparable across schools within an LEA. 24. Student-level data  Demographic, performance, and other information that pertains to a single student but cannot be attributed to a specific student. 25. Student performance data  Information about the academic progress of a single student, such as formative and summative assessment data, coursework, instructor observations, information about student engagement and time on task, and similar information. 26. Subgroup  Each category of students identified under ESEA section 1111(b)(2)(C)(v)(II). 27. Superintendent evaluation  Rigorous, transparent, and fair annual evaluation for the LEA superintendent that provides an assessment of performance and encourages professional growth. This evaluation rating should reflect (1) the feedback of many stakeholders, including but not limited to educators, principals, and parents; and (2) student outcomes performance in order to provide a detailed and accurate picture of the superintendent’s performance. 28. Teacher attendance  During the regular school year, the average percentage of days that teachers are present when they would otherwise be expected to be teaching students in an assigned class. Teachers should not be considered present for days taken for sick leave and/or personal leave. Personal leave includes voluntary absences for reasons other than sick leave. 29. Teacher evaluation system  System that: (1) will be used for continual improvement of instruction; (2) meaningfully differentiates performance using at least three performance levels; (3) uses multiple valid measures in determining performance levels, including as a significant factor data on student growth (as defined in this document) for all students (including English learners and students with disabilities), and other measures of professional practice (which may be gathered through multiple formats and sources, such as observations based on rigorous teacher performance standards, teacher portfolios, and student and parent surveys); (4) evaluates teachers on a regular basis; (5) provide clear, timely, and useful feedback, including feedback that identifies needs and guides professional development; and (6) will be used to inform personnel decisions. 30. Turnaround strategy  As defined by the School Improvement Grant (SIG) regulations, published in the Federal Register on October 28, 2010 (75 FR 66363), turnaround model, restart model, school closure, or transformational model. image attribution  data source ed.gov The post A Common Language: 30 Public Education Terms Defined appeared first on TeachThought.

4 Tips For Smarter Collaboration With Resource Teachers by Dan Henderson, Author of That’s Special: A Survival Guide To Teaching It was an arranged work marriage spurred on by the ceremonial job fair. Two principals were swapping teachers as casually as goats in a dowry. This was the last job fair before the school year, and these teachers were either inexperienced or lemons. The lemon dance squeezed out Paul to our elementary school. Eliza, an experienced teacher, was weary of this arranged marriage when Paul’s first question to ignite their foray was "When is lunch?" Eliza stares at her countdown till summer calendar in her classroom. The dismal number 163 taunts her in blood red ink. Eliza witnesses her first graders dare each other to lick their names on the table.  The first grader laughed as Todd’s lips open making a smacking sound. The tip of his tongue makes first contact with the table. Mumbling and laughing simultaneously he writes, Todd on the table. Eliza asks Todd to repent, but the saliva has already melted through the first two floors of the school. Carefully crafted ham and cheese sandwiches from loving moms are garnished with Todd’s saliva. This was not the condiment of choice. Collaborating With Resource Teachers Isn’t Rocket Science This gross dare has one positive outcome. Eliza recently bought stock in Clorox wipes. Eliza’s post teaching career was to be a spokesperson for Clorox. Buy Clorox wipes, because no one ever told you that being a mom involves cleaning saliva off your furniture. Eliza looks at the clock, 1:30pm. "Where is my inclusion teacher? Where is Paul?" Eliza thought. Eliza hears Paul running up the stairwell. He bursts open the door disturbing all the busy bees working hard at their desks. "Am I late?" Paul asks sheepishly. Looking at the clock, Paul starts to blush. Eliza got the short end of the dowry. "Late, Late, it’s 1:30! You were suppose to be hear at 1pm. Not only did you miss the center with your students but don’t you have to get to your next class?" Eliza pauses hoping this newbie understands the importance of timeliness. Paul looks down at the ground in shame. "Well, why were you so late?" Eliza demands. "The deli six blocks away has really good pastrami sandwiches." Eliza realizes that falling test scores in the U.S. are not because of lack of funding or adequate education but because of the power of the pastrami on rye. 4 Tips For Collaboration With Resource Teachers 1. Use A Schedule And try to stick to it. Yes, resource teachers have meetings and paperwork through the yin yang, but the students come first. Actually, by law, the hours agreed upon per week or month are a legal binding document. Special education teachers who habitually miss hours of instruction can only make up so much time in the week. This sacred instructional time needs to be honored, and all efforts must be made to protect the special education instructional time with their students. You also may need to make up time. The special education teacher will be late. They may be dealing with a student in crisis or just be out sick. When setting up the schedule, plan for extra hours in the week in case you have to make up hours. If the special education teacher does not need them, they can use them for extra planning time. The give and take of your arranged marriage has to work for you. Respecting each others time is the cornerstone. If the principal can throw in a llama to the dowry, then your inclusion marriage will be that much sweeter. 2. Clarify The IEP Items & Goals The special education teacher should provide an IEP to the general education teacher (among other staff). The program should list goals and rubrics for how each of the goals is to be measured. The general education teacher and the special education teacher need to work together to accomplish the student’s IEP goals. But how? 3. Actually Collaborate Collaboration is not a pointless meeting. Many times students with learning disabilities need the material presented in a different way. A simplification of the steps and the appropriate re-arrangement of the curriculum can only be done though collaboration. How can you adapt a lesson on long division if the special education teacher has not seen the lesson plans? 4. Focus on the student’s strengths Far too often, the special education student’s strengths are not being used. Self-esteem is as foundational to teaching as food and water. I always start a lesson off with a topic or problem the student will be guaranteed to get correct.  Motivating the students by positive re-direction of what they can do builds up momentum for them to tackle difficult problems ahead. Instead of seeing the child as a concern, talk to your students about their strengths. Find the positive attributes in your students instead of labeling them a problem. To sum it up… "Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." Anonymous  You can find more about the book That’s Special: A Survival Guide To Teaching on facebook ; 4 Tips For Collaboration With Resource Teachers; 4 Tips For Smarter Collaboration With Resource Teachers The post 4 Tips For Smarter Collaboration With Resource Teachers appeared first on TeachThought.

Insanity In Education: 52 Mistakes We Make Over And Over Again by Terry Heick The context for this one is simple enough-what mistakes do we constantly make in education that hold us back from the best versions of ourselves? From realizing our collective potential as a construct, field, and industry? What mistakes do we make over and over and over again, expecting a different result each time? Probably a lot, but 52 is enough for now. Forget learning should be fun. Stigmatize failure. Think of children like little adults. Gamify compliance to institutional policies instead of social change and disruptive creativity. Place students on the periphery when we design, plan, and respond to their learning. (It’s theirs, not ours.) Assume all kids need to know the same things. Fail to meaningfully involve-or better yet, require-community involvement in every layer of our system of teaching and learning. Fail to recruit African American and Latino teachers with forward thinking. (Teach for America isn’t it.) Plan backwards from standards. Start school at 7 o’clock in the morning. Build big schools and expect personalization. Collect those big schools into big districts and expect innovation. Prioritize uniformity and expect creativity. Teach content instead of thinking. Put the "best teachers" in the "worst schools." Misunderstand concepts and models (e.g., personalized learning, inquiry, PBL) that could change everything. Reduce understanding to letters and numbers. Talk about ideas instead of the effects of those ideas. Value answers over questions. Say we value depth over breadth, but then have policies and systems in place that imply the opposite. Fail to protect, optimize, support, innovate, and otherwise increase teacher planning time. Design curriculum based on content instead of thinking and action. Package that curriculum into units. Forget that play is the highest form of learning. (We come to understand through play; we can’t "play" with what we don’t understand; we can’t fail to improve our understanding when we play.) Seem to ignore that mobile learning is central to education’s future. Look back instead of forward. Resist allowing technology to radically alter our classrooms and ways of doing business within them. Plan the delivery of that curriculum as a matter of chronology-that is, treat it as if it is linear. Actually believe that every single student can master every single academic standard-without making them think they hate learning. Stigmatize "alternative schools," and fail to support them with the same level of innovation and thinking we expect for the non-alternative schools. Believe that vertical alignment is possible to do consistently. Teach reading like a skill instead of a knowledge-seeking, pleasurable activity. Bus students. Pay a lot of money for PD that is ineffective. Then do the same thing the next year. Believe that student engagement and curiosity are merely goals instead of absolutely mandatory. Blame technology when the pedagogy is bad. Blame pedagogy when the technology is bad. Fail to compensate for the heart-breaking conditions some students live in. Under-utilize and under-serve truly gifted learners. (Actually, we under-utilize and under-serve the gifts of all learners, but we have downright brilliant students in our schools just eking out an academic existence instead of changing the world.) Paint classroom walls beige. Make schools look less like Apple Stores and more like prisons. Make classrooms look less like cafes and more like stuffy rooms. Confuse rigorous, complex, challenging, and difficult. Make good ideas into "programs," then wonder why teachers roll their eyes at good ideas. Separate curriculum, assessment, instruction, and technology. Value teacher compliance over teacher capacity. Celebrate uniformity and teachers being on the "same page," but expect great teaching. Let teachers talk more than students. Dehumanize teachers with pressure, then wonder why they quit. Drag students kicking and screaming through lessons and units. (Instead of figuring out another way.) Under-value relationships with students (including formal mentoring programs). Think of school as "college and career prep." The Definition Of Insanity In Education: 52 Mistakes We Make Over And Over Again The post Insanity In Education: 52 Mistakes We Make Over And Over Again appeared first on TeachThought.

