Setting boundaries & limiting choices can push students to think more deeply and become more creative, says principal Matt Renwick in his 3rd report on an afterschool enrichment club. Provided, of course, the constraints don’t actually stifle creativity.
When principal Matt Renwick mentioned “Minecraft†in a flyer about an afterschool computer club, 30 percent of his elementary students showed up. In his second reflection on passion-based learning, Matt digs deeper into what educators mean when they talk about passion – and what needs to happen when frustration raises its predictable head.
School-based tech leader Jennifer Carey shares some highlights from the semi-annual iPad Summit, held most recently in San Diego, with keynoters Audrey Watters and Mimi Ito.
When principal Matt Renwick mentioned “Minecraft” in a flyer about an afterschool computer club, 30 percent of his elementary students showed up. In the first of several reflections on passion-based learning, Renwick considers their high engagement through Dan Pink’s three lenses: autonomy, purpose & mastery.
We choose to move forward and change our schools in this decade, not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win!
Perhaps, writes school-based technology leader Jennifer Carey, instead of focusing our concerns on technology as a wonderful aid to plagiarizers, we should focus on its ability to foster creativity and collaboration, and then ask ourselves (we are the clever adults here) how we can incorporate those elements in our teaching and assessment.
Tech leader and long-time teacher Sister Geralyn Schmidt offers eight aspects of good teaching, from her warm and fuzzy, sisterly perspective. One of our favorites: teaching the integrity skill, both in the face-to-face world and the virtual world.
Most of our current school system revolves around academics, writes high school teacher Shelley Wright, “and yet, I think it falls miserably short of what our kids need. To be honest, I think our academic system of education is highly overrated, at best. At worst, it destroys a number of our kids.”
International distance educator Smadar Goldstein has been teaching students in the U.S. and elsewhere online for more than 10 years, from her company headquarters in Israel. The connected world is finally melting down the traditional education mold, she says – so what should school be instead? She offers some of her ideas in this PLP Voices post.
When students are connected, all learning has the potential for being language intense and leveraged to build literacy skills, writes STEM coach Brian Crosby. Opportunities arise that motivate your students to interact at a high level and require them to be articulate to be understood. Add constructivist learning activities around STEM and Maker projects and watch the literacy skills grow.
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