Streams of Educational Consciousness
May 8, 2013
Sir Ken Robinson has posted his 10 favorite TED talks on education. Here is the link to his playlist: http://www.ted.com/playlists/124/ken_robinson_10_talks_on_educ.html.
If you haven’t seen Sir Ken Robinson’s TED Talk on Changing Education’s Paradigm it is a well-spent 15 minutes (plus the animation is top notch and really cool). The link is here: http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_changing_education_paradigms.html
May 8, 2013
This next summer will be another summer of adding to my teaching inventory. This summer’s rewrite will be influenced by the following people / programs:
1. Stanford’s Beyond the Bubble. Which is a history scaffolding systems of dealing with primary and secondary sources which lead students to understand and empathize with primary and secondary sources. This is a building block program to students being able to handle and master a Document Based Assessment (which I am going back to next year after a couple years of thinking that the Social Studies ISTEP mattered).
2. Stanford’s Reading Like a Historian. This is a foundational program in my class. Students must be taught to discern information found in primary and secondary sources. They must learn to seek background when moved by the words of the past.
3. Kelly Gallagher’s Readicide. Reading is back baby (insert Dick Vitale’s voice over). Weekly articles and a novel will be in my class. Hello Tunnel in the Sky!! I will be looking at Gallagher’s recommendations on novel reading, but I will find a level that is in my comfort zone.
4. Kagan’s Cooperative Learning. I have to find a way to teach my students to work in cooperative teams. It is my weakness and it is a disservice to my students in the long term.
5. My friends Brett Bontrager and Tim Wade who are business people who talked a lot to me about how employees cannot write with voice and argument.
6. Expanding inquiry in my class. The idea is to give my students a way to be creative with focus in my class…I need a rich sponsor to buy my class a Mac lab off of my classroom so that my kids can use technology in the assessment area of my class.
The best part of the summer is always the promise of the next year. The chance to improve and grow.
May 7, 2013
This is not a strength area for me. Every time I look at a 21st Century Skill List it has on it the ability to work in groups. My classroom uses next to no team activities. There are some things that need to work for me: (1) Teams must have a way to measure each individuals effectiveness–I am thinking of creating blind evaluations of group members, (2) Individual work must be distinguished from group work, and (3) skills on how to work in teams must be taught.
I think this task causes me the most worry for next year.
May 7, 2013
My preperations for the next year have begun…there are some major changes coming for me…my studies have led me to combine Reading Like a Historian, Beyond the Bubble Assignments, Kelly Gallagher’s Weekly Reading Assignments, my own ideas of teaching, what I believe should be thought, and lastly feed the need to belong.
Lambs to Lions 