Our arts education teachers quietly go about their work, often marginalized to the ‘extras’ or the ‘fluff’ of the school program, writes Canadian teacher educator Brenda Sherry. “And yet, I would argue that they are the PBL experts that we seek!” Sherry describes several attributes of student-centered pedagogy that are common among teachers of drama, music, painting, dance and artistic crafts.
Like teachers, school leaders today must move beyond sit-and-get PD and take charge of their own professional growth. Elementary principal and Connected Principals contributor Lyn Hilt says Kristen Swanson’s new book, Professional Learning in the Digital Age, “provides practical, easy-to-follow steps towards becoming an effective user-generated learner.”
For generations, we have almost completely bypassed the development of true problem solving skills in our curricula, avoiding the hard questions “at the very end of the textbook chapter.” Instructional technology director Tim Holt makes the case that Problem-Based (not project-based) Learning can go a long way to address the deficit.
The way teachers teach their students has, I believe, a direct correlation to the way in which they learn themselves. We have all read in the latest teaching journals that teachers of today have to be devoted to lifelong learning. But what does that mean, really? What elements affect teacher learning and then in turn affect how that teacher teaches?
Every teacher who has attempted to integrate technology into the classroom knows that getting parents on board can sometimes be a challenge. Your efforts to engage students and develop digital skills can become the scapegoat explanation for problems that have nothing to do with tech. So how do educators get these parents into our corner? Here are some strategies I’ve used successfully to gain parent buy-in.
Physics teacher Dolores Gende is shifting her teaching to a student-driven learning model by selecting some areas of focus each year. This year it’s assessment. “I see assessment as an ongoing process that informs me and my students and gauges the progression of learning. I partner with my students, and they appreciate not being constrained by fixed deadlines and dead-end quiz scores. They prefer the ample opportunities we create to demonstrate they can accomplish all of our Learning Objectives.”
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