Mr. Kinziger's Profile

Member since Jun 24, 2009, follows 1 people, 0 public groups, 39 public bookmarks (40 total).

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  • Classroom Materials, Materials for Students, Learning Materials on 2009-12-08

      • three documents you will need to create, which are:



        1. Syllabus -- the Syllabus from one of my courses that will give you a brief wording that you will want to copy into your syllabus is provided on the Teacher Resources tab above;
        2. Student Guide to Consultant Learning -- the Student Guide Consultant Learning that I use in my classes is provided to you on the Teacher Resources tab that you can edit to fit your course; in addition there is a High School Teachers' Guide to Consultant Learning that some of the high school teachers put together several years ago that you can look at.
        3. Suggested Projects booklet -- Suggested Projects booklets from my two undergraduate courses, and Suggested Projects booklets from a dozen or so high school teachers' courses are provided for you on the Teacher Resources tab to help you identify projects that you would like to include in your course. In addition you will no doubt have some original ideas for projects that you can add to your course.
  • Student Projects, PBL, Project-Based Learning on 2009-12-08

    • Students earn consulting fees for projects which they select from a menu of project choices or that they design themselves on topics that are of interest to them but are related to the course. For each project that a student intends to complete, they submit a proposal to be approved by the teacher before they begin work on the project. Once the proposal is approved the student may complete the project. This proposal process keeps the teacher in control while allowing the students the maximum flexibility to design the course to their interests and learning style.


      Completed projects are submitted to the teacher. Projects that are not of excellent quality (not work that would earn an "A" in a traditional course) are returned to the student along with notes on what needs to be done to make the project "A" quality work. The student must rework and resubmit the project in order to get "paid" for it. Once a project is "A" quality, the teacher returns it to the student with "Paid $2,000" (or whatever amount was agreed upon in the proposal) written on the cover sheet like a voucher for payment.

    • The students set their own grade goal and earn their goal grade based on earning fees, so they understand exactly how many dollars in fees they earned and what grade that amount of fees earns -- there is no arguing about grades.
  • Drop Out Rate, 21st Century Teaching Method on 2009-12-08

    • A management guru once said (I'm paraphrasing),



      If you have 100 employees and one of them is stealing from you, you hired a thief. But if you have 100 employees and 50 of them are stealing from you, you don't have any thieves -- you have a bad system. And it's not the employees' job to fix the system -- it's management's.



      So why do so many students drop out? It's not something wrong with the kids -- it's the system!

    • In a Consultant Learning class the student receives a project back from the teacher without a degrading grade, but with directions on how the project can be made into excellent quality work. This implies a belief on the part of the teacher that the student is capable of doing excellent quality work.
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  • Excellent Quality Student Projects, Student Excellence on 2009-12-08
    • In Consultant Learning, the required quality of the work the student must perform is held constant at a very high level – "exellent quality" (also defined as work that would earn an A in a traditionally graded course). Low quality work must be redone and resubmitted until it meets the excellence standard. Since the quality of all work accepted for credit (payment) is excellent quality (A work), the student's grade is based on the quantity of professional quality work that the student performs during the semester -- a small quantity of excellent quality work earns a "C", a moderate amount earns a "B", and a large amount earns an "A".
    • Consultant Learning teaches students that whatever they do must be quality work, even if they only do a small quantity of it. It is better to produce a small quantity of excellent work than lots of mediocre quality work. In the work force, "good enough" is only good enough to get fired!
  • Money in School, Using Money to Motivate Students on 2009-12-08
    • In Consultant Learning, students determine their own grades by completing projects which earn "consulting fees." The amount of consulting fees a student chooses to earn determines his/her grade. In other words they are paid for what they do (in-class and out-of-class work) and then what they earned buys what they want (credit and a grade). Students truly EARN their grades.
  • Game of Learning, Learning as a Game, Learning Game on 2009-12-08

      • In a Consultant Learning classroom:



        1. The system (the Rules of Game) manages the class and students;
        2. The teacher manages the system by structuring the Rules of the Game and by enforcing those rules, which the students already know because they are provided on paper at the beginning of the course;
        3. The system frees the teacher to teach and coach;
        4. Consultant Learning changes grading into coaching -- the teacher will never need to assign an A, B or C to a project again. Instead they coach and mentor, telling the students what needs to be done to make the project excellent work and allowing the student to learn by redoing poor quality work.
  • PBL, Project-Based Learning, Problem-Based Learning on 2009-12-08

    • In traditional teaching, the teacher "presents" material and then tests the students to see if they have learned (generally meaning "memorized") the material.


      In PBL, the course objectives are built into a project or series of projects which students complete. The students must "teach themselves" (with the teacher's help) the information and skills that they need to develop in order to complete the projects. The teacher becomes a resource and guide to help each student learn the necessary skills and information.

  • School as Meaningful Woirk, Meaningful Work in School on 2009-12-08
    • Our schools operate within a 20th century education system designed for a farm and factory society, but we are sending our students out into a 21st century information economy. It is not that the system was bad in its time -- it was excellent for preparing students for 20th century society -- but circumstances now call for a different system that will develop different skills.
  • Better Way to Teach, A Better Way to Teach, Teaching Better, Teaching Improvement, New Teaching Method on 2009-12-08
  • Meeting Five Critical Challenges of High School Reform: Lessons from Research on Three Reform Models — Overview on 2009-12-08
    • The overall message of this synthesis is that structural changes to improve personalization and instructional improvement are the twin pillars of high school reform. Small learning communities and faculty advisory systems can increase students’ feelings of connectedness to their teachers. Especially in interaction with one another, extended class periods, special catch-up courses, high-quality curricula, training on these curricula, and efforts to create professional learning communities can improve student achievement.

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