Bloom’s Revised are essential to teaching 21st Century Skills and Common Core! Great visual resources for educators. “Bloom’s Taxonomy is a useful tool for assessment design, but using it only for that function is like using a race car to go to the grocery–a huge waste of potential.” In this TeachThought post they look at better use of Bloom’s taxonomy in the classroom read more at http://www.teachthought.com/
Great article about classroom technology and teacher pedagogy! Read the article at http://www.teachthought.com/technology/4-signs-your-edtech-program-isnt-working/.
As all of our schools wrestle with the technological revolution and application to classroom instruction educators continue to try and transcend the chasm from digital immigrant and try and develop classroom strategies to meet the needs of our digital natives. Today’s classroom teachers are digital immigrants and must develop literacy in technology to meet the needs of these students.
Digital Natives are the generation born during or after the general introduction of digital technology. Digital Natives have an inherent understanding of digital technologies, as they’ve been integrated into their lives since early childhood. They are part of a tech-savvy generation at the forefront of technological progress and want to be connected when they wish, from anywhere.
Almost as soon as they can walk, children these days are using iPads, iPhones and all sorts of mobile devices. Most three and four year olds are now technologically savvy, using digital technology at home, in school, and on the go. Using the web site to play games, learn language, math, and reading skills, take pictures and listen to music. This means that a burgeoning number of children are well versed with the Internet and the hardware they need to access it, well before they even start school.
iPads and iPods are influencing all areas of learning in David Andrews’ classroom. He reveals how he’s using the iPad in the following article from Teacher Network. Click here to read about his amazing technology journey and how he is using iPads in his primary classroom to build and control a ‘vehicle’ using a variety of online apps.
With the onset of the Common Core teachers in classrooms all over the country are expecting their students to do more than calculate the correct answers in math class. Students are expected to work through problems and demonstrate how they arrive at answers. After conferring with classmates, they also must critique the reasoning of their peers.
Math instruction will be infused with Common Core, academic standards that are set to hit California classrooms in the 2014-15 school year. The Common Core guidelines were developed by a nationwide consortium of educators and other officials. They are designed to emphasize critical-thinking skills over rote memorization and better prepare students for college and career. No more multiple-choice answers, the whole point of Common Core is to support teachers to prepare students for college and beyond.
Schools throughout California, in private and public institutions, are working to incorporate the new benchmarks into daily lessons in time for the statewide launch, which is set for fall 2014. The shift will drive systemic changes in instructional practices and outcomes from kindergarten through high school. The overarching goal of Common Core is to transform how students are taught, particularly what they must do to master math, English and other subjects.
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As we begin the steps of implementing the CCSS (Common Core State Standards) schools have been setting foundational understandings for teachers to ensure they are prepared to teach our 21st Century Learners. We have addressed best practices like Marzano’s 9 strategies for the teaching profession, ELL strategies, 21st Century skills. and technological improvements. At Grace we are also working to ensure our students have the needed foundations needed to become 21st Century learners. Over the last three years we have implemented PBIS (Positive Behavior Intervention Support), and are now looking at Art Costa’s Habits of Mind as a needed foundation for tomorrows learners. There is no one pedagogy, book, or computer program that will help us become better systems thinkers. Instead, the complexity of our worlds demand that we develop “habits of mind” to intentionally use systems principles to understand the complexity of everyday situations and to design for desired futures. The 12 Habits of Mind are:
Sees the Whole: sees the world in terms of interrelated “wholes” or systems, rather than as single events, or snapshots;
Looks for Connections: assumes that nothing stands in isolation; and so tends to look for connections among nature, ourselves, people, problems, and events;
Pays Attention to Boundaries: “goes wide” (uses peripheral vision) to check the boundaries drawn around problems, knowing that systems are nested and how you define the system is critical to what you consider and don’t consider;
The mission of the Common Core State Standards is to provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our children need for success in college and careers.
The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) encourage the highest achievement of every student by defining the knowledge, concepts, and skills that students should acquire at each grade level through an integrated standards-based system of education in which both academic content standards and “Habits of Mind” standards are an essential part of the whole.
Students say “flipped learning” classes are still the exception, not the rule. But when done right, they make a course both more challenging and more enjoyable.
I know that I have written about this teaching strategy before but as we begin 2013 it’s time to get serious about focusing on learning rather than teaching. It’s time to make those educational resolutions to improve student success in your classroom. A great starting place would be flipping!
