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Op-Ed Columnist - The New Untouchables - NYTimes.com
"Just being an average accountant, lawyer, contractor or assembly-line worker is not the ticket it used to be. As Daniel Pink, the author of “A Whole New Mind,” puts it: In a world in which more and more average work can be done by a computer, robot or talented foreigner faster, cheaper “and just as well,” vanilla doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s all about what chocolate sauce, whipped cream and cherry you can put on top. So our schools have a doubly hard task now — not just improving reading, writing and arithmetic but entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity."
Education - Change.org: How Top Countries Test: Lessons for Arne Duncan from Linda Darling-Hammond
“What we have thought of as fairly rare in [the USA] is quite common in most of the high-achieving countries internationally,” Linda Darling-Hammond began. Beginning with a list of 21st century skills, Darling-Hammond contrasted US tests - which require recall of a simple fact or ask students for a one-sentence explanation - with exams abroad that include designing science experiments, refining computer programs and explaining the reasoning behind solutions for complex problems. “[In many nations,] there’s a teaching and learning system, that operates to provide rich curriculum and strong outcomes,” Darling-Hammond said. “They are what assure that the higher-order skills are actually taught and practiced.”
Bridging Differences: Test Scores and Reinforcing the Wrong Connections
The good news is that most of the American people haven’t lost their common sense. And, above all, those closest to “the action”—parents, teachers, kids, and their families, plus a majority of those who work closely with schools or are “students” of schooling—haven't. What they have lost is the power to be widely heard. The Education Equality Project et al are doing their best to “brainwash” us into thinking we all agree.
If there ever was a time when I appreciate the existence of organized “teacher voices,” it’s the days we’re living through. Thank goodness for teachers' unions—weak as they are. The attacks on “big labor” are always intriguing. The labor leaders relish it because it’s hard to boast about powerlessness. Their opponents like it so they can blame unions.
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Add Sticky NoteWhat they have lost is the power to be widely heard. The Education Equality Project et al are doing their best to “brainwash” us into thinking we all agree.
- Sad and ironic. Parents can have such a huge collective voice now. How do we make that happen? - on 2009-04-30
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Add Sticky NoteAt a time when the Big Boys have devastated our economy, in ways that affect us all, but are hardest—of course—on the most vulnerable, they are upping their propaganda: "It’s not our fault?” Poverty has been redefined: it’s the side effect of poor schooling! All those side effects would be cured—cheaply—if we required schools to perform properly. Schools are suffering from attracting the wrong people to teaching—“sub-par” people, in Chancellor Klein’s words—and too much allowed leeway in the practice of their mission.
- Does that make anyone want to be a teacher? - on 2009-04-30
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TeachPaperless
Last week, I gave my first Latin test using Twitter. My Latin III students had to translate the 'In Taberna' section of Carmina Burana. I allowed them to do it as a collaborative assessment and I gave a single score to the entire class so long as everyone contributed equally in the Tweet feed. Students had the text open in a Latin Library tab, had their online dictionaries open, had their blogs open in which to post their sections and organize their translations, and followed each other on Twitter. The trick was that although this was a collaborative assignment, the students -- under penalty of forfeiting the grade for the whole class -- were not allowed to talk.
The Education Bazaar » Blog Archive » Towards a Process for K-12 Students as Content Producers
Our primary use of wikis in the district started out with collaborative curriculum content production. It’s what we’ve been referring to as our "Currwikulum process" for a few years. We crack ourselves up, and can only imagine Elmer Fudd as our spokesmodel.
For the most part, curriculum is still our most imporant use. In the last year or two, however, we have begun to see wiki tools as having a direct connection to classroom writing instruction, place-based educational projects, and other activities requiring student content production. This blog entry is a rough look at how we see wikis for instructional use in the classroom from the viewpoint of students as producers, not just consumers of wiki content.
