Educational Resources & Tech Tools 10/05/2016

• 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."

  tags: mistakes TED learning teaching

• 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."

  tags: TED science

• 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."

  tags: math TED

• 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."

  tags: TED science

• Science Curriculum Summarys

  This document contains curriculum summaries, essential questions, concepts and skills as well as common assessments.

  tags: curriculum design curriculum summary

• Chemistry Activities for Kids - Fun Lesson Plans, Classroom Teaching Ideas, Resources

  tags: chemistry physical science Science lesson plans earth science life science

• Lesson Plans | Middle School Chemistry

  At the bottom there are two PBL lesson plans for chemistry.

  tags: chemistry lesson plans Science IPS physical science pbl

• 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.

  tags: leadership pedagogy new teacher improved teaching assessment Reflection Learning critical thinking problem solving emotional labor balance work-life balance longevity

  • In This Issue:

     

    1. Four secrets of peak performance

     

    2. “Emotional labor” on the job

     

    3. Getting students thinking at higher levels

     

    4. Student work analysis to improve teaching, assessment, and learning

     

    5. Elements of the Haberman principal interview

     

  • “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,

  • Here are some workplace conditions that increase emotional labor:

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->A mismatch between your personality and what’s expected on the job;

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->A misalignment of values, especially if what you’re asked to do is in conflict with what you believe;

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->A workplace culture in which particular ways of expressing emotion are endorsed, or not endorsed.

  • If you’re in a job that’s meaningful and largely aligned with your values, the best way to reduce emotional labor, says David, is to substitute surface acting with what she calls “deep acting.” Some tips:

     

                • Remind yourself why you’re in the job you’re in.

  • 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.”

  • four strategies to engage students in higher-order thinking:

     

                • Open questions – Every lesson should have two or three of these to highlight key content and thinking skills.

  • 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.

  • Purpose #4: Engaging students in peer- and self-assessment – One approach is having students look at two pieces of work by other students side by side and asking them (for example):

     

    <!-- [if !supportLists]-->-   <!--[endif]-->What does each student know and understand and where might they improve?

  • 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,’”

  • Purpose #5: Better understanding how learning progresses over time – Many skills, concepts, and misconceptions revealed in student work analysis are not explicitly addressed in curriculum standards. Looking at students’ learning trajectories in interim assessments and student work can guide teachers in the next step that students at different levels of progress need to take.

     

    • Purpose #6: Building content and pedagogical expertise –

  • 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

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.