Learning should come from within…

I read a blog post suggested to me by fellow blogger friend Pat H. from Successful Teaching.The blog post, Reversing the Curriculum, was from the blog entitled Special Ed Changes.

The blogger got my interest immediately and I desperately wanted to share the first 2 videos with my readers.

I know I should keep on with my narrative here and make my point, but I don’t want to make you wait longer in your reading to see these two entertaining videos. When you finish them, we will continue with our narrative. (I’m just like a 5 year old!)

Here are those 2 videos.

and the 2nd video …

Watching these 2 engaging videos made me realize that it would be great if children could learn what they wanted, when they were ready, when they wanted, and in the order they wanted, much like the Montessori Method.

View this Montessori video as well. I know it is longer than the other videos, but try to finish it all the way to the end.

The discussion in this blog post centered on ...

When kids come to school at five (if kids should come to school at five in the first place) they have certain fascinations - hearing and telling stories, understanding signs, the physics which make their world work, hot and cold, animal behaviour. And great teachers do embrace much of this, but our school curriculum never does.
Instead of running with this natural learning curve, instead of meeting our students where they are, we focus all of our attention through the age of eight on a certain set of formalized learning systems which disinterest most kids, and are essentially impossible for many. We spend all of our time on complex symbolic codes (the alphabet, the numeral system) and on the operation of those code systems (phonics, spelling, arithmetic).
And, within three years, we have taken kids thrilled to start school and turned them into kids who'd rather be anywhere else.

In this age of technology and ever present information everywhere we are, why can we not let children learn as they are ready?

Why can’t children teach other children, teachers teach children, and children teach teachers?

I know, the tests… the accountability… I STILL think it can work.

See a very early blog post I made concerning my niece and nephew and their early PS-8 Montessori education.

What are you doing in your classroom that encourages creativity and allows children some say in their learning? Leave a comment.

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: learning,Montessori,Successful Teaching,Pat H,curriculum,education

Thanks to my PLN … Kahn Academy … UTube UNIVERSITY … IMHO

I am SO LUCKY!

I have a great PLN (Personal Learning Network).

I have a huge list of blogs that I read.

Sometimes I read every single word; sometimes I scan the posts; sometimes, I feel like  I am way behind in reading all the posts and so I (Gasp!) say I have read them (and click them READ) just to get my number of unread posts lower!

There, I have admitted it. It feels so good!

Dean Shareski,of Ideas and Thoughts blog, is someone who I have followed his blog posts for some time, and even followed him on Twitter (although I have to admit – Gasp! – that I am NOT a twitter guru or complete convert!)

Today I was catching up on some blog posts from those many blogs on my blogroll, and suddenly, I saw this post: The Kahn Academy.

I wasn’t sure I was going to watch the video, but something in the blog post piqued my curiosity. So I watched. And if you try it, you, too, should be glad you did.

Sal has such an unassuming quality to his manner of speaking that you immediately feel you know him, you like him, and you want to listen to him. These are the reasons his Kahn Academy is so successful and so valuable!

Thank you Sal!

(You see, I can call you by your first name because I feel like you are already my friend, even though we have never met, talked, or seen each other!)

Watch the video and then go on to attend the Kahn Academy and learn things you never thought you would ever understand!

Sal Khan at Gel 2010 (founder, the Khan Academy) from Gel Conference on Vimeo.

Technorati Tags: Sal Kahn,Kahn Academy,Salman Kahn,UTube,Dean Shareski,learning,videos,education,Gel 2010,PLN,Personal Learning Network

Great National Geographic video

An amazing story and short video from National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen about a 12-foot leopard seal in the Antarctic.

I found this video/story because an online friend Pat H sent it from this blog she reads. THANKS, Pat!

We can always be amazed and learn something, no matter what our age, profession, or interests!

Seeing this video reminds me of a blog post I recently read (and that I mentioned in this blog here) that said s"Students should be allowed to tell their classmates every day ... What they learned since yesterday…".

Well, this is what I learned most recently.

What are you encouraging your students to learn….every day?

Technorati Tags: National Geographic,learning,education,Paul Nicklen,Pat H,leopard seal

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR TEACHERS

Over at A Difference by Darren Kuropatwa there was discussion that was similar to my recent post of Learning Now. At least it reminded me of that post.  
Darren talks about reading George Polya’s 10 Commandments for Teachers and how that has affected his teaching. 

