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Free Technology Tools for Building Academic Vocabulary | LD Topics | LD OnLine
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Writing & Spelling | LD OnLine
Resources to help understand how learning disabilities affect writing and spelling and what strategies exist to help students.
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Questions + Answers | LD OnLine
This question and answers section of LD Online (Learning Disabilities) offers numerous topics for greater in depth exploration of ADHD and other common learning disabilities.
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Support and Resources for Educators
The Learning Diabilities Association provides curated lists of resources for students with a variety of learning differences.
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An Inside Look at an Award-Winning Maker Program | Edutopia
This article gives a good idea of how to scaffold a maker program and it is chock full of resources we can use to support those initiatives.
- Making matters. And design thinking matters to makers.
- Eleven students, including four who had just graduated eighth grade, would spend the weekend explaining how design thinking drove our program’s work and their learning. Kids used student-built prototypes to explain how they employed design thinking to solve problems and make the world a better place.
- We set up stations where Faire attendees got to experience prototyping for themselves, tackling design challenges based on the Extraordinaires Design Studio and expertly explained by our kids.
- students would work with JeffDESIGN over the summer to learn valuable lessons about what it takes to get an idea from concept to production in the real world.
- We have adopted the free and fabulous EPICS—Engineering Projects In Community Service—as the heart and soul of our program this year.
- I love that the EPICS framework is just that—a framework. It provides a flexible structure I can modify as necessary to suit our processes and needs.
- When we are done, we’ll have a powerful, document-driven, human-centered methodology to guide our work in design.
- The new school year has gotten off to a good start. We’re creating an entirely new understanding of design thinking in Digital Shop, an amalgam of our shared past experiences and the practices of some of the world’s best design thinking practitioners. It’s ridiculously hard work, alternatively frustrating and exhilarating, but totally worth it.
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Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 12/15/2016
Monday, November 21, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 11/22/2016
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Seven ways to give better feedback to your students | Teacher Network | The Guardian
This article gives tangible tips on how to improve feedback to students.
- too much praise can convey a sense of low expectation and, as a result, can be demotivating.
- Teenagers care a lot about what their peers think of them. Constructive feedback given in front of others, even if it is well-intended, can be read as a public attack on them and their ability. This can lead to students developing a fear of failure and putting up a front.
- This is similar to the technique he calls the whisper correction – the feedback technically takes place in public, but the pitch and tone of voice is designed to be heard only by the individual receiving it.
- A recent study found that being positively compared to others can lead to narcissistic behaviour. This sort of comparison can also reduce motivation and result in lower confidence, emotional control, academic performance and increased anxiety.
- The more detailed and specific your feedback is, the better, to remove any ambiguity. Rather than “good work”, say “The way you did X was really good.”
- Praising effort instead of intelligence increases intrinsic motivation and provides a template for students to follow next time.
- In this study, 86% of children who had been praised for their natural ability asked for information about how their peers did on the same task. Only 23% of children who had been praised for effort asked for this type of feedback, with the vast majority of them asking for feedback about how they could do better.
- But you should aim for a combination of open and closed questions in your feedback, along with statements. Closed statements are useful for conveying key information and keeping the conversation focused.
- Any feedback that doesn’t lead to a change in behaviour change is redundant – there must be a point to it. What do you want them to do differently? What are they going to do after the conversation to improve? The more detailed and specific the action points, the better.
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What the Heck Is Service Learning? | Edutopia
This article gives a quick breakdown of service learning with bullet points and good suggestions for ideas and activities.
Sunday, November 13, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 11/14/2016
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Finding hope in the drawing and note from a five year old child of a good friend, If you are feeling glum this week… https://t.co/bJ74wjHuP3
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We are better than this. Hell yes I'm furious & feel the urge to destroy something but I'll fight to build & bring… https://t.co/oujiquXhdY
Tuesday, November 8, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 11/09/2016
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Gamification Template: Google Drive Level Up Challenge -
This post contains a gamification template that can be copied and used with students if you want to gamify an activity in class.