Is 2016 The Year That Progressive Education Returns? by Robert Sun The 1920’s were a high point in the Progressive Education movement. Developed in response to the rigid pedagogy of 19th Century industrial society—methods that stressed uniform learning largely defined by social class—Progressive Education sought to break the mold with a more enlightened approach to public schooling. While Progressive Education had many elements, it essentially followed three teaching strategies. First was an emergent curriculum that responded to children’s enthusiasms, recognizing that students are most motivated to learn something they are already interested in. Second was an integrated curriculum wherein children learn thematically, rather than through compartmentalized subject matter. Third was the notion of experiential education, learning by doing. Experiential education requires students to get out of their chairs, work with their hands, and actively cooperate with others on a shared goal. Despite its promise and a number of early successes, Progressive Education eventually lost momentum in the United States. Much of decline was due to the cultural conservatism of the 1940’s and 50’s, a time when national identity was highly valued and common approaches to things like education were emphasized. In that era, a good citizen was one who fit into "the system." The ensuing Cold War caused political and educational leaders to stress outcomes rather than process—a philosophy that in many ways persists today. As America comes to grips with the 21st Century world, however, the precepts of Progressive Education are once again finding favor. Why? Mainly because the human skills needed in this century are very different from those in the last. A recent World Economic Forum research study, "New Vision for Education: Unlocking the Potential of Technology," identified the skills and traits students will need for future success including critical thinking, creativity, communications, curiosity, initiative, persistence and adaptability. These skills, the report states, will be as important as language arts, mathematics and science. Progressive Education also mirrors the priorities of contemporary American society—the need to accept diversity—particularly an individual’s skills, preferences, responsibilities and rights. It values socially-engaged thinkers who can evaluate complex issues and come to independent conclusions that benefit the common good. As much as this modern version of Progressive Education owes its existence to innovators of long ago, it has been re-shaped by 21st Century instructional thinking: Emergent curriculum has become Passion-Based Learning, so that skills are tailored to contemporary interests. Integrated curriculum is now known as Theme-Based Learning, using topics that not only activate a diverse array of subjects, but also allow students to see how each plays its part in solving a larger challenge. Experiential education has been enabled—even transformed—by technology that gives kids hands-on, interactive knowledge. Through creative use of technology, critical thinking, persistence, communication and collaboration are all enabled. Finland has been a leader in the neo-progressive movement. Music, physical education and art are not only required but prized, as is time for self-directed activities throughout the school day. Finnish schools are shifting to teaching by topic rather than subject; moreover, students are free to choose topics that can span a number of traditional "subjects." Both Finland and U.S. score in the top 10 in the 2015 Global Innovation Index, but Finland ranks 12th in the PISA study (mean score) of performance in mathematics, reading and science, while U.S. is 36th—indicating that a progressive strategy can achieve both the foundational and "soft" skills needed for success in this century. Technology is playing a major role in the re-examination of Progressive Education. Game-based learning programs are becoming highly valued at elementary and intermediate levels because they’re child-centered and playful, allowing kids to explore complex subjects at will. Games support collaboration and the free exchange of views and ideas. Used in conjunction with interactive white boards and touchscreens, students work together to propose solutions, explain ideas, and engage in close cooperation to acquire knowledge. Today’s form of experiential education is often referred as "project-based learning." A similar, though shorter-format version is "program-based learning" in which students are focused on specific challenges. Game-based learning excels at these program-based situations because they allow students to grow comfortable in their new roles as collaborators. Soon they can move on to larger, project-based initiatives. One need only look at the state of education in the U.S. today to realize people are looking for answers. The pushback over high-stakes testing isn’t abating; in New York state alone, 20% of all public school students—more than 200,000 in all—have opted out of such tests. In Pennsylvania the opt-out movement has grown by more than 300%. As a nation, we need to take advantage of each child’s innate passion for learning, but as long as school districts see compliance as a number-one priority, they can never properly support and nurture students. Without a more enlightened approach to education, we’re viewing our children through a mere single lens. It is important that we look at the bigger picture and find new ways to motivate our children to master skills on their own. Progressive Education, as a philosophy for improving our schools, has been debated for more than a century. Hopefully this is the year that we will finally embrace it and bring a sense of joy to learning. ROBERT SUN is the CEO of Suntex International and inventor of First In Math, an online program designed for deep practice in mathematics. The post Is 2016 The Year That Progressive Education Returns? appeared first on TeachThought.

Video Games Can Teach Your Students by Andrew Ross, Language Teacher in Japan Ed note: The post below is part 1 in a 3-part series on the reality of teaching with video games. Learning a new language isn’t easy. I know. I live in Japan but I still can’t speak Japanese very well. Oh, I can understand some important words (the word for "deported" is important to know!), but I rarely have to say much in Japanese in my everyday life. Japanese people don’t really speak English. Their education doesn’t emphasize it. The classes are mostly taught in Japanese! Instead, students are taught to translate so they can understand. The same goes for my online "classes," in that I’m mostly asked to do multiple choice questions based on my ability to translate what I read or hear. That means that most of my conversations end up looking like a scene from Star Wars, where my conversation partner and I are both speaking in different languages but apparently can understand each other just fine. When everything’s translated, it’s hard to stay motivated. This applies to the US as well. Why learn a foreign language when one of the two countries we share borders with mostly speaks English? Everything gets translated into English anyway, right? And on a daily basis, we don’t usually have to use a foreign language. In Japan, the situation’s basically the same, except there’s a sense of shame about being monolingual when your government constantly tells you it’s important and mandates you learn the language for six years (or longer with the new generation). Motivation & Learning Just being told a subject is important isn’t enough. If so, I’d be much better at math, my weakest subject. Aside from the basics, the only time I remember using more advanced math was when I was playing a Pokemon game in high school. Despite the cute appearance of the monsters, the mechanics involved in raising the digital creatures use  some slightly difficult algebra. I didn’t get the formulas on the test, but I went back to the books long after so I could raise the best digital blood-sport-beasts possible. That’s the power of motivation. This isn’t anything new though. We know inherently that motivation helps, and there’s been a lot of studies on the subject. In fact, I did an interview with to two researchers, Dr. Liss Kerstin Sylvén from the University of Gothenburg and Dr. Pia Sundqvist from Karlstad University, about language acquisition. Their focus was on "extramural English"; English used outside the classroom for non-academic purposes. That is, students using English for fun, and naturally, students who did this outperformed students who didn’t. Their activities ranged from television to games to social media, and games seemed to most strongly correlate with language improvement. When writing another article on Dr. Rachel Kowert and Dr. Thorsten Quandt’s The Video Game Debate, education and games once again popped up, with motivation once again being a central idea in their chapter on education and games. It’s not perfect, but one thing games can do that many other media can’t is to simulate another activity. For example, in Oregon Trail, through text, you experience what it was like to cross the country with, to be polite, less modern conveniences. We’d read the dry descriptions and a few journal entries, but it wasn’t as engaging as the simple simulation the game presented. My sister nearly always died of dysentery, a word I never looked up in class until the teacher let us play the game to experience the harsh reality of the situation. I can’t actually fix a wagon, but I learned the names of several parts and how they functioned because, in order to best enjoy the game, I was motivated to learn about what was going on. This is also why, mostly due to the popular perception of all games being violent, people fear that games are damaging to children. Let’s give the harshest critics against games their biggest argument though: games can teach kids to become soldiers. It’s crazy since games rarely take into account something like the kick of a gun and how to load ammunition, both of which can make using the firearm potentially lethal for the user, but that’s fine, because here’s the thing we can’t argue then: it teaches. In fact, Dr. Kowert and Dr. Quandt’s book even notes that games that explicitly point out to players when they perform a morally reprehensible action, they tend to at least feel bad, if not avoid that action in the future. That is, games can also teach morality. The recent popularity of a game called Undertale, in which you can choose not to kill anyone for a happy ending or kill everything and experience a tragedy, shows that not only can a non-violent game can teach players to "play nice," but it can be highly enjoyable as well. If students can learn shooting and morals, why not math? My algebra skills actually improved a bit due to a summer of pokemon. Why not mythology? I learned a lot of names and places from various RPGs. Why not language? I learned to read two of the Japanese writing systems because I imported a Japanese game and spent about two months glued to the screen and a dictionary so I could understand it long before amateur translators would disseminate their scripts. There are some problems with this however, which we will get into tomorrow in Part 2. Video Games Can Teach Your Students The post Video Games Can Teach Your Students appeared first on TeachThought.