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS FOR TEACHERS

In chapter 14 of Mathematical Discovery Polya lists his Ten Commandments For Teachers. They have been a guiding light for me as a teacher since I first read them.

1. Be interested in your subject.
2. Know your subject.
3. Know about the ways of learning: The best way to learn anything is to discover it by yourself.
4. Try to read the faces of your students, try to see their expectations and difficulties, put yourself in their place.
5. Give them not only information, but "know-how," attitudes of mind, the habit of methodical work.
6. Let them learn guessing.
7. Let them learn proving.
8. Look out for such features of the problem at hand as may be useful in solving the problems to come — try to disclose the general pattern that lies behind the present concrete situation.
9. Do not give away your whole secret at once — let the students guess before you tell it — let them find out by themselves as much as is feasible.
10. Suggest it, do not force it down their throats.

Darren continues

Polya identifies the single most powerful and infallible teaching method: "If the teacher is bored by what he is teaching it is a certainty that all his students will be too." I believe the inverse is also true: If a teacher is interested in what they are teaching their students will be too. Actually, "interest" by itself may not be enough; passion is a virus. There is a contagion in passion that can be passed on. I would rewrite Polya's first commandment as: "Be passionate about your subject." If you can't do that then I guess interest will have to do but if you don't have even that, do something else.

Passion for teaching is very important. Passion for learning is very important. Teachers must show a passion for what they are teaching. 

When students see that teachers are passionate about their subject, passionate about learning, then the students will see a reason to learn.

Teachers who are passionate about learning do not always get every page of the curriculum finished, but their students can carry on the learning on their own, for the rest of their lives.

Rather than making good marks on a true-false/multiple choice test at the end of each grade, students progress should be measured by how well they know how to learn, how well they can compete for the job that they have a passion for, how well they can convey that passion to their customers when they have that job.  These are true measures of learning and value.  We are not trying to prepare our students of the 21st century to be able to spout facts verbatim when asked.  We are preparing them for their futures, their lives, their livelihoods. 

If we, as teachers, can ignite a passion in our students to learn, to know how to learn, to know when it is necessary to learn more, we have succeeded as teachers, no matter what the test scores say.

How do you show

your passion for life,

for learning, and for teaching

so that your students know

its importance

in their own lives?

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: learning,passions,life,education,Darren Kuropatwa,George Polya

Learning Now

Angela Maiers has an excellent post on her site about Learning Now.
It is a “new” way of starting the day in the classroom.

As students walk into the classroom, the following opening question is posted:

What have you learned since yesterday?

Students need to be excited about their learning and realize how much they have learned and how much there is out there to learn.

Learning is not an endeavor just for school. It is learning that fuels our lives. It brings the outside to the inside of the classroom and vice versa. Learning is perpetual, continuous, and requires us to be active. Learning – as we know it, and as we wish our students to know it - is infectious and contagious. It is PASSION-DRIVEN!  Passion-driven learning is not contained in boxes, covered in textbooks and will not be reduced to checks on a list. It must be experienced.

We are always talking about being Lifelong Learners,” but that phrase, that name, is not just a bunch of fancy words.  It should have meaning.
Until we can get students excited about learning and excited about their learning, we have not done our job.
There will not always be a teacher there next to them to tell them what to do next.  Students need to develop this love of learning and excitement to want to know more.

The Learning Now opening not only lights a spark of excitement and energy, it sets the tone, the expectation, and it extends the invitation to "Join the Learning Club, ' which is how we frame the rest of the day as we spend our time together figuring out how to make sense of this amazing world and the people that inhabit it. How far can we take it?

This is a wonderful way to start the day. I wish that all classrooms were started this way…

How can you develop

this energy,

this passion,

into your classroom?

Let me know.

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: passion,energy,learning,excitement,Angela Maiers,Learning Now,education

Teaching vs. Learning

I just read a blog post at Modite by Rebecca Thorman entitled Become an expert quickly.

Rebecca Thorman supports my philosophy about Learning…

Teaching something gels the concepts in your brain so much better than just hearing about it or doing it.

Teaching makes you think about the whole idea and synthesize it, make it understandable to others. Teaching what you have learned is the best way to know what you learned. 

Rebecca says

So tell me, how well can you explain what you do? How well do you understand your passion? Could you teach someone else to do it?