Monday, November 7, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 11/08/2016
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This application can be used with students as young as K in order to create books that can be corrected by teachers, printed out or serve as audio books.
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Process vs Product in Maker-centered Learning — The Learner's Way
- The danger with all this frenzied making is that it is very easy to miss the point, to focus on the product and not the journey.
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Mathematical Mindsets: Unleashing Students’ Potential
This is a book review of Mathematical Mindsets which builds off of Carol Dweck's work on mindsets.
- So often mathematics instruction has focused on the “right” answer as opposed to the process of getting an answer. As a result, many educators and most students have a lack of understanding of how mistakes in math should be viewed and how mistakes can actually enhance the brain’s development.
- Mathematics is a cultural phenomenon: a set of ideas, connections, and relationships that we can use to make sense of the world. At its core, mathematics is about patterns.
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3 Tips for Developing and Assessing Soft Skills: First, Take Off Your Emotional Armor | EdSurge News
This article takes a look at the power of social and emotional growth and learning.
Saturday, October 29, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 10/30/2016
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HyperDoc Samples | HyperDocs.co
Find dozens of lesson plans share by teachers on any subject.
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#fallcue This session lead by @JillBergeron2 #forgottotag #badweirdteacher https://t.co/zlyBomE5Bv
Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Sunday, October 23, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 10/24/2016
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#ChicagoCubs A box seat ticket to the 1945 World Series was $7.50. A standing room only ticket for the 2016 Series… https://t.co/YsByiFDCqN
Thursday, October 13, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 10/14/2016
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Finland Education System Is Very Laid Back, And Totally Working
This article reviews some unconventional practices that make the Finnish education system so successful.
- 1. Kids don’t start formal school until age seven.
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2. The first day of school is all fun and games.
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3. Finland schools don’t have subjects.
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4. School days are short.
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5. Students get a 15-minute break every 45-minutes of class.
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6. There are no standardized tests.
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7. Teachers are as revered as doctors.
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PBL in the Mirror: Planning for Student Reflection | Blog | Project Based Learning | BIE
This article gives a detailed example of how to sketch out and organize a PBL lesson.
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Essential Books | Common Sense Media
- Graphic novels
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Wednesday, October 12, 2016
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 10/12/2016
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The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues
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In This Issue:
1. The impact of a major incentive-pay program
2. Does more experience continue to make teachers better?
3. A new way of understanding flaws in our thinking
4. Mastering the social-emotional side of school leadership
5. Should we ban laptops from classrooms?
6. Getting students reading and responding at four levels of rigor
7. Mock trials in a New York City classroom
8. Making museum visits an integral part of a creative curriculum
10. Short items: (a) Student shadowing; (b) Inspiring apps; (c) World War II activities
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“We notice flaws in others more easily than flaws in ourselves.”
- “I view the presence of distracted students on laptops in the classroom just as I view cheating – as a problem that can help us take a closer look at our teaching and make better decisions about it.”
- incentivizing teachers through such a model is not effective.”
- it’s impossible to tease out the role of financial incentives from the impact of professional development, mentoring, and other initiatives taking place in the schools.
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- For teachers, the incentives weren’t large enough to incentivize improvement or even to stay in their schools. Many teachers remained for only a few years and then went on to better-paying jobs in other schools
- “principals consistently said that money did not motivate them to work harder in a high-needs school or to change their practices to raise student achievement and that they therefore found the idea of pay for performance problematic.” As for classroom teachers, the authors found: “While payouts were appreciated, there were other priorities and values that motivated teachers to perfect their craft including commitments to teaching, and ongoing institutional supports.”
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Do schools share too much with parents? - CNN.com
Do SMS systems like Whipple Hill help or hurt students as they try to become responsible individuals?
Thursday, October 6, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 10/07/2016
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This is a youth photo class to get students versed in taking photos with any kind of camera.
Wednesday, October 5, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 10/06/2016
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Beyond Parent-Teacher Conferences
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1. Value Parent Voice
During the Conference:
Start conferences by having parents share their impressions of how school is going for their child. Ask them to share what is working well for their child, what they see their child struggling with, and whether they have any specific questions they’d like answered during the conference. To save time, you can have parents answer these questions in writing before the conference. Showing parents that you value their expertise sets the stage for true collaboration. Hearing parents talk about their observations and concerns allows you an opportunity to assess the most productive direction for the conference.
