Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology | Video on TED.com
12/14/2009
12/09/2009
Education Week: What Do School Rankings Really Mean?
Education Week: What Do School Rankings Really Mean?
Funny that I should come across this article right when we are trying to argue a case for why FGCS should not have to conform solely to the school district's and broader dominant educational standard of 'best' school rankings based on test scores.
The article critiques the popular approach to listing top ranked schools based on indicators such as high SAT scores. Burney states, Attainment of “top” status can render schools complacent at best, and negligent at worst, regarding the learning of individual students...indicators such as high SAT scores are misleading as a key indicator of a school’s educational quality, because students from advantaged backgrounds tend to do relatively well, in part because they have access to hours of expensive test preparation, and ongoing intellectual enrichment from home.She questions how these schools can be considered the 'best' when their focus is on teaching to the test, excessive seatwork and perpetuating a culture that squelches students' love of learning and fails to teach skills to pursue productive & satisfying lives.
Top-ranked high schools provide a standard-size instructional hoop that many students jump through well enough. But does “well enough” warrant distinction as excellence, which implies high standards, innovation, and engaging, rigorous instruction?
eSN Special Report: Small-group collaboration
eSN Special Report: Small-group collaboration
We teach the value of constructivist approaches and collaborative work in educational psychology, but as this article points out the reality of today's world requires that students be able to work with others both face-to-face and in a global digital context. Collaboration is "authentic learning," Hobson said, and it is "transformational in that kids see their work is valued beyond the teacher. We're so very connected now, it's critical that kids have the ability to collaborate even when they're not in the same physical space."
Though the article focuses on using technology tools to support group work, those of us with limited technology in the classroom can still use its ideas - along with some creative thinking - to create a rich learning environment that encorporates a variety of learning styles...
'Plano's curriculum stresses multitasking in classrooms, which means some students might be working in groups, while others are working individually or listening to the teacher. "To get the most personalized learning," Hirsch said, "everyone shouldn't be working on the same thing at the same time." He believes mini-projectors could be a "key component of multitasking in the classroom."'
12/02/2009
12/01/2009
The Roles of Schools; The Place of Education
Egan, K (1992) The Roles of Schools: The Place of Education. Teachers College Record Vol.93 No.4 pp. 641-655.
Egan writes on what he calls the messy concept of education.
"All societies have procedures for initiating the young into sharing the norms, values, and commitments that govern social life and determine the distive identity for both the group and the individual within it"
In oral cultures these procedures place a significant emphasis on memory as the method of preserving knowledge, lore, and customs.. and they discovered:
- information can be made more easily and reliably memorable by encoding it verbally in vivid images
- lore coded into stories was much more easily remembered than if conveyed by other medium.
STORY HAS BEEN ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL SOCIAL INVENTIONS
- engage intellectually + affectively
- communicate information/values/norms of behaviour while engaging a commitment to them
Invention and spread of literacy has resulted in
- less reliance on memory
- 'loss of the intensity of participatory experience in an immediate life-world in which ones' store of knowledge & lore was profoundly & vitally meaningful'
this blog
i've created this as a space to try to keep up with the seemingly never ending things to read. it will cover all aspects of my work, maybe even recreational interests - if i ever have the time to get a life :0)
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