2016 Spring Professional Development Articles
“Education can be
encouraged from the top-down but can only be improved from the ground up”- Sir
Ken Robinson
“We do not learn from experience…we learn from
reflecting on experience.” -John Dewey
Professional Development
Work smarter not harder: https://theconversation.com/lets-stop-trying-to-teach-students-critical-thinking-30321
Let’s stop trying to teach students
critical thinking
Many teachers say they strive to
teach their students to be critical thinkers. They even pride themselves on it;
after all, who wants children to just take in knowledge passively? But there is
a problem with this widespread belief. The truth is that you can’t teach people
to be critical unless you are critical yourself. This involves more than asking
young people to “look critically” at something, as if criticism was a
mechanical task. As a teacher, you have to have a critical spirit.
Recognizing and Overcoming False
Growth Mindset - JANUARY 11, 2016
A growth mindset is the belief that
you can develop your talents and abilities through hard work, good strategies,
and help from others. It stands in opposition to a fixed mindset, which is the
belief that talents and abilities are unalterable traits, ones that can never
be improved. Research has shown (and continues to show) that a growth mindset
can have a profound effect on students' motivation, enabling them to focus on
learning, persist more, learn more, and do better in school. Significantly,
when students are taught a growth mindset, they begin to show more of these
qualities.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-_oqghnxBmYGrowth Mindset
Animation - Published on Sep 28, 2014
A Short animation explaining the
theory of growth and fixed mindsets. This is a tested and effective way of
teaching young people what a fixed mindset is and how we can change that. Many
of the messages in this video have been taken from the theorist Carol Dweck.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ElVUqv0v1EE Published on Jun 2, 2014
Having a growth mindset means that
you know you can train your brain to get smarter.
Nurturing Growth Mindsets: Six Tips
From Carol Dweck - By Evie Blad March 14, 2016
Here are six tips pulled from
Dweck's talk:
1. Acknowledge the nuance in the
research.
2. Everyone has a fixed mindset
sometimes.
3. Name your fixed mindset.
4. Move beyond effort.
5. Put mindsets into a greater
school-culture context.
6. Don't use mindsets to label
students (or yourself).
Growth
Mindset: How to Normalize Mistake Making and Struggle in Class By Katrina
Schwartz AUGUST 24, 2015
These
mindset changes are easy to describe and dictate, but more challenging to
implement. To help both teachers and parents, Stanford’s PERTS Center has
teamed up with the Teaching Channel to produce videos that demonstrate process
praise and productive struggle. PERTS has developed a toolkit to support the
adults in children’s lives who are struggling to change their practice.
15 Characteristics of a 21st-Century
Teacher - Tsisana Palmer , ESL Instructor/Intensive
English Program
Posted
06/20/2015
1.
Learner-Centered
Classroom and Personalized Instructions
2.
Students
as Producers
3.
Learn
New Technologies
4.
Go
Global
5.
Be
Smart and Use Smart Phones
6.
Blog
7.
Go
Digital
8.
Collaborate
9.
Use
Twitter Chat
10.
Connect
11.
Project-Based
Learning
12.
Build
Your Positive Digital Footprint
13.
Code
14.
Innovate
15.
Keep
Learning
5
Highly Effective Teaching Practices-FEBRUARY 27, 2015
1.
Teacher
Clarity
2.
Classroom
Discussion
3.
Feedback
4.
Formative
Assessments
5.
Metacognitive
Strategies
6.
Collaborating
with Colleagues
14 things that are obsolete in 21st
century schools
Posted
by ingvihrannar | February 26, 2014
1.
Computer
Rooms
2.
Isolated
classrooms
3.
Schools
that don’t have WiFi
4.
Banning
phones and tablets
5.
Tech
director with an administrator access
6.
Teachers
that don’t share what they do
7.
Schools
that don’t have Facebook or Twitter
8.
Unhealthy
cafeteria food
9.
Starting
school at 8 o’clock for teenagers
10.
Buying
poster-, website- and pamphlet design for the school
11.
Traditional
libraries
12.
All
students get the same
13.
One-Professional
development-workshop-fits-all
14.
Standardized
tests to measure the quality of education
Performance-Based
Assessment: Reviewing the Basics-DECEMBER 7, 2015
In
general, a performance-based assessment measures students' ability to apply the
skills and knowledge learned from a unit or units of study. Typically, the task
challenges students to use their higher-order thinking skills to create a product
or complete a process (Chun, 2010). Tasks can range from a simple constructed
response (e.g., short answer) to a complex design proposal of a sustainable
neighborhood. Arguably, the most genuine assessments require students to
complete a task that closely mirrors the responsibilities of a professional,
e.g., artist, engineer, laboratory technician, financial analyst, or consumer
advocate.
Although
performance-based assessments vary, the majority of them share key
characteristics. First and foremost, the assessment accurately measures one or
more specific course standards. Additionally, it is:
Complex
Authentic
Process/product-oriented
Open-ended
Time-bound
What’s
the future of education? Teachers respond-By Laura McClure on February 12, 2016
There
will be more creativity in education.