The Mistakes That Quality Assessments Avoid by Daniel R. Venables, Founding Director of the Center for Authentic PLCs It’s that time of the school year when teachers are facing writing their first or second wave of unit tests and assessments. The following list of items are things best avoided in designing quality teacher-made assessments.   1. Too many multiple-choice questions Sure, they are easy to correct and reduce the time it takes teachers to correct several classes of tests, but they generally reveal very little about a student’s knowledge or understanding if she gets a question wrong. (This is true also for a question a student answered correctly in so far as we have no idea if the student’s answer was a random guess.) To know how a student was thinking or where her confusion might lie, we need questions that give her a chance to say more than "B". More, in the words of the late, great educator Dr. Ted Sizer, "How can we assess if a student is using her mind well if we ask her questions that have answers to choose from?" 2. Including ‘spoiler-alert’ questions By these I mean questions that tell the student how to answer the question in the question itself. For example, on a math test containing a section on applying logarithms, don’t say "Use logs to solve each the following," instead say "Solve each of the following." 3. Using questions with no identifiable purpose It’s so easy for us as educators to put a question on an assessment we’re writing that seemed like a good one but, upon further examination, has no real purpose. For each question item included on your assessment ask: What is the purpose of this question? What specific knowledge will I gain about my students’ levels of mastery of a standard or substandard by their answers to this question? 4. Unintentional question redundancy It may be the case that you’re deliberately asking a question that tests the same skill or understanding at the same level of cognition as another question, but very often we include several question items that may look different or have different window dressing surrounding them that tests the exact understanding or skill as a previous question. Ask yourself: Do I need another question testing this or have I covered this standard sufficiently by previous questions at previous levels of depth?   Remember all the correcting you had to do in #1? Less is more. 5. Using unweighted rubrics If the assessment you’re designing has a component that is to be scored with a rubric, weight the various dimensions in the rubric according to their significance. For example, if one dimension is Writing Mechanics and another is Source Citing, decide if these should hold the same weight in the overall grade on this assessment and, if not, weight them accordingly. It is a rare case when it is sensible for every dimension of a rubric to have the same weight. Don’t do so by default because it hadn’t occurred to you to give them different weights.   6. Rubric dimensions that address what students did The purpose of the rubric is to discern levels of mastery of various standards addressed by the assessment and not a checklist of whether or not the student included things she was supposed to do in the manner you requested. For example, a rubric dimension Use of Text as Evidence addresses a learning standard or substandard being assessed but a rubric dimension Completion of Portfolio Requirements addresses something the student did and not something the student learned. Let the rubric reflect students’ level of learning; let a separate checklist denote what she did in the demonstration of that learning. [Bonus tip:  For the Checklist, I always include one like "Use of Class Time"] 7. Using a single grade to reflect mastery of multiple standards This may be a time-honored tradition, but it really makes no sense. We are interested in our students’ mastery against a standard or several standards and in that regard, there should be a separate score/grade assigned for each. If this is too bold a break from tradition for you and you insist on an overall score for every assessment, avoid thinking in terms of percentages (another time-honored tradition that really makes no sense).   Score the component parts of the assessment as you will and if you’re going to use an overall score, make it one that is sensible based on the amount of mastery evidenced and not on what percentage of the assessment items the student answered correctly. Daniel R. Venables is Founding Director of the Center for Authentic PLCs and author of How Teachers Can Turn Data Into Action (ASCD, 2014), The Practice of Authentic PLCs:  A Guide to Effective Teacher Teams (Corwin, 2011), and Facilitating Authentic PLCs:  The Human Side of Leading Teacher Teams (ASCD, forthcoming). He can be contacted at dvenables@authenticplcs.com. This post is aligned with two themes from Connected Educator Month 2015: "Innovations in Professional Learning," led by ASCD, and "Innovations in Assessment," led by NCTE. Click the following links to find ASCD resources for professional learning or assessment; The Mistakes That Quality Assessments Avoid; image attribution flickr us nickamostcato The post The Mistakes That Quality Assessments Avoid appeared first on TeachThought.

