On 02/23/2012,
in curriculum, leadership, legislatures / government / legal, student teaching/teacher education, teachers,
by Daniel Christian
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:
On 01/04/2012,
in content development, aggregation, repositories, K-12 related, marketplaces, new business models, teachers,
by Daniel Christian
On 12/14/2011,
in collaboration, digital learning, digital video, Google, innovation, open courseware and systems, professional development, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, teachers,
by Daniel Christian
On 11/15/2011,
in change, creativity, curriculum, education reform, education technology, engagement / engaging students, innovation, instructional design, K-12 related, learning spaces, smart classrooms, teachers, teaching & learning,
by Daniel Christian
Dreaming: A look at Anastasis Academy — from ilearntechnology.com by Kelly Tenkely
Excerpt:
You will notice that we don’t have rows of desks. No teacher’s desk either. We have space that kids can move in. Corners to hide in, stages to act on, floors to spread out on, cars to read in. We are learning how to learn together, learning how to respect other children’s space and needs, learning how to discipline ourselves when we need to, learning how to work collaboratively, we are learning to be the best us.
.
.
.
Also see:
- Ideas and Innovation — from Shift to the Future
On 11/11/2011,
in 21st century, K-12 related, online learning, personalized/customized learning, policy, strategy, student teaching/teacher education, teachers, teaching & learning, trends,
by Daniel Christian
On 11/03/2011,
in K-12 related, professional development, teachers, teaching & learning, trends,
by Daniel Christian
On 11/02/2011,
in A/V -- audio/visual, digital learning, digital video, K-12 related, online media, student teaching/teacher education, teachers, teaching & learning,
by Daniel Christian
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.
On 10/13/2011,
in adjunct faculty, blended learning, collaboration, communities of practice, data related items, face-to-face, faculty, higher education, hybrid learning, innovation, learning ecosystem, learning theories, physics, social learning / networks, strategy, teachers, teaching & learning,
by Daniel Christian
Building Learning Communities 2011 Keynote: Dr. Eric Mazur — from November Learning
Excerpt:
Today, we are officially relaunching our opening keynote from BLC11 with Dr. Eric Mazur. Dr. Mazur is the Area Dean of Applied Physics and Balkanski Professor of Physics and Applied Physics at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA.
In his keynote, Dr. Mazur shares his vast research on teaching and learning. Students in Dr. Mazur’s class are moving far away from the traditional stand and deliver lectures given in many k-12 and university classrooms around the world, and they are gaining a much deeper understanding of the material being taught in the process.
As you watch this video, we invite you to take some time and respond to one or more of the following questions…
From DSC:
What I understood the key points to be:
- Teaching and learning should not be about information transfer alone; that is, it’s not about simply having students “parrot back” the information. That doesn’t lead to true learning and long-term retention.
- The more a teacher is an expert in his/her content, the more difficulty this teacher has in understanding how a first time learner in this subject struggles
- Rather we need to guide and use peer instruction/social learning/collaboration amongst students to construct learning and then be able to apply/transfer that learning to a different context
- Lecturing is not an effective way to create a long term retention of information
- Peer instruction/human interaction creates effective learning
- “The plural of anecdotes is not data.”
- Eric is seeking data and feedback to sharpen his theories of how to optimize learning
- Technology serves pedagogy — technology should afford a new mode of learning
- Towards that end, Eric and team working on “Peer instruction 2.0”
- How do I design good questions? Optimize the discussions? Manage time? Insure learning is taking place?
- Eric is working with several other colleagues to create a system for building and using data analytics to give useful information to instructor about who’s “getting it” and who isn’t; about how we learn
- Peer instruction not without issues — how people group themselves and who students choose to collaborate with can be problematical
- Why not have the system do the pairing/grouping?
- System uses algorithms, facial recognition, posture analysis; cameras, microphones
- Surveys also used
- The system is attempting to help Eric and his team learn about learning
- The system being used at Harvard and by invitation only
Eric ended with a summary of the 2 key messages:
- Education is not about lecturing
- We can move way beyond the current technologies and use new methods and technologies to actively manage learning as it happens
From DSC:
After listening to this lecture, the graphic below captures a bit of what he’s getting at and reflects some of my thinking on this subject as well. That is, we need diagnostic tools — along the lines of those a mechanic might use on our cars to ascertain where the problems/issues are:
On 09/13/2011,
in collaboration, global / globalization, teachers, videoconferencing, web-based collaboration,
by Daniel Christian
Google for Educators: Resources for using Google in school — from Dave the Educational Technology Guy
Also see:
- 70+ Google Forms for the Classroom — from edte.ch
On 09/07/2011,
in accessibility / UDL, blogs / blogging / vlogging, neurodivergent/special needs, teachers, teaching & learning,
by Daniel Christian
40 inspiring blogs every special education teacher should read — from mastersinspecialeducation.org
On 08/25/2011,
in 21st century, 24x7x365 access, A/V -- audio/visual, adjunct faculty, analytics, art, Artificial Intelligence/Agents/LLMs/and Related, attention, Augmented Reality (AR), blogs / blogging / vlogging, change, cloud-based computing / apps / other cloud-related, colleges, communities of practice, community colleges, computer science, convergence, creativity, dangers of the status quo, Daniel S. Christian, digital audio, digital learning, digital storytelling, digital textbooks, digital video, disruption, drama/theater, e-books, e-publishing related items (EPUB and more), economics, education, education reform, education technology, educational games / serious games, elearning, emerging technologies, engagement / engaging students, engineering, expectations, faculty, game-changing environment, generational differences, global / globalization, higher education, human-computer interaction (HCI), ideas, innovation, intelligent tutoring, internet, K-12 related, learning ecosystem, Learning from the Living [Class] Room, learning theories, liberal arts, lifelong learning, machine-to-machine communications, memory, mirroring and/or multiple devices, mobile learning, mobile technologies, multi-touch, multimedia, music, Near Field Communication (NFC), New "Amazon.com" of Higher Education, new media literacies, online learning, online media, pace of change, passions, pedagogy, presentations, productivity / tips and tricks, publishing, reading, reinvent, robotics, RSS, social learning / networks, social media, society, staying relevant, storytelling, strategy, streams of content, student teaching/teacher education, student-related, surviving, tablets, teachers, teaching & learning, teaching online, technologies for your home, technology (general), telepresence, television, textbooks, tools, transmedia, trends, ubiquitous learning, United States, universities, videoconferencing, virtual K-12 schools, virtual tutoring, vision/possibilities, visualizing information, web-based collaboration, writing,
by Daniel Christian
From DSC:
Immediately below is a presentation that I did for the Title II Conference at Calvin College back on August 11, 2011
It is aimed at K-12 audiences.
From DSC:
Immediately below is a presentation that I did today for the Calvin College Fall 2011 Conference.
It is aimed at higher education audiences.
Note from DSC:
There is a great deal of overlap here, as many of the same technologies are (or will be) hitting the K-12 and higher ed spaces at the same time. However, there are some differences in the two presentations and what I stressed depended upon my audience.
Pending time, I may put some audio to accompany these presentations so that folks can hear a bit more about what I was trying to relay within these two presentations.