Beyond:
Draw upon parents’ expertise throughout the year. If you’re struggling with a student, talk to his parents and don’t be afraid to ask for advice by asking questions such as, “Does this ever happen at home? What helps the situation?” True collaboration means learning from each other; building relationships with parents can help students receive better support at home and school.
2. Set Goals
During the Conference:
After having parents share their impressions of how school is going for their student, I shared my observations, student work, and assessment data. After looking at the information gathered from both home and school, I found success using this sheet to assess students’ progress and set goals. Sometimes I didn’t have enough time to fill in the sheet as I talked with families, so I jotted down quick notes during the conference and added more details later. Sharing the written record of the conference with parents helped to summarize our discussion and held us accountable for following through with action steps.
Beyond:
Revisit the action steps that were mutually agreed upon at the conference. Before winter break, consider sending home a copy of the action steps and having students work with their families to self-assess their progress towards their goals.
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Tuesday, October 4, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 10/05/2016
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Diana Laufenberg: How to learn? From mistakes | TED Talk | TED.com
"Diana Laufenberg shares three surprising things she has learned about teaching — including a key insight about learning from mistakes."
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Wendy Hawkins: Let them be scientists | TED@Intel | TED Institute | Watch | TED.com
"The key to inspiring children to pursue science can be found in the curious and inquisitive spirit we all tap into as we first discover the world. Wendy Hawkins demonstrates why we need to inject a more experimental approach into our science curriculum to ensure that we stay connected to the scientist in all of us."
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Conrad Wolfram: Teaching kids real math with computers | TED Talk | TED.com
"From rockets to stock markets, many of humanity's most thrilling creations are powered by math. So why do kids lose interest in it? Conrad Wolfram says the part of math we teach — calculation by hand — isn't just tedious, it's mostly irrelevant to real mathematics and the real world. He presents his radical idea: teaching kids math through computer programming."
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Tyler DeWitt: Hey science teachers -- make it fun | TED Talk | TED.com
"High school science teacher Tyler DeWitt was ecstatic about his new lesson plan on bacteria (how cool!) — and devastated when his students hated it. The problem was the textbook: it was impossible to understand. He delivers a rousing call for science teachers to ditch the jargon and extreme precision, and instead make science sing through stories and demonstrations."
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This document contains curriculum summaries, essential questions, concepts and skills as well as common assessments.
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Chemistry Activities for Kids - Fun Lesson Plans, Classroom Teaching Ideas, Resources
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Lesson Plans | Middle School Chemistry
At the bottom there are two PBL lesson plans for chemistry.
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The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues
The first four articles have to do with building a better teacher and leader. The last article looks at educational leadership and the qualities that support it.
- “The key to resilience is trying really hard, then stopping, recovering, and then trying again… Our brains need a rest as much as our bodies do… The value of a recovery period rises in proportion to the amount of work required of us.”
- the best long-term performers tap into positive energy at all levels of the performance pyramid.” Here are the four levels:
- being able to mobilize energy when it’s needed – depends on two things: (a) alternating between intense work and recovery; and (b) developing regular rituals to build in recovery.
- For those of us who are not professional athletes, regular workouts each week, coupled with good nutrition and sleep, make a major difference in work productivity and enjoyment.
- Positive emotions have a remarkable impact on reducing physiological stress, whereas negative emotions, even simulated, increase stress. The key, psychologists have found, is to “act as if.”
- framing his response in positive language.
- The key to improving cognitive work is focus, say Loehr and Schwartz. A big part of that is managing down-time – knowing the body’s need for breaks every 90-120 minutes – and using meditation and visualization.
- Practiced regularly, meditation quiets the mind, the emotions, and the body, promoting energy recovery.” Experienced meditators need considerably less sleep and have enhanced creativity and productivity.