It’s Time For Personalized Learning In Education by Michael Horn, Executive Director of Education at Innosight Institute and co-author of Disrupting Class In March, Tom Loveless, a fellow at the Brookings Institution, took an outdated swipe at the logic behind moving toward a student-centered learning system. He in essence suggested that because the curriculum wars have been decided more or less empirically, that people bent on disrupting the classroom and the factory-model education system were doing so under faulty assumptions about how students learn. In his piece, he attacked the logic of teaching around multiple intelligences and pointed to some of the research that shows that tailoring learning opportunities to common assumptions around visual, auditory, and other such supposed learning styles are not good ways of teaching different students. A problem with Loveless’s argument is that many of my fellow "disruptors" and I who think that it is important to disrupt the education system think this way not under the mindset that it will—or should—help with multiple intelligences or learning styles, but instead because of a simpler and more rigorously tested notion that is far less ideological than Loveless assumes. Today’s factory-model education system, which was built to standardize the way we teach, falls short in educating successfully each child for the simple reason that just because two children are the same age, it does not mean they learn at the same pace or should follow the same pathway. Each child has different learning needs at different times. Although academics, including cognitive scientists, neuroscientists, and education researchers, have waged fierce debates about what these different needs are—some talk about multiple intelligences and learning styles whereas others point to research that undermines these notions—what no one disputes is that each student learns at a different pace. Some students learn quickly. Others learn more slowly. And each student’s pace tends to vary based on the subject or even concept one is learning. The reason for these differences, in short, is twofold. First, everyone has a different aptitude—or what cognitive scientists refer to as "working memory" capacity, meaning the ability to absorb and work actively with a given amount of information from a variety of sources, including visual and auditory. Second, everyone has different levels of background knowledge—or what cognitive scientists refer to as "long-term memory." What this means is that people bring different experiences or prior knowledge into any learning experience, which impacts how they will learn a concept. If a teacher assumes that everyone in a class is familiar with an example from history that is only ancillary to the point of a particular lesson, for example, but uses that example to illustrate a particular point, then the students who are unfamiliar with the example or who have misconceptions about that example, may just miss the point of the lesson or develop misconceptions about the point of the lesson itself. This isn’t under dispute. There is also widespread agreement that, as a result, targeting learning just above a student’s level such that it is not too easy or hard is critical to helping students be successful (Daniel Willingham, who Loveless cites in his discussion debunking the learning-style theory, writes extensively about this in his book Why Don’t Students Like School—in the first chapter). If Loveless had kept up with our writing (not that I blame him for not) or read Disrupting Class with a bit more of a nuanced eye, he would have seen that we didn’t pin our argument on multiple intelligences or learning styles per se—we were quite up front that we are not experts in the learning sciences by any means. Instead, we asserted broadly that students had varying learning needs and used learning styles as a device to illustrate the point. Mea culpa on using that example, as I’ve written more extensively here, but at the same time, it doesn’t refute the fundamental point of our argument that customization—or personalization—is needed if we are to help every child reach his or her fullest potential. Understanding this helps us understand the logic of personalizing learning and moving away from the current system that mandates the amount of time students spend in class, but does not expect each child to master learning. Because our education system is built to standardize, not personalize, transforming it through disruptive innovation is critical. This seems to play into one of Loveless’s core worries though, as he seems to have a love for some of the assumptions embedded in the factory model of education. As he wrote, "Moreover, individualized instructional programs, whether delivered exclusively online or through ‘blended’ regimes, are antithetical to the goal that all students learn a common body of knowledge and skills at approximately the same time." The challenge, of course, with his argument is that today students do not in fact learn or master a common body of knowledge and skills at approximately the same time; they are merely taught them—which is far different from truly learning them. Why is Loveless concerned about students learning the same thing at the same time? First, because learning some things in common, he says, are important. I agree. Learning some things in common—of course not all things, but a strong foundation—is important. Again, although I am no expert, the research suggests that a strong foundation of knowledge is critical for future learning and meaningful participation in and contribution to society (but it’s also not sufficient, which is why developing deeper skills and dispositions are so important—a false either-or from which we need to move away). This isn’t antithetical to blended or student-centered learning; if Loveless thinks it is, I recommend he visit one of the KIPP LA elementary schools. What he sees might surprise. Second, Loveless assumes that because students may learn these things at different times in a blended-learning world, that it will exacerbate the achievement gap—a legitimate worry. We need more research here, but the evidence seems to suggest that the achievement gap is exacerbated in the factory-model system when a student does not master a concept, develops holes in her learning, and the teacher just moves on to the next concept the next day. Instead, what we’ve seen in Chugach, Alaska and elsewhere, is that when we move to a competency-based learning system concerned with rigor—in which students move on to new concepts only upon mastery (and there exists the notion of a minimum pace so students who are falling behind get more attention and gaps don’t grow too big)—that students who would typically be left behind and see their gaps grow bigger and bigger, instead experience a sea change when misconceptions are corrected, they master foundational knowledge and skills, and they can then accelerate much faster than anyone would have expected. Different students also struggle at different points. Who struggles and where is often unpredictable ahead of time—in other words, "the smart kids" group and "the slow kids" group aren’t fixed. Will competency-based learning exacerbate some gaps? Certainly. The most talented students—who we under-serve and hold back today—will be able to accelerate even faster. The hope though is that these gaps will have less to do with race and wealth than they do today, but we don’t know for sure. We do know though that the status quo factory-model system—in my mind the opposite of a student-centered one—is failing along this dimension. I’ve also heard Loveless attack personalized learning, one of the two components of what I think of as making up a student-centered education system (the other being competency-based education). Loveless looked up studies that purported to be implementing "personalized" learning and found that the approaches weren’t necessarily effective. The challenge though is in assuming once again that everyone means the same thing by the term or did the same sorts of interventions; simply looking up personalized learning in the peer-reviewed research is too simplistic. There are lots of notions and differing definitions of what personalized learning is, but when I, and many other disruptors use the phrase, we mean learning that is tailored to an individual student’s particular needs—in other words, it is customized or individualized to help each individual succeed. The power of personalized learning, understood in this way, is intuitive. When students receive one-on-one help from a tutor instead of mass-group instruction, the results are generally far superior. This makes sense, given that tutors can do everything from adjusting if they are going too fast or too slow to rephrasing something a different way or providing a different example or approach to make a topic come to life for a student. But you don’t have to take our word for it. Studies show the power of this kind of personalized learning for maximizing student success. Benjamin Bloom’s classic "2 Sigma Problem" study, published in 1984, measured the effects of students learning with a tutor to deliver personal, just-in-time, customized help. The striking finding was that by the end of three weeks, the average student under tutoring was about two standard deviations above the average of the control class. That means that the average tutored student scored higher than 98 percent of the students in the control class. Furthermore, 90 percent of the tutored students attained the level of summative achievement reached by only the highest 20 percent of the students under conventional instructional conditions. A more recent meta-analysis by Kurt VanLehn that revisits Bloom’s conclusion suggests that the effect size of human tutoring seems to be more around 0.79 standard deviations than the widely publicized 2 standard deviation figure. But even with this revision, the impact is hugely significant. The problem is that having a human tutor for each student is prohibitively expensive; so to educate large numbers of students in the early 1900s, we adopted the factory model of education we have today. The logic behind blended learning is that we can gain the benefits of mass customization—many of the effects of a personal tutor in other words—without the costs. Now, of course, as we implement blended learning, we may learn new things about how learning works. The opportunity to collect empirical data in near real time will be far greater, so we can test out different approaches for different students and see what works, for whom, and under what circumstances. And as we do so, perhaps we’ll learn that learning styles—not the simplistic notion we have today, but, as Jose Ferreira, CEO of Knewton wrote, "that different ways of learning certain concepts are more or less productive for certain students"—do indeed exist. But we don’t have to believe that will happen for us to believe in personalized, competency-based, blended, or student-centered learning. Of course, perhaps we do need a better vocabulary to express what we mean. Michael Horn is Executive Director of Education at The Clayton Christensen Institute, the co-author of "Disrupting Class." He’s a graduate of Yale University and Harvard Business School. This post first appeared on Forbes.com and Wired Academic; Image attribution flickr user flickeringbrad The post It’s Time For Personalized Learning In Education appeared first on TeachThought.

