by Renee Hawkins | Jul 13, 2011 | Less Teacher, More Student, Voices, Web Tools That Deepen Learning
Let me state for the record, I like Khan Academy. Specifically, I like the principle behind it: students can move at their own pace and practice until they understand the concept. In other words, students can own their learning. They need to know how to learn and how to manage their learning. In possessing this valuable skill, our students will hold the keys to the kingdom. How many academic stars do we lose now because they don’t progress at the rate considered necessary by unit and test calendars?
by Shelley Wright | Jul 6, 2011 | Less Teacher, More Student, Making The Shift, The How of 21st Century Teaching, Voices
Most of our current classes structurally discourage cooperation and collaboration. For many hours of the day, our students are expected to sit and learn by themselves. I have to confess that all of the years I’ve taught, my classroom has been teacher-centered. Students facing the front. Me talking. Next year my classroom will be different.
by Powerful Learning Practice | Jul 5, 2011 | Less Teacher, More Student, The How of 21st Century Teaching, Voices
Guest blogger Chris Preston shares three unifying concepts identified by his team during a year of action research around inventive thinking: The learning experience must be (1) authentic, (2) connected, and (3) collaborative. “At the conclusion of our instruction,” he says, “many students commented that they would approach solutions to questions much differently in the future: ‘It changed how I look at projects,’ one said, ‘by really opening up my surroundings to more insightful sources of information, and not focusing just on knowledge I can find here at school.'”
by Margaret Haviland | Jun 30, 2011 | Less Teacher, More Student, Making The Shift, The How of 21st Century Teaching, Voices
“This past school year,” writes guest blogger Margaret Haviland, “our exploration of World War I was designed to enable students to construct their own knowledge and their own meaning within a framework established by myself and my intern. This framed, project based, self directed approach was our method all year.” The task before her students: “Figuring out what they needed to learn, both to answer the questions we generated together and to understand the topics they wanted to more completely understand.”
by Powerful Learning Practice | Jun 29, 2011 | Less Teacher, More Student, The Compelling Need for Change, Voices
We are not teaching our students to pursue passions, says guest blogger Tim Holt. Instead, we are teaching students to pursue predetermined pathways that they may or may not value. Too often, they leave their passions at the doorway of education and career, and maybe pick them back up when they leave the building. For the most part, they have to pursue our passions on their own time, outside the official learning paradigm.
by Marsha Ratzel | Jun 24, 2011 | Less Teacher, More Student, The How of 21st Century Teaching, Voices, Web Tools That Deepen Learning
So it’s summer, and I’m on my back porch thinking about my teaching over the past year and wondering what I did well and where I could improve. I can be quite philosophical about it in June. But come August, I want a sharp, logically designed, power-packed unit to start off the year. I want to set the bar high and give my students room to find out what they’re made of.