- Spiritual capacity – By this, Loehr and Schwartz mean “the energy that is unleashed by tapping into one’s deepest values and defining a strong sense of purpose.”
- Sometimes, when we’re doing work that isn’t in synch with how we feel, we have to put on our professional game face. That effort is known among psychologists as “emotional labor” – remaining energetic and upbeat despite a bad night’s sleep,
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Here are some workplace conditions that increase emotional labor:
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- Explore “want to” versus “have to” thinking. What aspects of the job energize you? How can other aspects be made more efficient and pleasant?
- Do some job crafting. Can you and your boss tweak the work so it’s of greater value to you and the organization? Or is there a new project that would be fun and productive?
- “Drill-and-practice is boring. But thinking, for most students most of the time, is actually fun.”
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- Wait time is important. Think time, no hands up, is a good admonition. “If you don’t provide enough wait time, you’ll get either no responses or surface-level responses,
- In all-class discussions, teachers should resist the temptation to comment themselves, instead asking specific follow-up questions to get other students involved.
- All too many student projects are simple regurgitation,
- Students thinking, not just retelling
- The way out of this dynamic is posing a thought-provoking problem
- Another approach is asking “what if” and “what else” questions to push students to expand or elaborate on what they’re studying
- Self-assessment – “Students who can self-assess are poised to be life-long learners,” says Brookhart. “They are poised to use self-regulation strategies and to be their own best coaches as they learn. They are able to ask focused questions when they don’t understand or when they’re stuck.”
- Teach students to self-assess with rubrics. It’s important that the rubric goes beyond the basic level and stipulates higher-level criteria like stating a position, defending one’s reasoning, using supportive details.
- Use confidence ratings. For example, students might be asked to use the “fist of fives” on their chest to indicate how confident they are that they understand a particular term or concept
- Have students co-create success criteria. Studying material with which students are familiar, they can jointly create what the teacher and students will look for in their work.
- consultant Karin Hess suggests analyzing student work in three layers: first describing the student work we actually see (or what students tell about it); then interpreting what the evidence might mean (specific to the intended purpose); and then evaluating what next steps should be taken. Hess outlines how the process of analyzing student work can be helpful to teaching and learning:
- • Purpose #1: Improving the quality of tasks/prompts and scoring guides – Piloting tasks and looking at student work helps to clarify prompts, make tasks accessible and engaging for all students, trim unnecessary components, modify the wording of scoring rubrics, and tweak questions so they will measure deeper thinking.
- Purpose #2: Making key instructional decisions – Observing and taking notes on students’ responses to this task gave teachers two specific teaching points.
- Purpose #3: Monitoring progress over time – A good pre-assessment focuses on the core learning or prerequisite skills that students will need to build on, and teachers can sort and work with students according to what they need to learn to be successful in the unit.
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- What does the student know now that he or she didn’t know how to do as well on the first task? What were the areas of improvement?
- Which piece of work comes closest to the expectations? What’s the evidence?
- Students can use assessment evidence to set and monitor progress, reflect on themselves as learners, and evaluate the quality of their own work. “Valuing both one’s struggles and successes at accomplishing smaller learning targets over time has proven to have a profound influence on deepening motivation, developing independence as a learner, and building what we have come to know as ‘a growth mindset,’”
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- it is analyzing evidence in student work that causes teachers to reflect on how students learn and how to make their instructional and assessment practices more effective.”
- “students who engage with rich, strategically-designed tasks on a regular basis learn that finding the answer is not as personally meaningful as knowing how to apply knowledge in new situations and explain the reasoning that supports their thinking.”
- 13 dimensions of school leadership
Monday, October 3, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 10/04/2016
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The 'Maker' Movement Is Coming to K-12: Can Schools Get It Right? - Education Week
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For all the excitement, though, there are also hurdles.
One of the biggest: "Maker education" itself is a highly squishy concept.
In general, the term refers to hands-on activities that support academic learning and promote experimentation, collaboration, and a can-do mindset. But in practice, educators use "making" to describe everything from formal STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) curricula to project-based classroom lessons to bins of crafting materials on a shelf in the library.
