All Blog Posts (1,624)

With the advent of internet, things have become easier now. Also, to gain a degree is now just a matter of a year or two without even visiting the college or university for once. This is indeed amazing, however, there are certain things which an online learner should follow before taking us a course according to his needs.

Difference between a Degree and…

For so long I have watched leaders in schools focus their energy and time on administrative duties. I put myself at the top of this list. Faculty Heads for example, spend so much time in curriculum admin and documentation, file arranging, budgeting and other compliance tasks. This is not a judgement call; this is just what we leaders do. We see a task that needs to be completed and we dive in. Easier to do it ourselves sometimes than delegate to a team member right? Complete this sentence,…

Most families do not understand the concept of youth summer camps. A noted educator, author and psychologist, Dr. Scales says, "Camp is one of the few institutions where young people can experience and satisfy their need for physical activity, creative expression and true participation in a community environment. Most schools don't satisfy all these needs."

Summer camps for kids and…

I am working on a particular action research on the effectivity of Web-Based Learning in enhancing student's participation, achievement and retention in learning. I am asking for comments and suggestions. Thank you in advance.

Myths and Realities about Technology in Schools

Myth #1:  Putting computers into schools will directly improve learning; more computers will result in greater improvement.

Access to technology is an important issue for teachers and students. Although schools may have computers available, one factor that determines their use is where those computers are located. In our school, we had 15 computers. The problem was, we are not able to utilize it on a regular basis because of the…

What is the most important factor that contributes to student success? Teaching.

Educators know this, but implementing practices that support excellent teaching is often harder, especially in school systems that must address myriad issues that frankly go beyond education.

In a recent Asia Society study, Stanford professor and education expert Linda Darling-Hammond examines teacher quality policies in Singapore, Melbourne, and Toronto and offers advice for what policymakers can…

http://www.weareteachers.com/grants-contests/grants/how-do-you-encourage-critical-thinking-during-classroom-discussion-/

How to Encourage Critical Thinking in Classroom?

•  Utilizing standards, like the Common Core, to guide you as you lead classroom discussions.
•  Engaging your students to think beyond the simple facts about any…

I am writing a chapter on PLNs and Content Curation.  I stumbled upon this great link by Howard Rheingold about Shelly Terrell:

http://dmlcentral.net/blog/howard-rheingold/shelly-terrell-global-netweaver-curator-pln-builder

That reminded me of this site.  I need to come back more often.

Ken

This morning I had a somewhat disheartening conversation with a good friend.   We get together every week to talk about education, what we see, our point of view, and give push back on ideas. He commented that he doesn't read his Twitter stream because there is a lot of noise. Educators are repeatedly talking about the same things and the conversation isn't changed. Topics I see repeatedly are reform,  government oversight, 5-100 best ways to do something, the best apps, and more. The lack…

I just finished reading Michael Fullan's, Stratosphere.  In this book,  he outlines how: "the ideas embedded in the new technology, the new pedagogy, and the new change knowledge are converging to transform education for all" (p. 3).  Fullan's book resonates with a driving question I have grappled with…

My School--Clayton Ridge Community School District has a lazer focus for our Professional Development of increasing reading scores.  We have an early out every Wednesday at 2:20 and we work in our Professional Learning Communities on how to increase reading proficiency until 4:00.

My Professional Learning Community is Teacher Driven Professional Learning!~~Awesome!  Teachers decide what we need to learn and invite experts…

The collaborative classroom has 4 main characteristics, which are characteristics I hope to keep in mind when establishing my classroom environment:

- Shared knowledge among teachers and students, where teachers can share their vital knowledge and experiences about content with students while also valuing and building upon the previous knowledge, experience, language, strategies, and culture of her own students. 

- Shared authority among teachers and students, where a…

This article provides teachers with an abundance of easy-to-implement strategies for promoting creativity in their classroom. I tried to pull out some of the best strategies that I would like to use in my own classroom.

1. Use emotional connections. Research shows that the best creativity instruction ties into the emotions of the learner. For example, giving students a project that ties into solving an issue within their community (ex: homelessness) can help sprout creativity…

By seventh hour of the school day I have expended a considerable amount of energy–always engaged, in the moment, “on”–greeting, coaching, moving around the classroom, explaining, preparing for the next class period, exchanging, collecting, organizing, and reorganizing. Does any of this sound familiar? If not, you are clearly not an educator.

After teaching five classes and supervising a study hall, I finally get a few moments…

www.waldorf.ca/index.cfm?pagepath=Waldorf_Works_%2FA_Greener_Education&id=48572

Something awesome is happening on a new channel in YouTube. Ben Wilkoff has gathered together a few everyday educators who are sharing weekly vlogs about education, a direct result of ETMOOC.

This week we're…

During my content exploration I found an interesting article that provides readers with a great deal of information on how to create effective assessments for 21st century students. Within the article, I found a helpful chart that provided assessment strategies for each of the different perspectives on learning. 

1. Associative - an assessment where concepts and competencies are frequently assessed at a micro level and in combination through macro-level tasks.

2.…

I found a great pin on Pinterest that provides teachers with specific structured questions that can be used in any lesson plan to incorporate critical thinking skills. The link provides a table that is broken down into each of the critical thinking areas- knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Within each section is a variety of questions and key terms that teachers can use in their individual lesson plans to engage students in that specific critical…

 …