In the future, the whole world will be a classroom — from fastcoexist.com by Marina Gorbis

 

TheFutureOfEducation-Gorbis-6-28-13

. TheFutureOfEducation3-Gorbis-6-28-13.

From DSC:
What Marina is asserting is what I’m seeing as well. That is, we are between two massive but different means of obtaining an education/learning (throughout our lifetimes I might add).  What she’s saying is also captured in the following graphic:

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streams-of-content-blue-overlay

 

Also see:

 

Classroom Videos Could Help Universities Prepare Future Teachers -- by Tanya Roscorla

 

Other possible tools/ideas/approaches:

  • Blackboard Collaborate — have student teachers record their student teaching for professors to critique back at campus
  • teachscape — Some innovative products for classroom observation; again, very helpful for having student teachers record their student teaching for professors to critique back at campus. This tool offers better functionality for asynchronous commenting.
    The four modular components of the new Teachscape Effectiveness Platform include:

    • Teachscape Focus – Will include the Framework for Teaching Proficiency System and the Framework for Teaching Effectiveness Series. Teachscape Focus is designed to focus and align educators on a common definition of teaching effectiveness relative to Charlotte Danielson’s Framework for Teaching.
    • Teachscape Reflect – Will include enhanced versions of Teachscape Walk, Teachscape Reflect Live, and Teachscape Reflect Video. The new Teachscape Reflect system supports multiple measures evaluations, and combines in-classroom and video-based observation data with measures of student learning, surveys, and artifacts for a holistic view of teaching effectiveness.
    • Teachscape Learn – Will include an expanded version of the current Professional Learning Suite, our research-based preK–12 course library, as well as a new learning management system, online learning communities, video capture and sharing tools, and personalized learning plans.
    • Teachscape Advance – Teachscape’s new talent management system will help districts organize, train, and align district staffing to best meet student needs and support larger strategic human capital management goals. The system includes tools for goals alignment, career path and succession planning, and competency management.

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teachscape.com

 

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Addendum — with thanks going out to edSurge’s mailing today [11/28/12] for this resource:

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Better coaching for teachers -- by using technology

 

 

College of Education helps innovate Kentucky schools– from uknow.uky.edu by Amanda Nelson

Excerpt:

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Aug. 1, 2012) — Several Kentucky school districts have started working with the University of Kentucky College of Education in a unique partnership to innovate and improve schools. The districts are participating in the college’s Next Generation Leadership (NxGL) Academy, an output of its Kentucky P20 Innovation Lab.

From DSC:
It seems like there would be a lot of WIN-WINs here: 

  • Better/closer collaboration between K-12 and higher ed
  • Enhanced student teaching experiences
  • Better pulse checking on where the changing K-12 student is at
  • More informed teams — bringing a variety of perspectives to the table — to look at the best ways to reform education
  • and more

 

 

We need a “Fab Lab for Education” — from innosightinstitute.org by Alex Hernandez

Excerpt:

In my dreams, [insert city] would open a Fab Lab for Education.

The Fab Lab for Education is a place where educators with big ideas can prototype new approaches to education and operate them for six weeks at a time with real kids. In other sectors, fab labs are mini-workshops where inventors can make “almost anything” without re-tooling an entire factory. Educators should have a place to try amazing, new ideas without “re-tooling” a whole school.

For educators, getting selected to prototype their big idea is a huge honor and people travel across the country to see their work. By the way, they don’t have to quit their jobs to do this and everyone knows that not all the programs will succeed.

The Fab Lab for Education is a highly flexible and customizable space, kind of like the Exploratorium in San Francisco. Philanthropists stock the lab with all the things needed to test out new ideas: 3-D printers, legos, amazing books, art supplies, post-it notes…  basically whatever the educators need.

The Fab Lab for Education team has five jobs…

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Additional reflection from DSC:
Great, innovative thinking Alex on this posting. Speaking of such dreams, it’s my dream to have such a place here on campus where folks could “kick the tires” on various technologies — where educators, faculty members, etc. could collaboratively work with each other and with educational technologists.  Before a “standard” gets put into place (i.e. such as an implementation of an interactive whiteboard), such a facility could help people test out a variety of potential pathways.  Ideas emerge and they morph into something else. Innovation could occur. Emerging technologies could be identified and tested out.

