Thanks to our Faculty Ning Community, We're Collaborating Like Never Before
The Ning has connected our faculty in ways we never imagined. We wanted our teachers to connect and share, and share they did! As we got to know each other better, we began to feel a greater sense of community and common purpose. Our faculty can now easily collaborate on lesson plans and community service projects across divisions. They readily share ideas and resources. We now have a virtual community that parallels our physical community, and its powerful anytime-from-anywhere communications capabilities make us feel closer together than ever.
This School Year — More Woot!
In an era when teaching as a profession is disparaged, even vilified, I say let there be more leaders who know the power of “Woot.†I don’t know about you, but I cannot remember a time I experienced a standing ovation with hoots and hollers for a central office meeting. Let’s have some of that Woot to lighten the psychological load of tightened budgets, restricted resources, and political heat. Joy, says a teacher on our staff who’s a certified Laughter Yoga instructor, is extremely therapeutic.
How I'll Engage My Students as Learners: Six Ways to Make Connections
I believe that every person is unique and every child can learn, but I recognize that students learn best when engaged — where expectations are appropriately challenging within an environment that is both safe and that contributes to the dignity and self-worth of all. I also believe that engagement depends on quality interactions resulting from connections that happen inside and outside of the classroom. Here are some of the Engagement+Connection ideas I plan to use this year.
Work for us: be a Connected Coach
At Powerful Learning Practice, our focus is on learning first and using emerging technologies to make that happen. But many teachers simply don’t understand how to create and sustain blended classroom instruction. Our connected coaches use an appreciative...Mountaintop Learning
I wonder what effect our societies’ low expectations of adolescents has on their development? What does it do to one’s identity when often we give our teenagers so very few meaningful roles or real work to do? That the five hours they spend in classes a day often results in rote learning that is frequently memorized the night before an exam and then forgotten. What if instead, high school students spent five hours a day constructing an identity while responding creatively to their moment in history? What if they were told they can change the world now?
New Teachers: The Joys & Challenges of 21st Century Learning
Is your school not a friendly place for 21st century learning? Don’t lose hope. Stand by your beliefs and remember that it is all about your students. Igniting their passions and teaching them to become connected learners is a gift that will serve them well, no matter what the future brings. Keep finding ways to let students drive their own learning through inquiry and problem solving. Their energy and enthusiasm is contagious, and you will be there to show them that the learning opportunities are limitless.
Is Your School or Classroom a Comfortable Place to Learn?
Prakash Nair asked the audience if THEY’d tried out a student chair lately and wondered if any adult would be willing to sit in such a seat for eight hours at a time? Most in the audience laughed at his question, but it was the laughter of recognition. No way. Why, asked Nair, do the adults get the comfortable chairs, but the kids don’t? Adult chairs are padded. Adult chairs roll. Adult chairs might even have the cool mesh that keeps backs and legs from getting all sweaty. But the learners? Unyielding polypropylene.
School Leaders: Meet the Wiki
The professional development programs that are essential today need to focus not so much on the hardware and software — what “cool tools” we can use — but on changing how teachers view themselves as educators. It’s not just about teaching the three “r’s†and the content packaged in textbooks. It’s about preparing our students with the skills that they need for the future within a new learning ecology. In a connected world, educators have to think and teach differently. This book adopts that attitude.
5 Reasons Why Our Students Are Writing Blogs and Creating ePortfolios
I work in an Independent School in Melbourne, Australia, and this year we have made a commitment to help our students (grades 7-12) create ePortfolios, using an Edublogs campus as the platform. Here are 5 reasons why we are making student blogging and portfolio development a high priority. The first: These kids need to establish a positive digital footprint.
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