- Should making happen primarily in a dedicated space or inside every classroom? And is the purpose of maker education to help students better learn the established curriculum or to upend traditional notions of what counts as real learning?
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The whole point of maker education, Turner said, is to find new ways to engage students, especially those who have struggled to find a comfortable place inside school.
It's a belief increasingly borne out by research.
Academics have consistently found that making "gives kids agency" over their learning in ways that traditional classes often don't, said Erica Halverson, an associate professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. There's also mounting evidence that making is a good way to teach academic content. "The fear out there is that schools have to choose between making and academic work, but empirically that turns out not to be true," Halverson said.
- New attention is being paid to designing spaces that are welcoming for girls, students of color, and immigrant and refugee students.
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At its root, the trend is being fueled by widespread fatigue with high-stakes standardized testing. The administration of President Barack Obama has also provided a policy boost, giving strong backing to STEM and computer science education and the redesign of schools. The sudden affordability of technologies such as 3-D printers, sensors, microprocessors, and laser cutters have exponentially expanded access to the tools for making.
And, perhaps most importantly, the maker movement has also tapped into a deep desire among many educators to return to the type of instruction that drew them to teaching in the first place.
- Meaningful change takes time, the superintendent said, and it can't be mandated from above.
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Efforts to bring maker education into schools might be messy and uneven. But so far, at least, the process has often been characterized by enthusiasm and growth.
Ultimately, Moran said, isn't that the point?
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Sunday, October 2, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 10/03/2016
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A Timeline of Google Classroom’s March to Replace Learning Management Systems | EdSurge News
This timeline is useful for getting a quick overview of all of the features that Google Classroom offers.
Friday, September 30, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 10/01/2016
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Golden Rules for Engaging Students in Learning Activities | Edutopia
This article offers six ways to think about student engagement and several ideas for how to increase it.
- In aiming for full engagement, it is essential that students perceive activities as being meaningful. Research has shown that if students do not consider a learning activity worthy of their time and effort, they might not engage in a satisfactory way, or may even disengage entirely in response (Fredricks, Blumenfeld, & Paris, 2004).
- highlighting the value of an assigned activity in personally relevant ways.
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- Be only slightly beyond students' current levels of proficiency
- Make students demonstrate understanding throughout the activity
- Show peer coping models (i.e. students who struggle but eventually succeed at the activity) and peer mastery models (i.e. students who try and succeed at the activity)
- Include feedback that helps students to make progress
Researchers have found that effectively performing an activity can positively impact subsequent engagement (Schunk & Mullen, 2012). To strengthen students' sense of competence in learning activities, the assigned activities could:
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- Welcoming students' opinions and ideas into the flow of the activity
- Using informational, non-controlling language with students
- Giving students the time they need to understand and absorb an activity by themselves
When teachers relinquish control (without losing power) to the students, rather than promoting compliance with directives and commands, student engagement levels are likely to increase as a result (Reeve, Jang, Carrell, Jeon, & Barch, 2004). Autonomy support can be implemented by:
- When students work effectively with others, their engagement may be amplified as a result (Wentzel, 2009), mostly due to experiencing a sense of connection to others during the activities (Deci & Ryan, 2000).
- Teacher modeling is one effective method (i.e. the teacher shows how collaboration is done), while avoiding homogeneous groups and grouping by ability, fostering individual accountability by assigning different roles, and evaluating both the student and the group performance also support collaborative learning.
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- Caring about students' social and emotional needs
- Displaying positive attitudes and enthusiasm
- Increasing one-on-one time with students
- Treating students fairly
- Avoiding deception or promise-breaking
High-quality teacher-student relationships are another critical factor in determining student engagement, especially in the case of difficult students and those from lower socioeconomic backgrounds (Fredricks, 2014). When students form close and caring relationships with their teachers, they are fulfilling their developmental need for a connection with others and a sense of belonging in society (Scales, 1991). Teacher-student relationships can be facilitated by:
- When students pursue an activity because they want to learn and understand (i.e. mastery orientations), rather than merely obtain a good grade, look smart, please their parents, or outperform peers (i.e. performance orientations), their engagement is more likely to be full and thorough (Anderman & Patrick, 2012).