Video Games Engage, But Accessibility Can Be A Challenge by Andrew Ross, Language Teacher in Japan In part 1, we argued that video games can indeed teach your students. Below, we’ll look at specific examples of how I’ve used them, and the opportunities and challenges I’ve noticed as a result. Games aren’t only educational, they’re entertainment. This is why Dr. Sylvén and Dr. Sundqvist studied people who played games outside of the classroom. What we do in class is quite different from what’s done out of class. That’s not bad though. Education exists in its current form because the explicit educational process does have its benefits, especially for students who would not otherwise choose to learn on their own, or the lack the resources to do so. When you try to add games to this style (of compulsory education), the game becomes different. Both the public and games designers have acknowledged that explicitly education based games are often, well, boring. Some people are trying to change this. The government recently funded a game called Eco that’s aimed at teaching kids environmental science by, essentially, giving them a world to doom or save based on their ability to understand their world and curb their collective greed for the betterment of everyone. The game creator actually let me review to the document that won his company their education grant. It’s based on both science research for the game’s content and education research, had lesson plans developed for explicit classroom execution, received assistance from a major university in both execution and testing, has tools to make controlling the game easy for teachers and administrators, and is designed to be low cost. TV has Sesame Street as it’s touchstone for correctly using the medium with education, and Eco could prove to be the same with games, if it can be accepted into the classroom. And that’s the problem. The cost factor may seem high, and the lack of being explicitly educational makes them easy to write off, but above all, playing a game is generally seen only as "fun." I say this despite the fact that we all know there are teachers who will bring in a movie for kids to watch even though the content may not be completely acceptable (such as teachers who may show Pocahontas to "teach" about native Americans but forget to address the many issues of the story). There’s a right way to implement games and a wrong way. Using Video Games in School Simply playing games in class is not going to be the silver bullet for education-at least, not until we’ve perfected virtual reality and can mind map user experiences to specifically locate problematical neurological bridges. I’ll leave that for future generations. Right now, if a game is being used in the classroom, it should be similar to how we use literature in the class: you read some together, but for the most part, you do it yourself on your own time, and together, you use it as a point of reference for activities. This is something Eco plans to do, but you can employ it now if you know your students well. For example, I had a very small, all girl class of Japanese middle school students who found out I like a game called Animal Crossing. This is a completely non-violent game about decorating, planting flowers, designing clothes, catching fish, digging up bones… normal, everyday stuff. Having a male teacher made them shy during our first few lessons, but knowing that I liked a game they enjoyed really motivated them to talk, in both English and Japanese. Even the kids who didn’t play the game could enjoy the conversation because the vocabulary used to talk about the game is practical (no need to introduce orcs or blacksmithing to their vocabulary!). Their primary teacher (I’m an assistant) knew nothing of the game, and while not totally opposed to game talk, she wanted me to give them a pop quiz on a chapter of their book without warning me ahead of time. Words like "run," "buy," and "festival" were easy enough, but when I combined this with the game the students were having a hard time not shouting the answers. This sounds cute, but let me add an additional layer to this: in Japan, students almost never raise their hand to answer questions, and that’s culturally acceptable. Silence is acceptable. Teachers mostly lecture. There’s rarely any group work. If students speak, it’s because they’re reading something as a class or the teacher is calling on them to translate (but they can escape from that if they simply remain silent). When their teacher saw their response, she encouraged me to use the game or similar topics in future lessons. Obviously using games right out of the box isn’t perfect. I used a role playing game (RPG) in two of my school’s English Clubs. English Club is, usually, just a club for studying English. There’s little to no motivation, and attendance usually isn’t as high as a sports club or team. In fact, I’ve learned that the clubs receive some funds, which do not carry over to the next year, but students make no use of. Club activities are generally created by teachers, and students basically decide if they want to do them or not, either by voicing their opinion or, more often, voting with their attention and attendance. One of my larger English Clubs (average for other schools tends to be 2-5 students, but this school is usually over 10 strong) asked to try a game, despite the fact that it was a single player game and there were ten students. The kids enjoyed the game’s art, but didn’t have the patience to read the text, a mandatory skill needed for RPGs. Their teacher was busy and unable to translate for them. The students asked me to translate, but I only would give them a few words and try to encourage them to guess the meanings based on context. These students only wanted to battle, and the students unable to see the screen grew bored. The game was a flop. However, at a different school, I had only one English Club member show up. She was tired of the story we’d been reading and wanted to do something different. This student wasn’t very good at speaking English, but she learned vocabulary well and wasn’t afraid to ask questions. The game’s use of casual English, like "nope," exposed her to simple conversational English she could use everyday and easily remember. When a more motivated student who simply enjoyed English conversation arrived latter, the magic of the game really started to open up. The less skilled player started teaching her new vocabulary. "‘You are nuts! Nuts means crazy!" The students didn’t translate everything, but once in awhile, as words were often repeated (such as "shield"), they’d notice the word and try to understand it. That’s because, like in a good class, RPGs have highly structured menus and set phrases. I realized this as I had played my Japanese RPG, and saw that these students also benefited from this. These are some of the benefits (engagement) and challenges (accessibility) of learning through video games. In part, 3, we’ll look at Games and Gender. The post Video Games Engage, But Accessibility Can Be A Challenge appeared first on TeachThought.

Technology Introduces New Forms Of Experiential Learning by Mads Bonde, CEO of Labster What is experiential learning, what is its context, and how is it being impacted by technology? Back in the 1960s, Edgar Dale, the pioneering educator and professor of education at Ohio State University, developed the Cone of Experience, which theorized that students remember 20 percent of what they hear, 30 percent of what they see and up to 90 percent of what they do. With alternative methods of education becoming more accessible to teachers thanks to technology, educators are beginning to realize how valuable experiences can be in creating better learning outcomes for students. Many institutions are experimenting with "flipping the classroom," by changing the way lectures and homework are used. Getting students to solve problems and complete labs in the classroom, while providing instantaneous feedback and leaving the lectures and reading for home has become more popular than ever. Experiential Learning Helps Close The Job Skills Gap Based on the work of David Kolb, experiential learning is, in short, learning through experience, activated in part by reflection on that experience. This idea of experience-based learning is being taken to the next level in classrooms around the country. For example, researchers at the University of Washington have created a high school science curriculum that brings real scientists into the classroom and has students complete contemporary scientific work. In New York, a collaboration between IBM and New York City public schools has resulted in P-Tech, a high school in Brooklyn that pairs students with IBM mentors. In Seattle, Raisbeck Aviation High School collaborates with Boeing to mentor engineering students and give them a dose of what a career in the aviation industry might look like. In higher education, experiential learning creates a win-win for both students and employers, with students getting valuable hands-on education, while employers are able to teach the skills that they find many students are missing when they enter the workforce. Kenneth Freeman, the dean of the Boston University School of Management, predicts experiential  learning "will really come into its own" in the next 20 years. Freeman says that through faculty-guided projects with businesses, "More and more students will find out firsthand the range of leadership and management skills that will be required of them after graduation." Technology Introduces New Forms of Experiential Learning In addition to teachers and employers collaborating on ways to bring experiential learning to their students, advances in technology have enabled brand new ways for students to get real world experiences in the classroom. For example, students in Ireland can recreate the historical ruins of Clonmacnoise they visited on a field trip using open source 3D software. Within two weeks after making the 3D replica, the students were using Oculus Rift virtual reality headsets to explore their model of the ruins in 3D. James Corbett, the managing director of Mission V, which is testing this program in eleven other Irish schools, said of the initiative, "We are in no doubt now that virtual reality will become an ever more important part of education."  The founder of Oculus, Palmer Luckey, recently spoke about the possibilities of virtual reality in the classroom in a White House meeting, "It’s going to be really important for STEM education. Because kids don’t learn best from reading a book or looking at a chalk board. We’ve decided, as a society, that there’s some benefit in field trips; actually having hands-on experiences where we send people to do things. The problem is, it takes a lot of resources to do that. Most field trips I’ve been on have been mostly travelling and corralling kids, and eating lunch, and not nearly as much actual learning. And you’re limited in what you can do. You can’t go to a new place every day because the resources aren’t there." Virtual reality may make it possible to virtually go on field trips every day. With teachers, professors, employers, and technologists collaborating on bringing everything the world offers into the classroom, the future of experiential learning is looking bright. By giving students more real-world experiences, we can increase learning outcomes and better prepare them for the workforce. As Plutarch put it, "it was not so much by the knowledge of words that I came to the understanding of things, as by my experience of things." Mads Bonde is the co-founder and CEO of Labster, an edtech company that develops virtual science laboratory simulations for STEM teachers and students. Technology Introduces New Forms Of Experiential Learning; image attribution flickr user Ron Mader The post Technology Introduces New Forms Of Experiential Learning appeared first on TeachThought.

