From DSC:
1) To start out this posting, I want to pose some questions about “The Common Core” — in the form of a short video. <— NOTE:  Please be sure your speakers are on or you have some headphones with you — the signal is “hot” so you may need to turn down the volume a bit!  🙂

With a special thanks going out to
Mr. Bill Vriesema for sharing
some of his excellent gifts/work.

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DanielChristian-SomeQuestionsReTheCommonCore-June2013

 

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Having asked those questions, I understand that there is great value in having students obtain a base level of knowledge — in reading, writing, and basic math.  (Should we add keyboarding? Programming? Other?  Perhaps my comments are therefore more appropriate for high school students…not sure.)

Anyway, I would be much more comfortable with moving forward with the Common Core IF:

* I walked into random schools and found out which teachers the students really enjoyed learning from and whom had a real impact on the learning of the students.  Once I identified that group of teachers, if 7-8 out of 10 of them gave the Common Core a thumbs up, so would I.

* The Common Core covered more areas — such as fine arts, music, drama, woodworking, videography, photography, etc.    (Just because STEM might drive the economic engines doesn’t mean everyone enjoys plugging into a STEM-related field — or is gifted in those areas.)

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2) Secondly, here are just a few recent items re: the Common Core:


 

Good Read: Who’s Minding the Schools? — from blogs.kqed.org by Tina Barseghian

Excerpt: (emphasis DSC)

For those uninitiated to the Common Core State Standards, this New York Times article raises some important questions:

“By definition, America has never had a national education policy; this has indeed contributed to our country’s ambivalence on the subject… The anxiety that drives this criticism comes from the fact that a radical curriculum — one that has the potential to affect more than 50 million children and their parents — was introduced with hardly any public discussion. Americans know more about the events in Benghazi than they do about the Common Core.”

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The Common Core Standards

 

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Editorial: Make the Common Core standards work before making them count — from eschoolnews.com by Randi Weingarten
AFT President Randi Weingarten calls for a moratorium on the high-stakes implications of Common Core testing until the standards have been properly implemented.

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How to train students’ brains for the Common Core — from ecampusnews.com by Meris Stansbury
Excerpt:

According to Margaret Glick, a neuroscience expert and educational consultant at the International Center for Leadership in Education (ICLE), the Common Core State Standards and the accompanying assessments will cognitively require more than past standards. “They will require a deep understanding of content, complex performances, real-world application, habits of mind to persevere, higher levels of cognition and cognitive flexibility,” Glick said during “The Common Core State Standards and the Brain,” a webinar sponsored by the Learning Enhancement Corporation.

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Common Core testing will require digital literacy skills — from ecampusnews.com by Dennis Pierce
Excerpt:

It also will require students to demonstrate certain digital literacy skills that go beyond the core curriculum, observers say. These include technology operational skills such as keyboarding and spreadsheets, as well as higher-order skills such as finding and evaluating information online. And many observers have serious concerns about whether students will be ready to take the online exams by the 2014-15 school year.

 

Minn. moves ahead with some Common Core education standards — from minnesota.publicradio.org by Tim Post

 

Carry the Common Core in Your Pocket! — from appolearning.com by Monica Burns

Excerpt:

Whether you are a parent or educator, you have likely heard the buzz around the Common Core Learning Standards. Here’s the deal.

Across the United States schools are adopting these national standards to prepare students for college and careers by introducing rigorous content to children in all subject areas. The standards cover students in Kindergarten through Grade 12 in English Language Arts and Mathematics. The Common Core Standards app by MasteryConnect organizes the CCLS for students, parents and teachers with mobile devices.