Doing is just not enough. Rebecca says

When you do something like send a pitch, for example, you’re learning. You’re testing your ideas and theories through the reaction you receive, the resulting outcome. In this paradigm, it’s okay to fail, you discover through trial and error, and through persistence and hard work, you win.

Teaching makes you think through what you think you know. In explaining and teaching the concept to someone else, you have to understand all aspects of the subject matter, from many different angles.

Rebecca agrees that there is a difference between learning and teaching. In learning…

But there’s an entire level of awesomeness missing. And you can only ascend to the next level by then teaching someone what you have learned. Because then you’re testing your values, ideas and theories with another person’s values, ideas and theories. You understand the underlying challenge more by defining it for another. Teaching – good teaching – requires you to exchange knowledge, not simply impart it. Learning is individual. Teaching is collaborative.

So, when you teach something, you get something back that makes you even understand the concepts better. It confirms what you thought you learned - what you thought you knew about the subject OR maybe it confirms that you were wrong and you have to change your knowledge.

Teaching is sharing knowledge, sharing empathy, sharing ideas. It’s pushing you to understand with entirely different lenses. Just like your body needs both cardio and strength training, your mind needs both learning and teaching.

Teaching is the definitive learning experience. And it’s the quickest way to expertise.

How do you provide experiences for your students to not only Learn, but teach what they learn?
Share your ideas.

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: learning,education,teaching,knowledge,Modite,Rebecca Thorman

Learner experts or Content experts?

Should teachers be Experts in Knowledge of their Subject Matter or Experts in How to Teach Students?

Most people would agree that there should be some of each type of Expert in every teacher. But the question is which is most important?  Also which is most important at what levels of teaching?

In the past, from my experience, and perhaps from a current perspective of how teachers are taught in college, I surmise the following levels of expertise:

Elementary school teachers are to be knowledgeable in HOW to Teach.  It is thought that the knowledge that elementary teachers are presenting to their students is knowledge that every educated person knows if they have received a college degree.  Thus, more of their time in the teacher education degree in college is spent on teaching methods, or on teaching methods related to specific subjects.

High school teachers have had more emphasis prior to teaching certification on being very knowledgeable in their Subject Matter field of teaching, but not to the degree that they are an expert. They need to know beyond high school knowledge of the subject matter, and probably a thorough college level knowledge of their subject matter, but still not an expert.

In college teaching situations, professors need to be true experts in their fields to be respected and able to present the level of material that is necessary for a college level class. Unfortunately many times in college lower level courses, it is teaching assistants that do most of the “teaching.”

In this current day of Information Overload and Access to Instant Information, is this expertise of knowledge of subject matter as important or more important than knowledge of HOW to TEACH?

Are teachers merely the Information Dispensers, the Information Curators, the Information Inspirers, or the Information Extenders?

(I need to work on that word Extenders.  There is a better word that I am not coming up with at this time. Feel free to comment to me about a better term. Maybe Information Facilitators?)

From Ashley Tan’s blog, Another dot in the blogosphere, he writes about this question in Innovation in educational technology. Ashley says":

Polivka offers some answers to his question. But I think the best one is that teachers often see themselves as content experts instead of learning experts.

• Education as an industry is full of people who are content experts, and severely lacking people who are learning experts. Or more specifically, learner experts. I don’t mean people who know and adhere to theories about learning. I mean people who really get the whole process, and are passionate about it, from the learner’s perspective. People who love the thrill of learning, the way kids in kindergarten love it, and want everyone to have that sort of joy again. People who want to learn, and want others to learn, and want everyone to apply that learning, with the same exuberance that hobbyists do. What makes learning work and why? What makes learning exciting, interesting, rewarding? We need more people who are experts in those things, because whatever products they create will reflect it.

It’s time to relearn teaching.

Teachers should be facilitators of learning, Information Facilitators, not just Information Dispensers.

How do you make learning fun, exciting, interesting, and rewarding to the learner?

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: learning,education,content,how to learn,learner's perspective,facilitators,Ashley Tan,Another Dot in the Blogosphere,Polivka

How we learn… most important

“Our culture lies. They say they want to encourage and reward individuality and creativity, but in practice they try to hammer down the pointy parts, and shame off the different parts.” – Sandra Dodd

Leo Babauta of Zen Habits wrote an interesting post entitled Education Needs to Be Turned on Its Head.
Leo says, and I agree:

What we learn in school isn’t nearly as important as how we learn, because how to learn is the lesson of school.

In other words, find problems that interest you, and figure out how to solve them.