Other thoughts:

  • This would be a great place for our future educators/student teachers to have access to as well
  • Ideas/innovations arising from some of these facilities might be eligible for patents and additional income streams to keep such facilities open/sustainable
  • Successful approaches could be shared with other school districts, colleges, universities
  • Human Computer Interaction (HCI)-related work could be a piece of this vision — esp. in regards to developing the next gen Smart Classroom and learning spaces

 


 

From DSC:
Arguably, Sal Kahn has become the most famous, influential educator on the planet today — his videos are watched millions of times a day now.  The question — which Eric Schmidt answers in the piece — I couldn’t help but ask was, “Why didn’t this type of innovation come from someone who was working in education at the time of their innovation?”

My thanks to Dr. Kate Byerwalter and her colleagues for passing along this resource.
The tags/associated categories for this posting point out the relevant areas covered.

 

Khan Academy: The future of education?

Also see:

  • Khan Academy: The future of education?
    (CBS News) Sal Khan is a math, science, and history teacher to millions of students, yet none have ever seen his face. Khan is the voice and brains behind Khan Academy, a free online tutoring site that may have gotten your kid out of an algebra bind with its educational how-to videos. Now Khan Academy is going global. Backed by Google, Gates, and other Internet powerhouses, Sal Khan wants to change education worldwide, and his approach is already being tested in some American schools. Sanjay Gupta reports.

From DSC:
A relevant graphic comes to mind with what Sal is trying to achieve with analytics:

i.e. Highly-effective diagnostic tools for the educators and trainers out there!

 

 

Willing but not yet ready: A glimpse of California teachers’ preparedness for the Common Core State Standards

Excerpt:

California is on the precipice of implementing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), which were developed through an initiative of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to reflect the knowledge and skills needed for success in college and careers. In California, one of 45 adopting states, the standards represent a significant shift in expectations for both teaching and learning, not just in English language arts (ELA) and mathematics, but also in literacy related to science and history/social science. The newly adopted standards call for a deep conceptual understanding of the content in ELA and mathematics and, also, for the ability to apply this content to other disciplines. New assessments aligned to the standards are due to be implemented in 2014-15. It all sounds good. But are teachers ready to teach to the new standards?

From DSC:
Due to my lack of knowledge, the jury is still out for me re: what I think about the Common Core State Standards.  The crux of my struggle has to do with:

  • Who determines which courses/topics are included in the standards — both now and in the future?
  • How often will they be updated to insure the foundations are truly foundational to our students’ futures?
  • Are such large swaths of standards helpful and effective or are they an extension of a one-size-fits all approach?  (For example, I look back on some of the items that I took in K-12 — many of which I’ve forgotten and I never use — but I’ll bet are still in the standards. )

I would like to see some solid foundations being built as well — as I assume that’s what the standards seek to implement.  I just hope we can provide places for students’ wide variety of passions to be identified, explored, and strongly nurtured as my economics training taught me that we all win when each of us does what we do best.

Can someone educate me on these standards? What are the upsides and downsides — the pros and cons — of these standards? Thanks!

 Addendum on 3/2/12:

 

Blackboard launches solution to improve developmental education
Fully online courses now include built-in assessment, analytics tools

Excerpt:

WASHINGTON – February 22, 2012 – Blackboard Inc. today announced the official launch of Blackboard Developmental Education™ (Blackboard DevEd), an innovative approach aimed at improving student outcomes and increasing completion rates in an area where many institutions have struggled. The solution, which was first piloted by several institutions in the fall, now includes built-in assessment and analytics tools that enable course instructors to further personalize their instruction.

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Blackboard Developmental EducationTM (Blackboard DevEd) is a comprehensive program of blended instruction and online remedial courses designed to improve student achievement levels cost-effectively.