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The Power of Children's Thinking.pdf
This article explains how children's theory formation is central to how they understand scientific concepts. It also explains how teachers might build on children's current theories and how teaching can focus students on new areas of exploration so that they can build new theories.
- In school, teachers can select a range of experiences that provide children with new data and encourage them to challenge their existing ideas and build new ones. School also provides the opportunity for children to learn how to record what they are http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf99148/ch_4.htm5doing in many different ways, how to communicate and share with others, and also how to develop models for understanding as they get older.
- Young children are often more linear in their thinking about causality than adults are. It's hard for them to juggle too many factors at the same time. They are not terribly upset, in the primary years, if theories contradict one another. They can have one theory over here and another one over there, and that's okay, for the moment. They haven't quite taken hold of the notion that you can't have contradictions. It doesn't necessarily mean that their thinking is illogical or irrational. It may simply mean that they do not need consistency or see the connections. Nor do young children tend to value parsimony, or elegance and http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf99148/ch_4.htm3simplicity of explanation. They may have very complicated explanations of how and why something happens. They may not care whether it is as elegant or simple as it could be. Simplicity is a more adult constraint on theory formation, not necessarily one of young children.
- http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf99148/ch_4.htm1The Power of Children's Thinkingby Karen WorthThe earth is flat. Fluttering leaves make the wind. The moon follows you as you walk. Based on how they understand everyday sensations and experiences, even young children create theories to explain the world around them. As this essay points out, guiding children to discover a more scientific view of the world means helping them learn through those same sensations and experiences-something that inquiry does particularly well.Two grandparents were out walking with their young grandchildren. They came to a rabbit hutch with three rabbits inside, an adult male and female, and what seemed to be a baby. As the children watched, a leaf fell on top of the cage. The female rabbit reached up, pulled the leaf into the cage, and dropped it on the ground. At that moment, one of the other rabbits started to eat it. Four-year-old Tommy, the littlest child, was intrigued. He picked up some leaves, put them on top of the cage, and watched the rabbit pull them inside. When they got home the grandmother asked, "Well, what did you think of those rabbits? What do you think was going on in that cage?" Tommy said, "The mommy rabbit taught us something when she pulled those leaves down. The mommy rabbit was really a teacher and you and grandfather and the other rabbits, we were all the students." There are many stories in which children reveal their attempts to make sense of the world. They are important, not because they are cute, but because they tell us something about the power of children's thinking. Young children can and do inquire, and it is important not to underestimate the power of this inquiry. They do so in different ways, depending on developmental level, prior experience, and context. From what we know from cognitive research, the context has to be concrete; the phenomena and objects must be ones children can explore with their senses. But at all ages, children do observe and investigate, collect data, think, reason, and draw conclusions.The theories children build, whether they are right or wrong, are not capricious. They are often logical and ratio
- The theories children build, whether they are right or wrong, are not capricious. They are often logical and rational, and firmly based in evidence and experience. The experience may not be deep and broad enough, the thinking capability may not be enough to formulate what we call a scientific theory, but the process by which the children form these ideas is very scientific indeed. Some call these early ideas children form misconceptions; others label them naive conceptions, or alternative conceptions. They are simply the children's conceptions and do not deserve the negative connotations associated with these terms.
- The immediate context is all that they have, tightly linked to personal experience. But the ideas that they develop are, in the right context, transferable across experiences
- Young
- children are often more linear in their thinking about causality than adults are. It's hard for them to juggle too many factors at the same time. They are not terribly upset, in the primary years, if theories contradict one another. They can have one theory over here and another one over there, and that's okay, for the moment. They haven't quite taken hold of the notion that you can't have contradictions. It doesn't necessarily mean that their thinking is illogical or irrational. It may simply mean that they do not need consistency or see the connections. Nor do young children tend to value parsimony, or elegance and
- simplicity of explanation. They may have very complicated explanations of how and why something happens. They may not care whether it is as elegant or simple as it could be. Simplicity is a more adult constraint on theory formation, not necessarily one of young children.