Schools and learning need to be working to teach students how to learn, how to learn independently. 

As a parent, my  goal for my children always was to make them independent.  We, as parents, are always teaching our children something new so that they will be able to live on their own without us, their parents.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tagtagainep19/3764366994

It is the same way with schools and learning. Students need to be prepared for their own lives, their futures, when they have to think on their own, when the teacher is not there dictating what needs to be done or learned and how to do it.

Sometimes, you’ll have to solve problems that aren’t so interesting, just to solve problems that do interest you. That’s OK. That’s how things work.


And here’s a secret: we already know how to do this. From birth. This method of learning is innate in all of us. It’s built in.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/funpictureswithkids

So let’s allow students to use their natural curiosity to learn the skills they need.

Teachers should be facilitators of learning, not dictators.

How do you facilitate learning in your classroom?

Technorati Tags: learning,education,facilitators,dictators,Leo Babauta,Zen Habits

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Moving at the speed of YOU

Michael Fisher has a blog entitled Digigogy, A New Digital Pedagogy.

In his description or explanation of this blog he states:

Digigogy is a paradigm shift.

Where pedagogy is about methods to instruct, Digigogy is about those methods, but with a technological frame. From hardware to software, from tech ed theory to application, Digigogy is about reframing our methods in the future of instruction. The new way of learning is a complete tear down and rebuild of traditional teaching, where learning is a joint effort and roles are reborn. Beyond the desks...beyond the walls...beyond the school. The new classroom is orbital, and scenic, and here. This blog is intended to be a launching pad...

I enjoy following his thoughts and ideas. Recently, his story (Please read the full account) was about his father-in-law reminiscing about an early career job at age 16 in England. Until the new worker learned how to do his task (and do it well), the team he worked on would be held back by the slowest (newest) one in the group.

“In essence,” the supervisor said, “we will move at the speed of you.”

…While my father-in-law was just relaying a story from his youth, I thought this story spoke volumes about teaching and learning, both with students in the classroom and with adults in professional development. (How often have we been in learning situations where the teacher or staff developer moved at the speed of “themselves?”)

How often do we REALLY support each other to ensure quality for all? How often do we share our tips and tricks at a level that brings everyone to a collective expertise? How often do we facilitate that level of support in our students, enabling them to help and guide each other?

As someone who is in schools often working with teachers, I thought that this story underscored the importance of positivity, collegiality, and generosity. To tell someone that we will “move at the speed of YOU” is huge. It’s a relationship and trust building practice that helps to sustain the work we do for the long haul. It benefits everybody, most importantly, our students.

Many of us, blogging away about technology, forget that everyone else is not on the same page as we are. When we provide in-service training to others, it is easy for us to forget that these “students” of ours could be “kindergartners” in the realm of technology use. We need to move to where our learners are and work to get them up to speed at their own individual rates. The same is also true in the classroom for our students.

An interesting sidelight to this thought, is that sometimes the teachers are the “Technology Kindergartners” and the students in the classroom are the “Technology Instructors.” This presents a hard position for most teachers. Teachers are used to being the sage, not the learner. Teachers need to be humble and realize that they are no longer “the sage on the stage”, but are lifelong learners, who may have students teaching them new information.

As Michael Fisher says

a complete tear down and rebuild of traditional teaching, where learning is a joint effort and roles are reborn. Beyond the desks...beyond the walls...beyond the school.

It is hard for many teachers to adjust to this new role.

Can you adjust your role?

Can you be a “learner” to your students if they are the sage?

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: digigogy,learner,sage,teacher,student,Michael Fisher,education,teachint,learning,professional development

Learning the names of the states & more…

David Warlick of 2 Cents Worth always has interesting and thought-provoking ideas.

Please take the time to read David’s full post on this subject. In brief, he says

The bottom line of this ramble is that students armed with answers about science, technology, engineering, and math will not be able to compete or contribute to a global economy. It will be students who can can observe their environment, understand it, and inventively find ways to participate and contribute.

So we need to be teaching our students more than “just the facts, M’am.”

Students need to be challenged to take the facts, understand the meaning of these facts, create something new from the facts, and develop insights from learning these facts to contribute something of value to the world around them, not matter how small or big that world is.

A student does not have to be a grad student, a college senior, a high school senior, a middle school student, or even a fifth grader to create something of value to his world.

EVERY student at EVERY AGE can contribute to his world.

What are your students contributing to their worlds?

