Professional Development Articles 2016 Fall Collection

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What Trump Can Teach Reason-Loving Smart Folks

http://bigthink.com/errors-we-live-by/what-trump-can-teach-smart-folks

ETHOS - LOGOS - PATHOS

Nurturing Intrinsic Motivation and Growth Mindset in Writing

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/intrinsic-motivation-growth-mindset-writing-amy-conley

How Meaningful Feedback for Teachers and Students Improves Relationships

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/03/24/how-meaningful-feedback-for-teachers-and-students-improves-relationships/

"Teachers often focus on the feedback they give students and can even feel frustrated when students ignore carefully written comments on returned work. Less common is taking the time to get feedback from students on how they experience a teacher. As a way of fostering transparency, strong relationships and student voice, McComb asks his students for specific feedback about how he’s serving them as a teacher. To help students feel safe, he has asked student leaders to discuss with their peers and bring the information back to him."

Why Understanding Obstacles is Essential to Achieving Goals

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/12/26/why-understanding-obstacles-is-essential-to-achieving-goals/
"Another study involving high school students found that those who set up a plan for overcoming their obstacles to studying for the PSAT practiced more diligently than a control group that merely dreamt about it."

When Kids Have Structure for Thinking, Better Learning Emerges

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/03/31/when-kids-have-structure-for-thinking-better-learning-emerges/
"To help make these ideas more concrete, Ritchhart and his colleagues have been working to hone in on a short list of “thinking moves” related to understanding. To test whether these moves were really crucial, researchers asked themselves: could a student say she really understood something if she hadn’t engaged in these activities? They believe the important “thinking moves” that lead to understanding are:

Naming: being able to identify the parts and pieces of a thing
Inquiry: questioning should drive the process throughout
Looking at different perspectives and viewpoints
Reasoning with evidence
Making connections to prior knowledge, across subject areas, even into personal lives
Uncovering complexity
Capture the heart and make firm conclusions
Building explanations, interpretations and theories.

These thinking moves all point to the conclusion that learning doesn’t happen through the mere delivery of information. “Learning only occurs when the learner does something with that information,” Ritchhart said. “So as teachers we need to think not only about how we will deliver that content, but also what we will have students do with that content.”

Slowing Down to Learn: Mindful Pauses That Can Help Student Engagement

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/02/17/slowing-down-to-learn-mindful-pauses-that-can-help-student-engagement/
"One way to promote engagement and learning is to consciously create pauses throughout the day. We can create a sense of spaciousness in our classroom by slowing down the pace of our speech and punctuating our lessons with silence. Introduced well, this practice can improve classroom discourse."

Become or Stay a Transformation Teacher:
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/become-and-remain-transformational-teacher-david-cutler

Using Graphic Organizers Correctly
https://www.edutopia.org/blog/using-graphic-organizers-correctly-rebecca-alber

There’s No "I" in Teacher: 8 Tips for Collaborative Planning

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/rules-of-thumb-collaborative-planning-rebecca-rufo-tepper
1. Cultivate Trust 2. Don’t Be Married to Ideas
3. Apply the KISS Principle
KISS stands for "Keep It Simple, Stupid." No matter what you're creating together (a game, project, or lesson plan), the more complex the rules or the structure, the more questions students will have, and the less time students will be engaged in the actual learning.
4. Playtest Often 5. Know When to Scale Back
6. Involve Students From the Beginning
7. Use What's Around You
8. Build on Strengths and Interests
Digital Tools and Strategies that Support Student's Reading and Writing
https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/08/19/18-digital-tools-and-strategies-that-support-students-reading-and-writing/

What Motivates A Student’s Interest in Reading and Writing

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/03/18/what-motivates-students-interest-in-reading-and-writing/
"I would suggest that teachers explicitly connecting what is being taught in school to student goals—by pointing it out themselves or by drawing it out of students (which, as Chapter 1 pointed out, appears to have less damaging potential)—can have a place in class, but also has to be kept in its place. In my experience, we will get fewer “Why are we learning this?” questions in learning environments that promote autonomy, competence, relatedness, or are connected to student interest."

Making Learning Visible: Doodling Helps Memories Stick

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/07/15/making-learning-visible-doodling-helps-memories-stick/

"Shelley Paul and Jill Gough had heard that doodling while taking notes could help improve memory and concept retention, but as instructional coaches they were reluctant to bring the idea to teachers without trying it out themselves first."

Deprogramming kids: Obsolete teaching strategies and learning management techniques
https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/12/15/how-deprogramming-kids-from-how-to-do-school-could-improve-learning/

Designing the best presentations with PREZI - tips and tricks
http://blog.ted.com/10-tips-for-better-slide-decks/?utm_campaign=social&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_content=ted-blog&utm_term=business

Listening to Podcasts:
https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/03/18/why-listening-to-podcasts-helps-kids-improve-reading-skills/

Storytelling Apps that help ESL:
https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2015/08/31/6-storytelling-apps-that-get-english-language-learners-talking/

Do's & Don'ts For Teaching English-Language Learners

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/esl-ell-tips-ferlazzo-sypnieski
"The number of English-Language Learners in the United States is growing rapidly, including many states that have not previously had large immigrant populations. As teachers try to respond to the needs of these students, here are a few basic best practices that might help. We have found that consistently using these practices makes our lessons more efficient and effective."

Effective Teaching - 20 Characteristics
http://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/20-observable-characteristics-of-effective-teaching/

How To Give Students Specific Feedback That Actually Helps Them Learn
http://www.teachthought.com/pedagogy/how-to-give-students-specific-feedback-that-actually-helps-them-learn/

21st Century Classroom Design
http://www.edutopia.org/pdfs/blogs/edutopia-wade-visualizing21stCclassrmdesign.png

How We Learn:
A paper published in Psychological Science in the Public Interest evaluated ten techniques for improving learning, ranging from mnemonics to highlighting and came to some surprising conclusions.
http://bigthink.com/neurobonkers/assessing-the-evidence-for-the-one-thing-you-never-get-taught-in-school-how-to-learn

Learner-driven learning
http://smartbrief.com/original/2016/11/learner-driven-learning

Getting to learner-driven learning is a multiple-pathway process, but here are three intersections where we can look to make the “right” turn when we arrive.
Question, rather than answer.
Keep it interactive.
Follow up.

Unlearning Everything I Was Taught About Teaching
http://catlintucker.com/2016/10/unlearning-what-i-was-taught/

"So, this is what I walked into my first classroom believing…

Students should sit in rows.
A quiet classroom is an effective classroom.
Students in the same class should do the same assignments. It’s only fair.
Students demonstrate understanding with a pen and paper.
The teacher possesses the information.

As I review this list, I am struck by the difference between this initial vision and my classroom today. The truth is I’ve had to unlearn most of what I was taught about teaching. I believe these initial assumptions about teaching almost led me to flee this profession."

RubiStar
A tool to help the teacher who wants to use rubrics, but does not have the time to develop them from scratch
http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php

Cognitive Biases:
There’s a category of not-so-helpful mental habits and inclinations called “cognitive biases.” The problem with these biases is that when we incorrectly apply them to decision-making, they prejudice our thought process and keep us from thinking, and deciding, clearly. Researchers have identified a number of these mind traps. In this video, Baumann zeroes in on confirmation bias, where we ignore any evidence that doesn’t support what we’ve already concluded, and only find things that prove it. He also nominates the uniqueness bias as maybe the most amusing cognitive bias. http://bigthink.com/robby-berman/a-chart-of-brain-busting-cognitive-biases-hang-it-on-your-wall