The Perfect Assessment by Terry Heick Nothing is perfect, but we can dream. So let’s dream about assessment. First, what is an assessment? A measurement? A snapshot? A kind of bar for students to clear? In The Most Important Question Every Question Should Answer, I theorized that "the benefit of assessments for learning isn’t merely a more clear picture of understanding; Used properly, it can also inform the rest of the learning process, from curriculum mapping (what do we learn when?) to instruction (how will it be learned?) to assessment design (how should future learning ideally be measured?)" If the goal of our collective craft is understanding, than the tools we use should promote understanding, both directly and indirectly. Assessment is one of those tools-one widely misunderstood by teachers, and causing anxiety in the students we’re trying to serve. So then, can we do better with our assessments? I want to think of assessments in a completely different light, especially in light of modern technology. Take a clean sheet design approach to how we think of the word "test" (the patriarch of the assessment family). So what would the perfect assessment be like? If we can design anything-not just digitize multiple choice questions, but start from scratch? What would the perfect assessment do? How would it be formed? What data would it yield? What effect would it have on the student? How would it be used to improve learning? How could it server students-like stairs-instead of being obstacles to clear, like hurdles? How can it promote understanding without haunting students? There’s no single answer here because there are too many moving parts. So we can’t hope for perfection, but we can hope for perfect alignment between goals and function: What we want, and how we hope to achieve it. It’s not impossible, then, to begin to identify a set of indicators of a near perfect assessment-what it would and would not do, for starters. Below, I guess at some of these indicators. I didn’t have a particular assessment form (MC, essay, performance task, project, etc.) or mode (norm-referenced, criterion-based, etc.) in mind. Clean sheet design and all. (You can read more about different types of assessment, or see 10 assessments you can perform in 90 seconds or less as well.) I was more interested in the function of assessment as a tool for learning, and what we might be missing. The Perfect Assessment… …will be in the form and mode that will help the students reach their goals, not the institution reach its goals …will provide data to revise planned instruction …will show both short and long-term progress …will adjust in real-time and scale (in complexity, knowledge demands, etc.) …will compel students to respond with their best effort and particular genius …will produce easy-to-extract, usable data that both teachers and students can understand and use …will use transfer as an indicator or degree of understanding …will be based on a specific learning taxonomy …would allow the students to enter a state of "flow"-a complete-and perhaps playful-state of mental and emotional immersion, where they give themselves entirely to the task …will have multiple entry or starting points …will uncover both equally what a student does and does not understand …would be a learning experience in and of itself …would be fun (i.e., as a basketball game is an immersive and entertaining "test" for athletes) …will align exactly with the stated goal-an academic standard, future aspiration, personalized learning desire, community need, etc. …will use a scoring system that reflects degrees of understanding, progress, or mastery of individual line items/standards (rather than a gross score for a mash of "things) …will provide a clear starting point forward for both the student and the teacher …will allow the students to use their inherent strengths to compensate for their weaknesses (as adults do in their daily lives) …will give students hope …will yield compelling artifacts to bolster student portfolios and/or improve that student’s human circumstance (e.g., a product that improves their lives/community) …won’t mistake confusing with complex …won’t drown the teachers with follow-up work or other processes that keep them from doing anything else other than using that data to revise planned instruction for each student …won’t be designed to yield unusable or irrelevant data …won’t be widely misunderstood by parents, families, and communities at large …won’t required students to sit in a desk in a room …won’t be a matter of "pass or fail," but rather start here and move forward …won’t be designed in a such a way that one error here can allow several errors there (e.g., a math problem where if the first problem is solved incorrectly, the rest of the problem can’t possible be right) …won’t have built-in barriers that obscure understanding of exactly what’s being assessed (e.g., a complex text that demands strong reading skills when it’s knowledge of the water cycle that’s being assessed) …won’t resort to distractors or tricks as a test of a student’s "grasp" of the content …won’t have inherent cultural biases (e.g., in regards to race, gender, economic class, faith, or other "human" factor-see Diane Ravitch’s The Language Police for some background here) …may use simulations or scenarios that invite students to use contextual cognitive processing-thinking in relation to circumstances they can play with or are naturally drawn to or are authentic-to agitate and coalesce academic knowledge …may provide scenarios for students to think their way through, providing an authentic context, need to know, and opportunity to transfer understanding …may not have a beginning or an end, but rather function as an ongoing, iterative effort The post The Perfect Assessment appeared first on TeachThought.

Google Apps For Education Now Has More Than 50 Million Users by Cinthya Mohr, User Experience Lead, Google for Education In a junior high class in Queens, New York, Ross Berman is teaching fractions. He wants to know whether his students are getting the key concept, so he posts a question in Google Classroom and instantly reviews their answers. It’s his favorite way to check for understanding before anyone has the chance to fall behind. Across the country, in Bakersfield, California, Terri Parker Rodman is waiting at the dentist’s office. She wonders how her class is doing with their sub. With a few swipes on her phone, she finds out which students have finished their in-class assignment and sends a gentle reminder to those who haven’t. Google Classroom launched last August, and now more than 10 million educators and students across the globe actively use it to teach and learn together, save time, and stay organized. We worked with teachers and students to create Classroom because they told us they needed a mission control - a central place for creating and tracking assignments, sharing ideas and resources, turning in completed work and exchanging feedback. Classroom is part of Google’s lineup of tools for education, which also includes the Google Apps for Education suite - now used by more than 50 million students, teachers and administrators around the world - and Chromebooks, the best-selling device in U.S. K-12 schools. Here are a few of the stories we’ve heard from teachers and students who are using Classroom. Learning Better Together We built Classroom to help educators spend less time on paperwork and administrative tasks. But it’s also proven to be highly effective at bringing students and teachers closer together. In London, fifth grader Kamal Nsudoh-Parish stays connected with his Spanish teacher while he does his homework. "If I don’t understand something, I can ask him and he’d be able to answer rather than having to wait until my next Spanish lesson," Kamal says. Terri, who teaches sixth grade at Old River Elementary School, also observes that Classroom can strengthen ties and improve communication. "When a student doesn’t turn something in, I can see how close they are," she says. "In the past, I couldn’t tell why they didn’t finish their work. I was grading them on bringing back a piece of paper instead of what their ability was." Resource room teacher Diane Basanese of Black River Middle School in Chester, New Jersey, says that Classroom lets her see her students’ minds at work. "I’m in the moment with them," she explains. "We have dialogue, like, ‘Oh, are you saying I should use a transition?’ We’re talking to each other. It’s a better way." Removing The Mundane By helping them cut down on busywork, Classroom empowers teachers to do even more with every school day. "I no longer waste time figuring out paper jams at the school photocopier," says Tom Mullaney, who teaches in Efland, North Carolina. "Absent students no longer email or ask, ‘What did we do yesterday?’ These time savers may not sound like much, but they free me to spend time on things that I consider transcendent in my teaching practice." In Mexico City, teachers at Tec de Monterrey high school and university switched to Classroom from an online learning management system that often added complexity to their workflow instead of simplifying it. Professor Vicente Cubells says he’s found the new question feature in Classroom particularly useful for short quizzes, because he can quickly assess learning and have an automatic record of their responses and grades. "The Classroom mobile apps have also become essential for our faculty and students, we use them to stay connected even when we’re not in front of a laptop," Cubells said. Giving Teachers Superpowers Teachers are some of the most innovative thinkers in the world, so it’s no surprise that they’ve used Classroom in ways we never even imagined. Elementary school teacher Christopher Conant of Boise, Idaho, says his students are usually eager to leave school behind during summer break. But after using Classroom last year, they wanted to keep their class open as a way to stay in touch. "Classroom is a tool that keeps kids connected and learning as a community, well beyond the school day, school year and school walls," said Christopher, who continued to post videos and questions for his students all summer long. These endless possibilities are the reason why Diane Basanese, a 30-year teaching veteran, says that Classroom is the tool she’s been looking for throughout her career. "It has made me hungrier," she explains. "I look at how I can make every lesson a hit-it-out-of-the-ballpark lesson." Growing Our Classroom Ever since we began working with teachers and students, it’s been rewarding and encouraging to hear their stories, collaborate to find answers to their problems, and watch those solutions come to life at schools and universities around the world. Lucky for us, we’re just getting started. The post Google Apps For Education Now Has More Than 50 Million Users appeared first on TeachThought.