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: contribution,learning,education,David Warlick,2 Cents Worth,facts

Engaged Learning

David Warlick over at 2 Cents Worth is always thinking. In his recent blog post he asks the question:

“What is the difference between 20th century learning and 21st century learning?”

He talks about the definition(s)of learning:

First of all, I would characterize formal learning, in the pre-digital/industrial time as:

• listening,
• watching,
• remembering

In a time of information scarcity, when our futures were fairly predictably, being educated was characterized by what you know.

In the digital age, where information is abundant (overwhelming) and the future is always a BIG question, I think that learning expands out of listening, watching, and remembering to include:

• questioning,
• engaging,
• proving (and disproving),
• Constructing (inventing)
• teaching

He says usually engagement is used with the obligation/responsibility of the teacher, not the student. He says the verb engage should be used with the students:

I’ve had to work on the engaging part. It’s a term that I usually do not like to hear. …when I usually hear the term engage the students, it appears to be a verb … linked to the teacher — that the teacher’s job is to engage the students. What I like better is to attach the verb to the students. The students will engage with their information environment (textbook, whiteboard, Internet) to learn through questioning, experimentation, discovery, and construction.

Our goal with students should always be to engage the students and the students need to become engaged with their learning.

How do you engage your students with their learning?

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: David Warlick,2 Cents Worth,engagement,learning,education,digital age,industrial age

Change, Predictability, Spontaneity, and Education

Shelley over at Teach Paperless always is “pushing the envelope” and I mean that in a GOOD WAY!

Today his post is a response his previous post and the comments that post generated. (His posts are always something for discussion!)

Schools need to be safe for students, but change and spontaneity are not mutually exclusive from safe, predictable education. There is a place for all of these aspects in education today!

Shelley says

So I'd say that you've got to be open to spontaneity. That doesn't mean you can just wing it; after all, as any jazz musician will tell you, you've got to bring your A-game to any improvised set. Improvisation is an artform. It needs to be practiced and honed; the artist needs to learn from mistakes and assumptions. But, in the hands of a serious practitioner, improvisation -- and the disruption of predictability -- is a nuanced method of expressing understanding, compassion, and new forms of accessibility.
And I'd argue that these are the things kids need more of in school.

I have to say that many of my “greatest lessons ever taught” happened with spontaneity. In the “heat” of the lesson, things happen and students respond, and life changes. The lesson may go down another path, but if there is learning, we all go home winners!

What art form is in your lessons?

Do wing it?

Are your lessons practiced & honed?

Do you learn from your mistakes & assumptions?

Do you convey these lessons to your students?

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s!]

Technorati Tags: Teach Paperless,spontaneity,improvisation,learning,education

Questions … How was school today? and more …

I just read Will Richardson’s blog post about his children starting at a new school. He has high hopes for an authentic education for his children at this new school.

He said that he wanted to be sure to ask his kids more interesting questions than the usual “How was school today?” or “What did you do at school today?”

After reading Part 1of his (never ending, I assume) list of questions to ask his children, I decided the questions should be made into posters.

I have not had enough time to make them all. Perhaps some of you will make some even more interesting and thought provoking posters as well.

Here are the beginning questions of a continually expanding list of questions Will wants to ask them:

What did you make today that was meaningful?

What did you learn about the world?

Who are you working with?

What surprised you?

What did your teachers make with you?

What did you teach others?

What unanswered questions are you struggling with?

How did you change the world in some small (or big) way?

What’s something your teachers learned today?

What did you share with the world?

What do you want to know more about?

What did you love about today?

What made you laugh?

What questions do you ask your students and your children when the day is over?

Technorati Tags: Will Richardson,learning,education,questions

Rubrics … OR let your students play in class

Shelley over at Teach Paperless is a fantastic teacher (from my view here in Cyberland!)

He teaches what many consider a DEAD SUBJECT (Latin) in a very CURRENT method. (He actually teachers other subjects as well!)

Stop by his blog to see what I mean.

Listen to what his students also have to say about his teaching methods.

His recent blog post “Rubrics Were Great” says that Rubrics fail to teach students what life and learning are all about.

Isn’t that what we should be teaching students? How to learn and live life successfully?

Rubrics give students a checklist of what to do, but Real Life is not a checklist.

When will students learn that Real Life is not a checklist?

How disappointed will they be when they “grow up,” graduate from high school, (or even college) and find out that what they were taught about the world was not really true?

