Voices | Powerful Learning Practice

Flipping Blooms Taxonomy

Posted by Shelley Wright on May 15, 2012 in Less Teacher, More Student, Passion Based Learning, The How of 21st Century Teaching, Voices | 25 comments

I think the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy is wrong. I agree that the taxonomy accurately classifies various types of cognitive thinking skills. It certainly identifies the different levels of complexity. But its organizing framework is dead wrong. Here’s what I propose. In the 21st century, we flip Bloom’s taxonomy. Rather than starting with knowledge, we start with creating, and eventually discern the knowledge that we need from it.

Distance Learning: How I Engage Students

Posted by Smadar Goldstein on May 10, 2012 in Creating Global Classrooms, Less Teacher, More Student, Making The Shift, The How of 21st Century Teaching, Voices | 0 comments

Another major a-ha for me as an online teacher is the dynamic and potential for group involvement. When I describe what I do to people who are, shall we say, “not connected to the world of web culture,” they are amazed. “You mean the kids can see you and hear you? Don’t they get bored?” Well, if all they did was listen to me teach, then yes, they would get bored. Wouldn’t you? Which is why I make sure that my classes do not involve lecturing.

Distance Learning: Closer than It Looks

Posted by Smadar Goldstein on May 8, 2012 in Creating Global Classrooms, Less Teacher, More Student, The How of 21st Century Teaching, Voices | 0 comments

During my time as an online educator, I’ve used a variety of video conferencing platforms. I have taught students in public schools, Catholic schools and Jewish Day Schools and complementary schools. The technology is powerful, but there is something that catches my eye each time I run a session: it’s the human reaction to these technology-supported events. I think there is a need, in today’s wired world, to connect to another person far away, living a different, yet somehow similar life.

Connected Test-Taking: Is It Cheating?

Posted by Ann Michaelsen on May 3, 2012 in Creating Global Classrooms, Making The Shift, The Compelling Need for Change, Voices | 2 comments

Students sit in the test-taking room, with full access to computers and wireless connections. As they work on national exams, they can be seen accessing the internet from time to time. Are the results from this testing going to be corrupted because these test-takers are not isolated from global information resources? Cheating — or high-tech cheating, as it is called today — what is that exactly? And is it really a problem? Do our old-school definitions of cheating need rethinking?

Teaching Poetry the Connected Way

Posted by Rachel Small on May 1, 2012 in Less Teacher, More Student, Passion Based Learning, The How of 21st Century Teaching, Voices, Web Tools That Deepen Learning | 10 comments

Students use Google Docs to write their poems. They use the GDocs sharing function to share their poem documents with me and some of their classmates (if they choose). I read their poems (from anywhere at anytime), give them one specific comment, and offer one constructive suggestion to improve their poem that I hope also adds to their poetry writing repertoire. Then we share in VoiceThread to a public audience.

Lessons in 21st Century Leadership

Posted by Lyn Hilt on Apr 27, 2012 in Connected Leadership, What We're Reading | 1 comment

With every turn of the page or scroll through a Reader feed, someone, somewhere, is giving advice on what education leaders ought to be. The articles, blog posts, and books on leadership will keep on coming, because the role of leadership is ever-evolving and increasingly complex with each passing day. (And with each passing mandate.) I enjoy reading the work of leaders in fields outside of education, too. While not every lesson can be translated to the work we do with students, many can, and we should consider them.

Magic and Serendipity in Our Global Primary Classroom

Posted by Kathy Cassidy on Apr 24, 2012 in Creating Global Classrooms, Global Communities of Inquiry, Less Teacher, More Student, The How of 21st Century Teaching, Voices | 5 comments

It was magical learning about a place my students had never before heard of and will probably never see for themselves. Learning that was totally led by the students and their interest in that classroom in Greece. And that learning will continue. The children in Greece, too, have questions for us to answer. More magic. More serendipity. I love my connected classroom.

Civility, Social Justice, Empathy & Social Networking in the 21st Century Classroom

Posted by Beth Sanders on Apr 19, 2012 in Creating Global Classrooms, Less Teacher, More Student, Student Life, The Compelling Need for Change, The How of 21st Century Teaching, Voices | 9 comments

My teaching mission is simple yet absolutely necessary to helping my students prepare for their futures. I began this school year with a list of questions that could help me envision, plan, reflect and maintain focus on where my students and I needed to be when the last bell rings in late May. Out of my personal questioning and reflection came what would be the essential question for my 11th grade social studies students during our time together: “What does it mean to be a citizen nationally, globally and digitally?”

Teaching Cross-Cultural Communication in a Connected World

Posted by Sr Geralyn Schmidt on Apr 17, 2012 in Creating Global Classrooms, Global Communities of Inquiry, Voices | 8 comments

A great many of our students today can count on communicating at a global level throughout their adult lives. It’s our responsibility as educators of 21st century learners to help them become very aware of and sensitive to the cultural and behavioral differences that are inevitable when communication can take place instantaneously from any two or more points across the planet Earth.

Diving Deeply: Networks or Communities?

Posted by Brenda Sherry on Apr 13, 2012 in Global Communities of Inquiry, Making The Shift, Personal Learning Networks, The How of 21st Century Teaching, Voices | 2 comments

I’ve been thinking about where I’m finding my best support for my own learning these days. While I’ve been going to my Twitter network and saving links, resources, and graphics to help me plan a new technology integration course for teachers, I’ve found that it’s actually my community of inquiry within Powerful Learning Practice that has lead me to the deepest learning. I think I owe it to my learners to help them understand that while Twitter networks might lead them to incredible contacts and resources, our classroom community will be where they can get down and dirty with some really messy learning.