 7 Ways To Drop The Mic In Math Class by couragetocore I like to think I’m an entertaining story-teller. Even the driest of mathematical procedures (quadratic formula derivation, anyone?) can come to life when I’m in performance mode. But over the years I’ve lectured less and less, giving students more autonomy to follow their own paths of inquiry. Students work in small groups on real world scenarios, experimenting, drawing conclusions and solving complex problems while I facilitate, motivate and occasionally lecture. Here a few tips on how to drop the mic and let students pick it up in math class. 1) Ask Curious Questions How much taller is a human compared to a carpenter ant? How much faster can a sailboat go if you double its length? How many trees per person are there in the world?  If you flip two coins, are you more likely to get two heads or one head and one tail? If you double the radius of a pizza, how much more food do you get? What function is the best model for a car accelerating from a stop light, and why? Can you figure out the percentage of green m and m’s in the world from one bag? Every student has an innate curiosity about how the world is put together. It can seem that the abstractions of algebra are outside daily experience, and yet there are ample opportunities to draw numbers from the real-world and spark excitement. The above questions can springboard into deep conversations about exponential notation, square root functions, probability, area, quadratic functions and sampling. 2) Find A Balance Between Too Little Guidance, And Too Much Assembling a piece of furniture from IKEA is such a choreographed experience that creativity is a dead end by design. Conversely, if I walk into Home Depot to build a house without a blueprint the project will end before it begins. It’s important to find materials which strike the right balance between providing guidance and allowing students to experiment. Courage To Core math materials are classroom tested tools for algebra and geometry, and many other teachers are creating and selling great materials on Teachers Pay Teachers, Amazon and beyond which follow a collaborative model. 3) Create A Contained But Spacious Playground A classroom which gives students greater autonomy to collaborate needs a structure. (See my prior post on how to create expectations and effectively play the role of facilitator in classrooms centered around group work.) Building a culture of self-directed students takes patient effort at the outset, but once groups are humming along it can be an efficient and effective learning structure and a great way for a teacher to observe each student in action. 4) Be the Lifeguard They Trust In swim class when you were a little kid, you let that one lifeguard throw you in the deep end of the pool. He’d let you struggle when you were capable, but you knew he’d fish you out if you were in real trouble. Students need to know that they can visibly struggle with mathematics and that you’ll let them go at it as long as they need to. They also need to know that you’ll throw them a lifeline if their group is lost at sea. Finesse that line carefully. 5) Promote Productive Play Students are adept at following rules, but they are often even more adept at blurring the lines. Play at school can be an act of mild rebellion or it can be intrinsic to a learning environment that is designed to engage the voracious appetites of young minds. Once you allow students to engage more freely, the classroom can be a more productive yet more chaotic place. The usual distractions still interrupt work flow, but when group work is working, students take more responsibility for maintaining the work culture, and conversation and invention are steered toward productive ends. 6) Make Mistakes Once we have fired a curiosity with a good question and given them the basic rules of engagement, students need to experiment, fail, and experiment some more. The path of least resistance is also the path of least persistence. Mistakes are the necessary accidents on the path to deeper understanding. Of course, this process can take time… 7) Be Patient-It Takes Time It can be tough to fit student-directed work into the rigid schedule of the school day, and tempting to sweep kids towards wrapping up when they are still deeply working in progress. As much as possible I don’t put time limits on activities, so that students can self-pace and own their hard fought success at the end of the proverbial day. In my experience, at the beginning of the year students are less efficient as they adapt to the structure but by the end of the year move through assignments efficiently and effectively. A student-centered, collaborative classroom environment takes a bit of effort to set up, but the rewards are great. Students learn to communicate, collaborate, persevere, bounce back from failure, think creatively and problem solve more confidently. Check out my prior posts for more hints on how to implement a collaborative model in high school math class. If you drop the mic you may help more kids find their singing voice. 7 Ways To Drop The Mic In Math Class; image attribution flickr user olgalednichenko The post 7 Ways To Drop The Mic In Math Class appeared first on TeachThought.

Fine-Tuning Education Won’t Work: How To Escape Education’s Death Valley by TeachThought Staff Ed reform, as it is, depends on iteration. Minor adjustments. Step-by-step. A linear process. In general, we create initiatives that we hope will yield desired results, and measure their effectiveness with tests. This, at best, gives us program-based, test-measured improvement. But improvement of what?, we might ask. Of scores, or people? In 2013, Ken Robinson-of Do Schools Kill Creativity? fame-followed up on some of those ideas in the video How To Escape Education’s Death Valley. In it, Robinson outlines "3 principles crucial for the human mind to flourish," and outlines "how current education culture works against them." "There is wonderful work happening in this country. But I have to say it’s happening in spite of the dominant culture of education, not because of it. It’s like people are sailing into a headwind all the time. And the reason I think is this: that many of the current policies are based on mechanistic conceptions of education. It’s like education is an industrial process that can be improved just by having better data, and somewhere in the back of the mind of some policy makers is this idea that if we fine-tune it well enough, if we just get it right, it will all hum along perfectly into the future. It won’t, and it never did." The idea is to, rather than offering eloquent criticism, to provide a pathway forward-all built around the idea that fine-tuning our existing thinking isn’t radical or comprehensive enough to build the possibilities in education we seem to collectively envision. You can see the entire video below. Fine-Tuning Education Won’t Work: How To Escape Education’s Death Valley; adapted image attribution flickr user sparkfunelectronics The post Fine-Tuning Education Won’t Work appeared first on TeachThought.

The Definition Of Heutagogy & Self-Determined Learning by Stewart Hase and Chris Kenyon Ed note: This is part 1 in a series on self-determined learning from Stewart Hase and Chris Kenyon. Stewart’s site, Heutagogy Community of Practice, is a useful resource for reading on Self-Determined Learning.  Ed note 2: Hase and Kenyon make distinctions between self-determined and self-directed learning that may be in conflict with our use of the terms (see, for example, our self-directed learning model). In most cases, these are matters of semantics rather than function, but having a common language is critical for communication, and we’ll continue to evaluate the phrases and labels we use in the larger context of the ed community. Summary This content is meant to do two things. It will, for the uninitiated, summarize the origins of heutagogy and the theories from which it was derived. At the same time we will have a look at more recent work and thinking from authors around the globe and see what they have discovered through using or thinking about heutagogical principles. The main theme is that people are naturally very efficient learners and that we can more effectively make use of this fact in our current education and training systems. Origins & Influences The power to learn Heutagogy has come a long way since its initial inception over a bottle of wine and notes written on a napkin in a restaurant in 2000 (Hase, 2002, 2009; Hase and Kenyon, 2000, 2003, 2007, 2010; Kenyon and Hase, 2010). Don’t most good ideas happen this way? The discussion came about as a result of a general dissatisfaction with the way in which education was being conducted in universities. We thought that, despite the role of higher education to foster our brightest minds and to expand the frontiers of knowledge, teaching was primarily a pedagogic, teacher-centric, activity. To our way of thinking, teaching in our universities needed to be more aspirational. Like other humanists such as Carl Rogers (1969) we believe that the power to learn is firmly in the hands of the learner and not the teacher. We also recognize, as have Russell Ackoff and Daniel Greenberg (2008), that humans are from early childhood really adept learners and that much of the education system confuses learning with teaching. In fact, there is sometimes so much confusion that it can interfere with people’s natural ability to explore, ask questions, make connections and to learn. This humanistic view of how people learn has been coined as student-centred learning (Rogers, 1969) or, more recently, learner- centred learning (Armstrong, 2012; Graves, 1993; Long 1990) as opposed to teacher- centric approaches. Recently I was asked to talk to a group of trainers working for the NSW Rural Fire Service in Australia. It was their annual conference and they were interested in finding more exciting ways to train their 70,000 or so volunteers in the various competencies required to fight fires. I showed a picture of an ancient fire engine from the end of the nineteenth century but suggested that they think of it as a new piece of fire equipment. A teacher-centric approach to learning about this new equipment would be to show some pictures to the group, go through the manual, demonstrate the required skills and then have the group practice until the required competency might be attained. A more learner-centric approach and rather more naturalistic, would be to let the group go play with the machinery and leave the manual on the seat. The facilitator can play an important role by watching and making sure that all is safe and intervening if someone is going to initiate a catastrophic event. Everyone agreed that, indeed, the group would work it out for themselves. Unfortunately, as Ackoff and Greenberg (2008) describe so elegantly, humans are hijacked very early in life by an educational system that was designed in the industrial revolution to educate workers to make the industrial wheel go around. Thus, education has become a commodity and the curriculum, chiseled in stone, is delivered by ‘experts’ from on high. Assessment becomes the key for opening doors and teaching is geared to providing the key. The needs and motivations of the learner and, more importantly, what is happening in their brain is of secondary importance, if it is of any importance at all. The late Fred Emery was a little more scathing in his assessment of the education system (1974, p. 1) when he said that, ‘School pokes your eyes out. University teaches you braille and postgraduate education is speed-reading in braille.’ Less controversially, a number of educationalists have questioned the assumptions that underpin common educational practice and the need for approaches that recognize the complexity of the relationship between the learner, the curriculum and learning (e.g. Davis et al., 2000; Doll, 1989; Doolittle, 2000; Sumara and Davis, 1997). Current education practice places the process and outcomes of learning in the hands of the teacher who determines what is to be taught and how it is to be taught when, in fact, it needs to be in the hands of the learner (Coughlan, 2004). Given these beliefs about people’s ability to learn and an education and training system that disempowers rather than empowers, we decided on the term self- determined learning to describe this innate power of people to learn as an alternate view. Chris, the linguist that he is, then manipulated the Greek word for self, ηαυτος, and came up with the word heutagogy: the study of self- determined learning. Humanism & Constructivism Heutagogy is underpinned by the assumptions of two key philosophies: humanism and constructivism. As mentioned above, the idea of the learner being central to the educational process is a humanistic concept. Carl Rogers later adapted his client-centred approach to psychotherapy (1951) to education (1969) in what was termed student-centred learning. Similarly, constructivism places the learner at the heart of the educational experience (e.g. Bruner, 1960; Dewey, 1938; Freire, 1972, 1995; Piaget, 1973; Vygotsky, 1978). Constructivism is based on the notion that people construct their own version of reality using past experience and knowledge, and their current experience. Thus, the learner is creative, actively involved in their learning and there is a dynamic rather than passive relationship between the teacher and the learner. Constructivism challenged educators to let go of some of the structure in what they did and allow greater dynamism into the curriculum. Constructivism led to a rise in the popularity of designing experiential learning as a means for loosening this control. However, in our view, it did not have the impact on lessening the control of the learning experience by the teacher and hence education at all levels has remained teacher-centric. While many constructivist approaches cleverly engage the learner in experience and active learning, the teacher is still actively designing the learning task and process. In learner- centred learning tasks become less specific as control of learning is taken over by the learner (Coomey and Stephenson, 2001). Andragogy (Knowles, 1980, 1986) is also based on humanism and constructivism and was central to the original paper we wrote in 2000. Andragogy was important because it provided an alternate to pedagogical approaches to teaching towards those more suitable for adults. Knowles was interested in the motivational aspects of adult learning and emphasized the previous experience of the learner, relevance, problems versus content and involvement of the learner in the learning process. The idea of the self-directed learner can be sheeted back to Andragogy. However, while context might be in the hands of the learner, the teacher is still largely in control of process and task. Unfortunately, some students of heutagogy refer to it as self-directed rather than self-determined learning: the two are perhaps related but quite different. Finally, Argyris and Schon’s (1978) notion of double-loop learning influenced our thinking about heutagogy and others have since associated the two concepts (e.g. Blaschke, 2012; Canning, 2010; Canning and Callan, 2010). Double-loop learning often occurs spontaneously and involves internally challenging our deepest values, beliefs, and ways of knowing. While it is difficult to change any of these schema that drive human behavior, it is at this level that the deepest learning occurs. In Part 2, we’ll look at the neurology involved in this shift. The Definition of Heutagogy; Shifting From Pedagogy To Heutagogy In Education;  The post Shifting From Pedagogy To Heutagogy In Education appeared first on TeachThought.