So Shelley says

Well... let your students play in class. Give them open-ended assignments with no possible correct answer and no single conceivable way to get the assignment done. Don't explain things to your students, rather talk to them and allow what they say to teach them how they think. Teach your content through conversation whether f2f or online. Teach your content through trust. And don't give your students a list of things that suggests what you want, rather allow your students to figure out what it is that they want.
Because, in the end, this is about them learning. It's not about us proving why we gave a particular grade.

How do you assess your students?

Are they ready for the REAL WORLD?

or just the End of the Grade Test?

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s.]

Technorati Tags: Teach Paperless,rubrics,real life,learning,education,End of the Grade Test,assessment

Innovative Learning and the iSchool

Okay, there is just too much good stuff out there. I promised myself, and my husband, I would only write one post a day, but….

I know I could write several at one time and then only post one a day, but I just get too excited about what I am learning and reading. I don’t want to “hide” any of it! SO… I write and post as the thoughts hit me!

Isn’t it great when you love learning?

I was dutifully (not really dutifully, I love it and can’t wait to see what others have to share!) reading my blog reader when I came across this post Engaging Students with Passion-Based Learning by Lisa Nielsen of The Innovative Educator posted on August 18, 2009. She mentions being at a conference and a teacher near her states that (not a direct quote) “Kids need to realize that sometimes school IS boring and that’s just the way it is!”

Lisa strongly disagrees and talks about her school days in this post from April 22, 2009 entitled Immunization for an Uninteresting Curriculum Found at the iSchool in NYC. I need to read up more about this iSchool, but it sounds like a place all students should be allowed to attend.

Now, I think here we are talking high school at the iSchool, not elementary students. That is an issue that I would like to address, perhaps, more fully in future posts.

Primary school students cannot have this much “freedom” in what they do in planning their curriculum (especially when eventually they have to take those DARN TESTS!). They do have to learn the basics: reading and math, and of course, COMPUTERS! (That's right, Mrs. V!)

It’s all a matter of guidance, putting the opportunities out there for them, making those opportunities appealing.

So do we teach in primary classes, more along the lines of Maria Montessori, Project Based Learning, and Universal Design Learning?

My niece and nephew both attended a Montessori school until they entered high school. At the time, I worried that would not be able to learn in the “sit in desks in rows” regular type of high school (the current model when they were in high school) when they finally got there. WRONG, Aunt FAYE!

They are both highly intelligent students/young people who have mastered the skills necessary to succeed in the world of college and life and are contributing members of our society.

I guess I never discussed with them how they learned how to read, how they learned their times tables, how they learned about the periodic table of elements, or how to analyze a novel, etc. Perhaps it is time to talk with them.

I do have to say, I don’t ever remember hearing them say they were bored prior to high school! I am sure they LOVED SCHOOL!

PRIMARY students (usually) still have that love of learning. We just need to find ways to get the BASICS accomplished without deleting the FUN from school.

Most primary school teachers have found the way to do that for students. There are the exceptions, those students whose learning styles are harder to unearth. (That’s a post for another day and perhaps best addressed by those in the field of teaching exceptional students!)

SO, my question is this…

How do you …

PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS,

INTERMEDIATE SCHOOL TEACHERS,

AND MIDDLE SCHOOL TEACHERS

… keep the LOVE OF LEARNING going

and teach the students to PASS THE TEST?

Technorati Tags: Montessori,PBL,UDL,education,learning,iSchool,Innovative Educator,Lisa Nielsen,boring

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Link to Will Lion's photostream

SCHOOL vs LEARNING

I am Re-Quoting (is that a verb?) from Scott McLeod’s post at Dangerously Irrelevant because I have to agree wholeheartedly. Scott says…

“Seth Godin is one of my favorite thinkers. I’ve learned a ton from him. Here are a couple of quotes from his post today on education.”

“School was the big thing for a long time. School is tests and credits and notetaking and meeting standards. Learning, on the other hand, is 'getting it'. It's the conceptual breakthrough that permits the student to understand it then move on to something else. Learning doesn't care about workbooks or long checklists.

For a while, smart people thought that school was organized to encourage learning. For a long time, though, people in the know have realized that they are fundamentally different activities.”

(I am not sure if I have all of the quote marks in the right places, but I am trying to give credit where credit is due!)

Seth also says there are 4 descriptions of schooling today: FREE, ABUNDANT, SCARCE and EXPENSIVE.