The
classroom will be one big makerspace.
There
will be no physical campus.
Students
will learn that nothing is impossible.
Education
will look nothing like it does now.
How Has Google Affected The Way
Students Learn?
By Zhai Yun Tan-FEBRUARY 8, 2016
How To Teach Digital Natives?
Heick
has since left teaching to start TeachThought, a company that produces content
to support teachers in “innovation in teaching and learning for a 21st century
audience.” To him, the Internet holds great potential for education — but
curriculum must change accordingly. Since content is so readily available,
teachers should not merely dole out information and instead focus on
cultivating critical thinking, he says.
One of his recommendations is to make
questions “Google-proof.”
“Design
it so that Google is crucial to creating a response rather than finding one,”
he writes in his company’s blog. “If students can Google answers — stumble on
(what) you want them to remember in a few clicks — there’s a problem with the
instructional design.”
Make Learning Last: How Diverse
Learners Can Process Their Understanding-JANUARY 13, 2016
In
classrooms, effective learning happens when teachers provide the conditions
that learners find relatable. The challenge is that these conditions will vary
for each learner. A common question is, "How do I meet the needs of my
students when each has a different level of current understanding and tends to
learn at a different pace?" The easy answer is to inform planning with
various kinds of assessments, but that doesn't make the path clear for what to
do.
Differentiated instruction looks at
instructional planning based on content, process, and products. These areas are
familiar to teachers and their assessment practices. A typical lesson delivers
content to students, and then has them create products to practice and
demonstrate their learning. Many of these lessons are missing perhaps the most
important element in the learning equation: process.
Processing
Understanding
Quick
Reflections of Understanding
·
Silent
Reflection
·
Journaling
·
Partner
Conversations
Quick
Surveys
·
Kahoot!
·
Poll
Everywhere
·
Plickers
·
Google
Forms
Provide
Diverse Perspective Assessments
Empower
Students With Their Learning
Students
need practice reflecting on their learning 2-3 times per lesson on a daily
basis. This ensures that learners strengthen their connections to the concepts
and skills for long-term gains.
Metacognition:
Nurturing Self-Awareness in the Classroom-APRIL 7, 2015
Self-awareness is part
of The Compass Advantage™ (a model designed for engaging families,
schools, and communities in the principles of positive youth development)
because it plays a critical role in how students make sense of life
experiences. Linked by research to each of the other Compass abilities,
particularly empathy, curiosity, and sociability, self-awareness is one of the 8 Pathways to
Every Student's Success.
The
40 Reflection Questions
Backward-Looking:
1.
How much did you know about the subject before we started?
2.
What process did you go through to produce this piece?
3.
Have you done a similar kind of work in the past (earlier in the year or in a
previous grade; in school or out of
school)?
4.
In what ways have you gotten better at this kind of work?
5.
In what ways do you think you need to improve?
6.
What problems did you encounter while you were working on this piece? How did
you solve them?
7.
What resources did you use while working on this piece? Which ones were
especially
helpful?
Which ones would you use again?
8.
Does this work tell a story?
Inward-Looking:
9.
How do you feel about this piece of work? What parts of it do you particularly
like? Dislike? Why? What
did/do
you enjoy about this piece or work?
10.
What was especially satisfying to you about either the process or the finished
product?
11.
What did/do you find frustrating about it?
12.
What were your standards for this piece of work?
13.
Did you meet your standards?
14.
What were your goals for meeting this piece of work? Did your goals change as
you worked on it? Did you
meet
your goals?
15.
What does this piece reveal about you as a learner?
16.
What did you learn about yourself as you worked on this piece?
17.
Have you changed any ideas you used to have on this subject?
18.
Find another piece of work that you did at the beginning of the year to compare
and contrast with this
what
changes can you see?
19.
How did those changes come about?
20.
What does that tell you about yourself and how you learn?
Outward-Looking:
21.
Did you do your work the way other people did theirs?
22.
In what ways did you do it differently?
23.
In what ways was your work or process similar?
24.
If you were the teacher, what comments would you make about this piece?
25.
What grade would you give it? Why?
26.
What the one thing you particularly want people to notice when they look at
your work?
27.
What do your classmates particularly notice about your piece when they look at
it?
28.
In what ways did your work meet the standards for this assignment?
29.
In what ways did it not meet those standards?
30.
If someone else were looking at the piece, what might they learn about who you
are?
Forward-Looking:
31.
One thing I would like to improve upon is ...
32.
What would you change if you had a chance to do this piece over again?
33.
What will you change in the next revision of this piece?
34.
What's the one thing that you have seen in your classmates' work or process
that you would like to try in
your
next piece?
35.
As you look at this piece, what's one thing that you would like to try to
improve upon?
36.
What's one goal you would like to set for yourself for next time?
37.
What would you like to spend more time on in school?
38.
What might you want next year's teacher to know about you (what things you're
good at)?
39.
What things you might want more help with?
40.
What work would you show her to help her understand those things?
Pictures:
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