PLP's Voices from the Learning Revolution: Our Easy Reference Index (Posts 30-65)

by | Aug 25, 2011 | Connected Leadership, Creating Global Classrooms, Less Teacher, More Student, Local Professional Collaboration, Making The Shift, Passion Based Learning, Personal Learning Networks, Teacher Leadership 2.0, The Compelling Need for Change, The How of 21st Century Teaching, The Teaching Life, Voices, Voices Index, Web Tools That Deepen Learning

We launched our PLP group blog Voices from the Learning Revolution just six months ago, and we’ve now shared 65 wide-ranging articles and essays about the future of learning, written by teachers, librarians, IT specialists, principals, district leaders and consultants who are allied with our Powerful Learning Practice communities. Here’s a brief guide to our most recent 36 posts, and a link to our first guide published last May.

It's Time to Learn

by | Aug 25, 2011 | PD, Press

We know you want more, and budgets are tight. So we want to give you something.  For free. PLP continues to provide long-term learning communities for schools and divisions, but we want to reach out to you–as an individual. Check this out! We are offering a...

From the Canadian UnPlug'd Conference: 'Why Social Justice in Education Matters'

by | Aug 23, 2011 | The Compelling Need for Change, The Teaching Life, Voices

I recently had the privilege of convening for three days with 37 educators who are passionate about education. We forfeited technology for the company of fellow teachers, consultants, administrators, university professors and school trustees. No cell phone reception. No Internet connection. Unplug’d. We were wholly engaged and attentive to the discussions at hand, as we considered what matters and why. This is my contribution.

Bud Hunt: Thoughts for New Teachers

by | Aug 19, 2011 | The Teaching Life, Voices

Try very hard not to work all the time. I suck at this, at turning off my work brain and focusing on being a dad or a husband or “just a dude reading the paper at the corner coffee shop,” but I recognize the value of being at rest and at play, of knowing that it’s better to let small work things go in the name of preserving long term relationships. You CAN be that hero teacher that everyone loves and is in awe of, but only for a little while. Then, you burn out and fade away and don’t do anyone any good at all.

Out with professional development, in with professional learning.

by | Aug 18, 2011 | Connected Leadership, Local Professional Collaboration, Teacher Leadership 2.0, Voices

In their revised national standards, Learning Forward (formerly known as the National Staff Development Council) has undergone an important shift in focus and message: from one of development to one of learning. The new standards focus on teachers as learners. Teachers are not to be treated as vehicles through which schools deliver programs and policies. This has been the focus of traditional professional development frameworks for way too long. The goal for administrators should be how to foster the learning spirit in every one of our teachers through a system of learning opportunities that cater to their individual needs.

My First Year of Teaching Dangerously

by | Aug 16, 2011 | Less Teacher, More Student, Making The Shift, The Compelling Need for Change, Voices

“Our kids are beginning to hate school and, to be quite honest, so are the teachers,” writes guest blogger Becky Bair, an upper elementary teacher in Pennsylvania’s Elizabethtown School District. “It was time to change my teaching, no matter how scary the prospect might be.” After Bair shifted her teaching strategies, “it was terrifying each time I had to review our required assessments.” But in the end, the results caused her to “jump up and cheer.”

21st Century Assessment

by | Aug 15, 2011 | Team Projects

Nagel Middle School Team Members: Dan Armstrong, Rose Arnell, Mimi Clark, Joy Kidwell, Donna Lauver, Brad Suder Community: Dublin-Dallas Year 1, 2010-2011 The focus is on restructuring the learning opportunities students have and the choices for demonstrating their...