 

 

Addendum on 6/19/13:

Addendum on 6/27/13: 

 

Gamedesk’s “Classroom of the Future.” Why is it so hard to reinvent K-12 education? — from pandodaily.com by David Holmes

Excerpts:

 If we’ve learned anything from this month’s series on ed-tech it’s that changing centuries-old education traditions takes more than a touchscreen and good intentions. For all the exciting innovations put forth by the ed-tech movement, there remain fundamental challenges, including how to properly motivate students, how to navigate the internal politics of school districts, and what to do when the technology crashes.That’s why I was eager to catch up with Lucien Vattel, CEO and founder of Gamedesk, an LA-based non-profit that is designing what it calls “the classroom of the future.” …we quickly became believers in this brave new model of education based on imagination and play. (Who wouldn’t?)
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classroommain

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aerogif

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Employers identify top 5 job skills

From DSC:
Though K-12 and higher ed do more than
develop skills — and I could add several key
traits/characteristics that we work on
developing (such as integrity, honesty, work
ethic, etc.) — I wanted to reflect on a question:
On a regular basis, are we doing
the things to help foster these traits?

 

Employers Identify Top 5 Job Skills

 

 

From DSC:
At a range between 79%-82%, note how high up the scale the desire is for people who have the ability and willingness to learn new skills!  In other words, employers want lifelong learners.

However, if people come out of their K-12 and/or higher ed experiences and don’t really enjoy learning in the first place, that’s going to be hard to deliver on.  I continue to suggest that we need to cultivate more of a love of learning in students — giving them more choice, more control to identify and pursue their passions….things they WANT to work on. If learning is fun, the other things will take care of themselves. 

 

Games grow up: Colleges recognize the power of gamification — from edtechmagazine.com by Jacquelyn Bengfort
Universities enliven education through the power of play.

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Jane McGonigal on Gamification – IBM Connect 2013 Day 3 – Jan 30, 2013– with thanks to the curation done on this by siobhan-o-flynn
Description:
World renowned game designer, Jane McGonigal, dropped some amazing facts about gamification that will change your perspective. IBM Connect 2013 Session on Gamification

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ChesapeakeChildDevCtr-March2013

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From DSC:
A solid infographic is out at Knewton.com — of which I want to highlight 2 portions of it (below).

This first excerpt is not to dog teachers but rather it’s meant to support them and to say that we need to change a losing game (at least a part of the solution in ed reform is to get out of the business of focusing so much on standardized tests and another part of the solution resides in the second graphic below):

 

EducationCrisis-Jan2013

 

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EducationCrisis2-Jan2013

 

 

Also relevant see:

An animated highlight of John Seely Brown’s Keynote Presentation, “Cultivating the Entrepreneurial Learner in the 21st Century,” at the 2012 Digital Media and Learning Conference. Published on Sep 18, 2012 by DMLResearchHub.. With thanks going out to Mr. Joseph Byerwalter for this find/resource.

 

 

The Global One Room Schoolhouse -- John Seely Brown -- Highlights from JSB's Keynote at DML2012

 

 

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The Global One Room Schoolhouse -- John Seely Brown -- Highlights from JSB's Keynote at DML2012

 

 

Also see:

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From DSC: I like how Jackie titles her blog:

User Generated Education
Education as it should be – passion-based.

Mister Rogers remixed by Symphony of Science

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toontastic -- bring out the creativity in young ones!

Also see:

Some sharp learning spaces

The Weston Family Learning Centre / Hariri Pontari Architects — from archdaily.com by Diego Hernandez

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© Tom Arban

 

© Tom Arban

 

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Addendum on 5/8/12:

 

 

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Stockholm’s school without classrooms — interesting piece from architizer.com

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Excerpt:

Children have wild imaginations. Take Max from Maurice Sendak’s illustrated classic Where the Wild Things Are, whose mischievous tantrums cause his room to sprout into a lush, inhabited forest. In a similar experience of my own, I can recall a particular elementary school gym class, in which the gym was transformed into the perilous domain of a sword-wielding ‘gorilla’—played by my gym teacher. The masked predator hid behind colossal trees of rolled blue gymnastic mats and tangled cargo net vines before springing out to prey on us hysterical, spritely youth.

 

[All photos © Kim Wendt and Rosan Bosch]

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Addendum on 1/12/12:

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(Small) Playful Learning Spaces — from playfullearning.com

Excerpt:

Many people have asked me about creating playful learning spaces for children in homes or classrooms with limited space. My response is that even small changes can make a big difference. While one option is taking advantage of little nooks around your house (stay tuned for another post on nooks), another option is to fully utilize any wall space you may have available.

 

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