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Our primary use of wikis in the district started out with collaborative curriculum content production. It’s what we’ve been referring to as our "Currwikulum process" for a few years. We crack ourselves up, and can only imagine Elmer Fudd as our spokesmodel.
For the most part, curriculum is still our most imporant use. In the last year or two, however, we have begun to see wiki tools as having a direct connection to classroom writing instruction, place-based educational projects, and other activities requiring student content production. This blog entry is a rough look at how we see wikis for instructional use in the classroom from the viewpoint of students as producers, not just consumers of wiki content.
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Teachers who use do Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs for Writing Process style instruction in the K-12 classroom can use wiki tools as the next logical step. Contributing to a wiki site, such as our Open Content Curriculum site in BSSD, or Wikipedia itself would subject that written content to peer and outside scrutiny and editing by other users of that site.
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Individual education | IndyStar.com | The Indianapolis Star
The Multi-Disciplinary Center opened last fall to house a program where students learn primarily on their own but with guidance from teachers. They use the year to develop a thesis on a topic of their choice.
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"Our goal is to facilitate a different learning experience and allow the students to have input on how they want to learn," said Dave Ferrell, one of the program's three teachers. His subjects include U.S. history, economics, sociology and international relations.
The teachers, who also are called advisers, sit in a row of desks that face into the center. It's common to see a student pulling up a chair and sitting with a teacher, engaged in a casual, educational conversation.
‘Entitled’ students expect better grades for effort: study
Most university students believe that if they're "trying hard," a professor should reconsider their grade.
One-third say that if they attend most of the classes for a course, they deserve at least a B, while almost one-quarter "think poorly" of professor
Scarsdale Adjusts to Life Without Advanced Placement Courses - NYTimes.com
A year after Scarsdale became the most prominent school district in the nation to phase out the College Board’s Advanced Placement courses — and make A.P. exams optional — most students and teachers here praise the change for replacing mountains of memori
Bridging Differences: Good Intentions, Ignorant Elites, and Scoundrels
We live in a dangerous and dark time for schools. In many districts, the gears of power are controlled by non-educators who don't have a clue. They madly embrace testing and data and data-driven instruction because they have not a single idea about how ki
Education Sector: Research and Reports: Measuring Skills for the 21st Century
When ninth-graders at St. Andrew's School, a private boarding school in Middletown, Delaware, sat down last year to take the school's College Work and Readiness Assessment (CWRA), they faced the sort of problems that often stump city officials and adminis
Abject Learning: How can we make assessment more flexible and meaningful?
So what if we had students submit their work in a forum in which other students could see that work? Students submitting later would be able to build on that work, and perhaps improve on it - indeed, that would be an expectation... But if we expected stud
Marking work in Google Docs | ICT in my Classroom
What is the best way to give feedback on a piece of work produced in Google Docs? What formatting tools are most appropriate to use when leaving comments? How do you organise 30 to 60 pieces of work handed in to you? How do children hand in work? What new
MCAS testing may expand - The Boston Globe
Senior state education leaders are considering expanding the state MCAS exams to include science experiments, group projects and oral presentations in an attempt to inject more critical thinking into the widely criticized tests. The recommendations which
Borderland » Blog Archive » Assessments for Learning
One of Darling-Hammond’s slides listed what she called the “changing expectations for learning”:
* ability to communicate;
* adaptability to change;
* preparedness to solve problems;
* ability to analyze and conceptualize;
* ability t
In Case You Missed It: Assessments for Learning: a Briefing on Performance-Based Assessments :: The Forum for Education and Democracy
Donohue ended his remarks with a plea to think differently about assessment as a means to closing the achievement gap and giving all students equally high-quality learning opportunities. “It will be good for districts and it will be good for schools, but
Phone a friend in exams
A SYDNEY girls' school is redefining the concept of cheating by allowing students to "phone a friend" and use the internet and i-Pods during exams.
Presbyterian Ladies' College at Croydon is giving the assessment method a trial run with year 9 English st
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