- Another characteristic of children's thinking is tenacity. Children do not want to give up the concepts and theories they work so hard to make. They take their experiences and struggle to come up with understandings that work in their daily lives. They are not about to drop their ideas just because someone says so, or because an event disproves what they have come to believe. As anyone familiar with the history of science can attest, even adults have trouble changing theories that are well grounded in experience. If a child's theory works, if it has been productive and the child has worked hard to build that theory, she will not give it up unless she has a lot of new experiences that provide reasons to do so.
- Fundamental to this kind of teaching and learning is the willingness to work with children "where they are," and to understand with what they are struggling.
- Fundamental to this kind of teaching and learning is the willingness to work with children "where they are," and to understand with what they are struggling.
- By offering children open-ended experiences and discussion, and by carefully observing and listening, we can come closer to knowing not only what their conceptions are, but the source of their struggle. If we don't, they may draw a picture of a round world, but not believe or understand what that really means.
- As children explore phenomena and materials, they focus on what is immediately important to them, not necessarily on what is important from a scientific point of view. Structured programs in a school environment make the phenomena and objects somewhat less messy and encourage students to look more closely at particular elements of what is going on. Teachers also guide children's inquiry to help them be more orderly and systematic than they might be on their own, and so they can draw on other resources such as books, people, media, and technology.
- In school, teachers can select a range of experiences that provide children with new data and encourage them to challenge their existing ideas and build new ones. School also provides the opportunity for children to learn how to record what they are
- To support children's learning in science, teachers must be willing to try to understand the ideas and formulations children have made and are making and to guide their instruction accordingly. This means the teacher accepts andsupports a wide variety of views and encourages real dialogue and debate among the children. This also means creating a rich physical and social learning environment in which new questions, explorations, and investigations can arise, and in which every step is not dictated.
- http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf99148/ch_4.htm5doing in many different ways, how to communicate and share with others, and also how to develop models for understanding as they get older.
- In such an environment, the teacher allows the children to gather data and approach ideas from multiple contexts. He or she allows the children time for trials, repetition, and mistakes, and creates a balance between adult guidance and time for children to be guided by their own questions, predictions, and explorations.
- If children are struggling with an idea, they need time to come to a physical understanding of it before they can really use it in their world. If they do not have these opportunities, they may learn the words and information they need for school. They may get all the answers right on a test. And they may also create another kind of understanding on their own. They may come to believe that there is something called "science," in which they are told what to see, what to know, and what to think, and that it is rather unrelated to the world they experience outside of school.
- They also may come to the conclusion that there is a whole realm of knowledge that they themselves cannot understand, and that they must simply take, unquestioned and not understood, the facts as given from an adult or a textbook.
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These plastic pieces can be used to connect straws together to build a variety of structures.
Thursday, September 29, 2016
Educational Resources & Tech Tools 09/30/2016
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Mindset Kit | Resources for growth and learning mindsets
These are online classes for teachers looking to better incorporate growth mindset into their classrooms.
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The Marshall Memo Admin - Issues
- However, 85 percent of teachers said they wanted more professional development to use growth mindset insights most effectively. While the central ideas are intuitive to many educators, it takes time and collaboration for them to filter down to daily classroom practice.
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- Beaubien and her colleagues at the Stanford Project for Education Research That Scales (PERTS – https://www.perts.net) are offering online growth mindset training modules for teachers and encouraging grassroots efforts to spread effective practices.
- Limit initiatives to those that support the big goal. “As we try to change and grow our practice, whether self-driven or motivated by policy or district-level change,” she says, “we will encounter more ideas than we can possibly implement in a year or even our whole career. It pays to focus on a smaller set of objectives, and for a while, selectively choose initiatives that fit those goals.”
- Collaboration is key.
- Within her school, she co-taught, observed colleagues, discussed goals (big and small), monitored students’ progress, and (with some trepidation) invited other teachers to observe her teaching and give feedback.
- she visited other Connected Math schools and watched lesson videos at http://www.connectedmath.msu.edu and http://www.teachingchannel.org.
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