Early reflections from DSC:

  • First of all, my congratulations go out to Blackboard for innovating! Nice work.
  • This is another example of the innovation occurring in the online/digital learning world — yet more tools and diagnostic powers are being made available to online-based teaching and learning environments
  • This should be another shot across the bow of how institutions of higher education are training our future teachers — student teachers NEED to know how to teach online!!!
  • Too early to tell how such endeavors will affect career paths (for teachers, administrators, counselors, nurses, and such)

 

Also see:

Some colleges slow to prep education majors for how to teach online — by Jennifer Reeger

Excerpt:

“They’ve all grown up in the face-to-face classroom, and they come into teaching thinking that’s what they’re going to do,” said Ent, chairwoman of the education department. “When you say to them there’s a chance you’ll be doing online delivery, they’re shocked.”

A somewhat-related item:

  • Online classroom support pre-service teacher education from Learning in vivo by Thomas Groenewald
    Excerpt:

    Teaching is complex, requiring in excess of 3000 decisions each day in the classroom, reports Ferry and Kervin (2007). This poses serious challenges to pre-service teacher education, aggravated by the theoretical education often fail to prepare students for the practicalities of the classroom. Simulated (virtual) classrooms are seen as a means to prepare students for their future role as teachers.
    .
    Ferry and Kervin (2007: 190) reports that a team of five University of Wollongong lecturers and two research students work together for a year to produce a funding proposal. A further six months got devoted to plan the development of the simulation. The development of the simulation comprises a number of stages/processes:

From DSC:
The pace of innovation continues — what does this mean for our current engineering programs? For the future curriculum of engineering-related programs? How does this rapid change of pace affect our schools of education?  Should we be introducing more courses on pulse-checking/trend watching/courses in futurism? In robotics? Other?

Example:
Mitsubishi shows off what car interfaces will look like in 10 years — from dvice.com

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Image credit: DigInfo

The Promise and Potential of Personalized Digital Learning -- from Tom Vander Ark on November 4, 2011

Also see:


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A comprehensive look at the promise and potential of online learning
In our digital age, students have dramatically new learning needs and must be prepared for the idea economy of the future. In Getting Smart, well-known global education expert Tom Vander Ark examines the facets of educational innovation in the United States and abroad. Vander Ark makes a convincing case for a blend of online and onsite learning, shares inspiring stories of schools and programs that effectively offer “personal digital learning” opportunities, and discusses what we need to do to remake our schools into “smart schools.”

— Examines the innovation-driven world, discusses how to combine online and onsite learning, and reviews “smart tools” for learning
— Investigates the lives of learning professionals, outlines the new employment bargain, examines online universities and “smart schools”
— Makes the case for smart capital, advocates for policies that create better learning, studies smart cultures

Addendum on 11/29/11:

From DSC:
I don’t know much about this, but it looked interesting…I thought I’d post it in case it’s helpful to someone out there.

 

teachingchannel.org -- see great teaching on TV

Studying teacher moves — educationnext.org by Michael Goldstein
A practitioner’s take on what is blocking the research teachers need

Excerpt (emphasis DSC):

But there is almost nothing examining the thousands of moves teachers must decide on and execute every school day. Should I ask for raised hands, or cold-call? Should I give a warning or a detention? Do I require this student to attend my afterschool help session, or make it optional? Should I spend 10 minutes grading each five-paragraph essay, 20 minutes, or just not pay attention to time and work on each until it “feels” done?

My point is simply that relative to education policy research, there is very, very little rigorous research on teacher moves. Why? Gates knows it’s more than a lack of raw cash; it’s also about someone taking responsibility for this work. “Who thinks of it [empirical research on teachers] as their business?”  he asked. “The 50 states don’t think of it that way, and schools of education are not about [this type of] research.”

I agree, but I contend there are a number of other barriers. The first is a lack of demand.

A second issue is that researchers don’t worry about teacher time. Education researchers often put forward strategies that make teachers’ lives harder, not easier. Have you ever tried to “differentiate instruction”? When policy experts give a lecture or speak publicly, do they create five different iterations for their varied audience? Probably not.

© 2024 | Daniel Christian