Wade Ren's List: New Learning Models

• SCANS said that future workplace know-how requires thinking skills, personal   qualities (responsibility, self-management), project management, interpersonal   skills (teamwork, leadership), information skills, systems skills, and technology   utilization skills.
• In Singapore, where the national slogan is "Thinking Schools,   Learning Nation",

  • Give that asian education tends to be even more test-driven than US, it would be interesting to see how PBL is doing there
  Add Sticky Note

• Project- and Problem-Based Learning – Keys to 21^st Century Learning

   

  “We needed a new type of instruction that better reflected the goals we wanted   each student to achieve, demonstrate, and document”, says Paul   Curtis, one of the original lead teachers at NTHS and now Director   of Curriculum for the New Technology Foundation.

   

  NTHS teachers start each unit by throwing students into a realistic or real-world   project that both engages interest and generates a list of things the student   need to know. Projects are designed to tackle complex problems, requiring critical   thinking. New Tech’s strategy is simple:

   
   
  • To learn collaboration, work in teams.
   
  • To learn critical thinking, take on complex problems.
   
  • To learn oral communication, present.
   
  • To learn written communication, write.
   
  • To learn technology, use technology.
   
  • To develop citizenship, take on civic and global issues.
   
  • To learn about careers, do internships.
   
  • To learn content, research and do all of the above.
   
   

  How do you build all this into the curriculum? It can be done if students work   on projects that are designed to elicit collaboration, critical thinking, written   communication, oral communication, work ethic, and other critical skills, while   simultaneously meeting state or national content standards.

   

  In traditional classrooms students typically work alone, work on short non-complex   assignments that emphasize short-term content memorization, write for the teacher   alone, and rarely make presentations.

• Project- and problem-based learning takes a different approach:

   
   
  1. Put students into teams of three or more students, who work on an in-depth   project for three to eight weeks.
   
  2. Start the project by introducing a complex entry question and scaffold the   project with activities and new information that deepens the work.
   
  3. Calendar the project through plans, drafts, timely benchmarks, and finally   presentation by the team to an outside panel of experts drawn from parents   and the community.
   
  4. Provide timely assessments to students on their projects for content,   oral communication, written communication, teamwork, critical thinking, and   other critical skills.

• Project-Based Learning is often confused with projects, which are short activities   injected into traditional education to liven things as a culminating event for   the unit. Real Project-Based Learning, by contrast, is deep, complex, and rigorous.  

   

  Many countries have had difficulties with Project-Based Learning in the past,   when curricula was not designed effectively and scaffolded to insure that essential   learning takes place. In Queensland,   Australia, a   new, major province-wide initiative in Project-Based Learning is called “Rich   Tasks”. In the UK,   one school calls it “Total Learning”.
• . At NTHS student course   grades are disaggregated into the component Learning Outcomes. Instead of a   single composite grade for each project, subject or integrated course, the grade   report for a project or a course shows separate and distinct grades for content,   critical thinking, written communication, oral communication, technology literacy,   and any of the other learning outcomes that are appropriate for the course

• New Tech High looks more like a modern high-tech office than a school. When   one walks through New Tech’s glass-walled corridors, one sees students at   work.

   

  Enrollment is 400 students for grades 9-12. The smaller size helps to establish   a more personal environment and a culture suited for individual and group work.  
• In theory, technology isn’t needed for project-based learning. However, technology   enables students to research, plan, and communicate. Moreover, New Tech goes   beyond one-to-one computing and provides a technology platform that serves as   a Collaborative Learning Environment for students and teachers. This   environment, the New Tech High Learning System ™, comprises the curriculum,   standards, assessment tools, and reporting tools of Napa New Technology High   School (NTHS), all online on a common IBM Lotus Notes technology platform.

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• Selective underlining/highlighting helps students to understand what the authors want them to know.  Also it helps to organize information from the reading.

   

  A person will remember more of what they have read if it's organized.  Selective underlining will help to organize information.

• Project CRISS Resume
   (CReating Independence through Student-owned Strategies
• Project CRISS strategies are research based to help students learn through written & verbal communication, reading & listening.

• 

• Sticky-notes are best used by students to mark the place where they have a question as they are reading.  The Sticky-note discussions are most effectively used when students are in literature groups, reading word problems in mathematics, or dealing with science and social studies materials.  Students should mark down key words on their Sticky-note to help them remember why they marked that spot.  These sections might be that they have a question about something, a section that they found to be humorous, or a section that they found interesting or with a vivid description.

   

   As you model this strategy, read aloud the passage and when you come to a spot that you want to mark with a sticky-note, stop and explain why you are marking it. 

• The following key principles drawn from this cognitive and social learning research provide students with a Framework for Learning.
• The concept of metacognition is the foundation of Project CRISS. Students who achieve well in school have heightened metacognition and a repertoire of self-regulatory behaviors. They know when they have understood, and they know how to employ a variety of strategies to attain meaning (Paris, Wasik, and Turner, 1991; Meichenbaum and Biemiller, 1998).
• Background knowledge is a powerful determinant of reading comprehension.

• • Reading for specific purposes positively influences comprehension
• Good readers are actively involved in making sense of their reading.
• Students need many opportunities to discuss with one another.
• Good readers know a variety of ways to organize information for learning.
• Given that all the pieces of the Principles and Philosophy need to be in place for learning to happen for students, CRISS developed a Framework for Teaching—the CRISS Strategic Learning Plan—

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• Method #2:  Selective Underlining and Two-Column Notes

   

  Before students do this on an individual basis, the teacher must first model how this method is done.

   

  1.  Model selective underlining as you highlight key ideas.
   2.  Use the ideas from your selective underlining or develop two-column notes 
        to write the one sentence summary. ( Use the left hand column of the two-
        column notes.)
   3.  Reread the summary and delete any unnecessary words.
   4. Ask students to reflect on how the combination of strategies worked for
       them and why was summarizing easier using the selective underlining 
       or two-column notes.  

  • great stuff
  Add Sticky Note

• #1  The underlined words in the above passage represent selective
          underlining.

   

  #2  The following one-sentence summary would be developed from the 
          selective underlining or two-column notes.

  • good

• To enhance student learning through the utilization of CRISS strategies.
• Project CRISS strategies are research based to help students learn through written
• Every teacher employed at Elgin High School has Project CRISS training & utilizes these strategies within their curriculums.

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