As a teacher my self I can relate to this excerpt from the eCampusNews article:
And Freeman always received great reviews from students, even though 17 percent routinely flunked his class—a failure rate he considered “gruesome.”
Freeman knew what was wrong: His students weren’t adept at applying information in a new context to solve problems, and he told them so. But one day, a student threw the ball back in his court. He just wasn’t doing enough to prepare her for the tests; she needed his help to practice.
“I thought, I am so busted,” Freeman said. “She is right. That still rings in my ears.
The article below was written by JEFFREY WEISS of the Dallas News, I thought it was an awesome article describing of the communication challenges of today’s digital native students. With all the technological advances we enjoy come new challenges, education has to address to prepare our students for college and career.
Is speaking audibly and in complete sentences an academic skill? Is listening actively — watching who is talking — something to be taught in schools? Should teachers be concerned as a matter of curriculum whether their students can carry on civil conversations?
At Peak Preparatory, a successful charter school in Old East Dallas, the answers to all three questions are unambiguously “Yes.” With the start of this school year, in every class from kindergarten through 12th grade, every teacher and every student know that every question, answer or conversation is supposed to meet specific standards. “It’s built into everything we do,” said Christopher Garcia, director for kindergarten through fifth grade at Peak. “We are holding scholars accountable for 100 percent of these.” Students are always “scholars” at Peak. The 7-year-old school is part of Uplift Education, the largest charter school network in Texas. Math skills, science knowledge, writing ability — those have long been a successful focus. Peak has earned an Exemplary rating from the Texas Education Agency. But this past spring, the school’s teachers responded to a survey saying that there were other proficiencies where their kids weren’t gaining ground: Too many students spoke too softly, looked away from each other or their teachers, offered or gave offense without cause. And then there was the story brought home by one of the school’s top recent graduates, a young man who had earned a substantial scholarship to a prestigious university. When he got there, he was invited to dinner by his new roommate and his roommate’s dad. And the Peak grad found himself tongue-tied, unable to carry on a conversation, and totally intimidated by the college environment. That’s a problem, Garcia said.
As we begin this school year, there continues to be a need for our schools to change the way we foster learning in this generation of students. Our students are vastly different than the students of 5 or 10 years ago, their needs are changing rapidly because of the ever increasing technological advances, social media, educational programs, informational technology and the accessibility of devices to access the internet. These 21st century learners, or digital natives live and interact with their world in vastly different ways that their parents or teachers who are digital immigrants. The article below was written by By Laura Devaney, Managing Editor of ESchool News and shares some statistical information supporting the changing needs of students and the need for our educational system to change to meet their leaning needs.
More and more students own mobile devices, including tablets, and indicate a strong desire to use those personal learning tools in school to increase collaboration and access to resources, according to the annual Speak Up Survey, which is facilitated by Project Tomorrow.
“Students, perhaps without realizing it, are already seeking out ways to personalize their learning,” according to the report. “Looking to address what they perceive as deficiencies in classroom experiences, students are turning to online classes to study topics that pique their intellectual curiosity, to message and discussion boards to explore new ideas about their world, or to online collaboration tools to share their expertise with other students they don’t even know. Students now expect in their learning lives the same types of personalized interactions that adults already experience in our everyday lives.”
Excerpts from a press release from the California Department of Education, March 2012
SACRAMENTO—State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson today announced the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Systems Implementation Plan for California was presented to executive and legislative branches of state government.
Standards define the knowledge, concepts, and skills students should acquire at each grade level. The CCSS were developed through a state-led initiative to establish consistent, clear education standards for English-language arts and mathematics across the nation. The standards are research-based and internationally benchmarked—i.e., they are informed by the practices of academically high-achieving nations around the world. The CCSS are designed to prepare students for success in college and careers not only in the nation, but in the competitive global economy.
The CCSS Systems Implementation Plan for California describes the major phases and activities in the implementation of the CCSS throughout California’s educational system. The first phase involves increasing awareness of the CCSS, introduces the initial planning system to implement it, and establishes ways to collaborate with interested parties. The second phase outlines a transition period by building resources, assessing needs, establishing new professional learning opportunities, and expanding collaboration between stakeholders. The third phase will include the implementation of new professional learning support; fully aligned curriculum, instruction, and testing; and the integration of these elements for all students.