How To Create Your Own Digital Rubik’s Cube by TeachThought Staff Want to create your own Rubik’s Cube? Of course you do. And now... The post How To Create Your Own Digital Rubik’s Cube appeared first on TeachThought.

Examples Of Innovation In Higher Ed-With A Caution by Terry Heick Recently, someone asked me what I thought about innovation in higher ed in... The post Examples Of Innovation In Higher Ed-With A Caution appeared first on TeachThought.

The TeachThought Podcast Episode 1: Making In The 21st Century With 3D Printers by TeachThought Staff Episode Description Welcome to the first episode of the... The post TeachThought Podcast Ep 1: Making In The 21st Century With 3D Printers appeared first on TeachThought.

How To Design A 21st Century Assessment by Mike Fisher Contemporary curriculum design involves multiple facets: engaging 21st Century skills, using digital tools, collaborating... The post How To Design A 21st Century Assessment appeared first on TeachThought.

Creating An Atmosphere Of Accessibility With School Online Meetings by Catherine Wilson Running any organization-from a school to a business to digital-space startups-isn’t simple in this day and age. The market for education professional development is wide and extremely competitive. Finding the best resources-within your school or district, or beyond-isn’t as easy as looking down the street. Resources abound, but geography matters. Travel isn’t cheap. The beauty of the demand for better access to these resources is that it has spearheaded a movement to expand communication to new levels. The internet hasn’t just provided us with information at our fingertips, but has also supplied a way to connect and communicate with one another to find the best resources that education has to offer. The use of online meetings has gained in popularity since their introduction but it’s only been recently that they’ve been fully accepted as a common tool for schools working to lower travel costs and raise their options for connectivity and communication. In education, they have allowed virtual professional development, PD, school-to-school projects, and more. There are many benefits to a virtual meeting space however, and many people will overlook the increasing accessibility that these tools offer in the face of the more obvious ones. Accessibility Cutting down on travel has some obvious benefits for any school concerned with costs. It’s easy to see how much less expensive it is to pay for an internet connection and a web camera and microphone than regular plane tickets, hotel rooms and stipends for meals and travel essentials when traveling to an education conference, for example. Cutting down on expenses for this reason is admirable and even necessary with the ever-tightening education budgets, but there’s another benefit to utilizing the virtual tools that are available that can sometimes be overlooked. Accessibility for teachers to interact is a big part of how and why educators-both within and across schools-can collaborate with one another. Accessibility can mean many different things for districts, but the overarching idea is to make it easier to work together. Online staff meetings offer a way to expand that accessibility from phone calls to clear, visual communication as well as the spoken word. Even personnel outside the district have the same access to you and the same ability to hear your tone and read your body language as educators that work in the same building have. Even more than that, these tools allow students or family members that are disabled have improved access (compared to a phone or email) to IEP meetings, for example.  Communication There’s no way to overstate just how important clear communication is to school or district policy, or potential collaborations between students and organizations outside the classroom. Communication is the driving factor behind the success of most projects; prioritizing academic needs, sharing feedback for learning, and otherwise personalizing learning for a class or individual student can’t be done without clear communication. This is another area that online meetings offer superior functionality over traditional media. There have been numerous studies about the efficacy of what visual communication offers to individuals. There are statistics that are often sited, such as how much of communication is or is not visual in nature and often the numbers don’t seem to add up, but face-to-face communication is still the most personal and preferred method in any industry and that is driven by preference. People like to see one another when they speak, and like being about to gauge responses, read body language and understand the seriousness or severity of situations based on the input they receive from these additional cues. While video conferencing alone allows you to accomplish this, the technology is often bulky and expensive, requiring dedicated conference rooms and lacking some of the flexibility that makes the newest online tools so appealing. Collaboration The final area that sets online meetings apart from other, paler imitations of its framework is the ability that it offers for participants to collaborate in real-time on information, share data and pass along details. Schools and districts that offer these tools, such as online meetings with Blue Jeans Network, understand how important file sharing and collaboration are in education today, and often include programs built into their packages for this kind of live information transfer. Being able to offer all participants to a meeting the ability to see, alter, share and update information as it is handled is invaluable to many industries that require fast paced, cutting edge designs, technology or brainstorming. The Bottom Line When it comes down to it, online meetings offer tools that are superior to the more traditional means of inter and intra-district communications. From education conferences that often require lengthy travel time and expenses, to sharing files instantly across the internet, which would otherwise require either time or proximity to accomplish, tools like the ones offered by Blue Jeans and other organizations are creating an atmosphere of accessibility and clarity in a world that’s often clouded by a host of other issues and priorities. Adapted image attribution flicker user vancouverfilmschool The post Creating An Atmosphere Of Accessibility With School Online Meetings appeared first on TeachThought.

Black Minds Matter: Report Details Continued Inequity In Education by TeachThought Staff From a press release OAKLAND, CA (October 28, 2015) The Education Trust... The post Black Minds Matter: Report Details Continued Inequity In Education appeared first on TeachThought.