“If I were going to wager, I'd say that the free, abundant learning combination is the one that's going to change the world.”

If Seth is right, then what are we doing in schools today to capitalize (not in the money way) on that fact?

Whom are we teaching? 

What are we teaching?

When are we teaching? 

Where are we teaching?

Why are we teaching?

How are we teaching?

[As always, in my author quotes, the underlines, color changes, and bold type is mine, not the author’s.  I do this so often, I should probably put a disclaimer to this effect at the bottom of every blog!]

Technorati Tags: Seth Godin,Scott McLeod,learning,education,schooling,abundant,free,scarce,expensive,school

You’re Beautiful … James Blunt … A Good Listen

It’s a good listen… and then….

I know … the title… and …when you start to watch/listen to the video, on the blue screen  “you’re” is spelled “YOUR”…

This is a video used in a ESL EFL class.

Check out the link to see how this teacher helps students relate their learning to real life via this activity and others on this page.

Technorati Tags: ESL,EFL,James Blunt,You're Beautiful,taching,learning,education

21st Century Schools and the Workplace

Myths and Opportunities: Technology in the Classroom by Alan November from Brian Mull on Vimeo.

This video takes about 13 minutes to view.

When you watch it, you should have a piece of paper ready to take down the important parts.  I didn’t the first time I watched it. 

It started out like a travel video of some wonderful 17th century town on the East coast. 

I was wondering why I was watching it, but I had seen it on PHS Principal Blog. That blog is described as a “High school principal blogs about education, technology, student engagement and things that are happening at Paris High School in Illinois”. I am originally and most of my life from IL, so I have an interest in reading what is happening there.

Now, as the writer of the blog states, “only my mom reads it!”  But recently there has been some consolidation of several schools and districts, etc. so I expect there might be more posts to read in the future. Although this blog does not have a great deal of posts (in the past), I usually enjoy each and every post made, so I wanted to look at this video he had posted for us to view. He said these are “videos over the next few days to inspire and challenge those of you here to think about school and what it should be!”

Also the video says… by Alan November. His is a name to be remembered in the education field, so it must be a good video! On the website November Learning, it says about Alan:

"An iconoclast whose common sense we cannot afford to ignore. He is at the heart of the matter regarding student learning and the imperatives of the future."

In this video, Alan November is so subtle in his teaching (to me!) that I had to listen to it more than once to be sure I got what he really was saying.  He lulls you into the words and sometimes, you are not really sure if you just heard a GREAT THOUGHT, or if you just imagined it!

If you just want one sentence paragraph about what the video says (IMHO):

We must shift the paradigm of the way we are teaching from the TEACHER IS THE BOSS Model to the WE ARE ALL LEARNERS Model where there is collaborative, self-directed LIFE LONG learning preparing students for the WORKPLACE of the 21st Century.  (WHOA! I did get it in one LONG sentence.  I hadn’t thought it was possible!)

Alan November gives many examples of “friends of mine” who are teaching and using this approach or that approach.  He certainly is lucky to be able to travel the country and see all these examples and hear about them from special teachers, like Bob Sprankle.

I was going to go back through the video and write down all the IMPORTANT PARTS and review them here, making my own comments on each item, but I think the readers can do that on their own. 

THEN, after viewing and thinking about the video, tell me what you thought were the most important thoughts.  What did you learn from watching the video? 

I am interested in your opinion.

Technorati Tags: Alan November,Bob Sprankle,paradigm,teaching,learning,education,shift,Teacher is BOSS,collaborative learning,self-directed learning,life long learners

Great Quotes about Learning and Change…Flickr slideshow

If you don’t see the slideshow here… Go to the actual blog website to watch it.

Some slides are quick reads, but some take longer so you might want to change the time spent on each slide.

There is so much thought and knowledge on these slides. Worth showing to a group of colleagues.

Which slides are the most important to you, your school, your situation?

Technorati Tags: learning,education,change,photos,slides,Flickr,quotes

SketchUp Projects

Have you heard about the fun software called SketchUp? 

Bonnie who writes books about what to do with SketchUp is starting to  make mini lessons for each month for teachers to show how the tools work.  They sound like a lot of fun. 

Her first set of projects are listed here on her blog.

What age level students do you think can use these tools?  How would you integrate these tools into your curriculum?

Let me know what you think.

Technorati Tags: SketchUp,lessons,curriculum,integration,education