it’s good to know that a teacher holds this domain name whatdoyaknow.com a new view of history TheStudentIstheClass.com a blog by a former president of a university (Abraham Fischler) Theebookman.com a guide to electronic books BigPicture.org ( Dennis Littky’s organization ) MetCenter.org (A bigpicture school) Edreformer.com Tom van der ark’s blog A leading Edu-preneur ascd.org publisher of magazines and BigPicture.org's book The Big Picture NewCitySchool.org (St. Louis Multiple Intelligences school) Mentors are needed VisualAndActive.com: workshops for teachers who want to shift from lecturing to creating classes where  READINGS: VisualandActive.com has a series of quotes that might help teachers move away from the “sage on the stage” to become the “guide on the side.” LOL essay/interview with Jonathan Mooney, Learning Outside the Lines Project eye to eye Project Eye to Eye described by David Flink The following info was found on Mediajazz.com and is reproduced here to encourage mentors to contact Project Eye to Eye Jonathan Mooney can be contacted by phone at 212-889-0830, by email at jonathanmooney@earthlink.net, or by postal mail 46 East 29th Street #2R NY, NY. He would love to hear the stories of other alternative learners and he'd love to hear from folks who are interested in helping him further develop the Project Eye-to-Eye Here is a link to Thom Gillespie's youtube video about "T-283 Final Project” www.youtube.com/watch?v=chjFz36EChg Dennis Yuzenas on youtube.com youtube.com/watch?v=ZnR_nCakIKk www.WhatDoYaKnow.com 9 minutes with Yuzenas show possible connections between technology and curriculum. Dennis is at 1-561 792 0740 or yuzenasd@palmbeach.k12.fl.us To support project-based learning with a RUBRIC, why not use this microsoft office product? (suggested by Thom Gillespie) | The collection of links serves as a portal to innovative schooling. Let's look at four quotes Time Must Be A Variable For Student Success Nowhere in my readings have I found encouragement and funds to reward systems that are trying to build an educational environment based on students’ mastery and making time a variable. As long as time is fixed, then student progress is what is variable within the fixed time frame. Thus, 30% of the student population is punished through failures. If we moved in core areas - mainly English and Math - to Computer Based Learning ("CBL" or Computer Assisted Instruction “CAI”), the student becomes the class and each student is given time to master the materials. Further, what is learned becomes a tool for future learning. In science and social studies, projects that are meaningful to students can be agreed and assigned. Small groups then may use technology for research purposes as well as to make powerpoint presentations to fellow students. This transformation cannot be done without the community, without curriculum design and without teachers who are trained to utilize the environment correctly. A. Fischler TheStudentIstheClass.com Memorization Give 21st Century Students Time to Understand We can all agree that it is important for students to graduate from high school. However, what happens when “graduating” from high school does not necessarily represent an understanding of the basic skills needed in college and the workplace? More than half of the students entering public colleges and universities in Florida need remedial classes in math, reading, and writing prior to starting their college classes. The problem is NOT the amount of money we are putting into our public schools; rather, the structure and curriculum of public education needs reform. Memorizing information for the FCAT or College Placement Test is not going to equip students with the skills needed for the 21st century. Students need to learn to analyze, understand, and explain rather than memorize, recite, and regurgitate facts and information. A student cannot be expected to master division if he or she does not know what dividing numbers truly means. Subjects—particularly reading and math—need to be taught on a student’s individual timeframe. Learning should be measured against each student’s past markers of progress. We must enable students to learn at varying rates so they come to understand and analyze information in a way that is useful and accessible both to them personally and for the 21st century. We must change our expectations about time and make conceptual understanding (not rote repetition) our first priority. Abraham Fischler Teachers: Unfortunately, to most people, teaching is the giving of knowledge. What are you going to tell the students? What is your expertise? But teaching is really about bringing out what's already inside people. Dennis Littky BigPicture.org In the early 1970s, I was placing student teachers in schools with “open classrooms.” These schools were influenced by a big movement in the '60s that said having kids doing projects in small groups was a better set-up for learning than the traditional lecture format. One of my student teachers, a young, idealistic woman, turned to me one day and said, “This is great, but when am I really going to learn how to teach?” She was standing there in an exciting, rich learning environment, but she couldn't see it because it didn't match her idea of what teaching was, which was standing up in front of the room, looking out at quiet rows of faces, and pouring knowledge into them. --- Chapter 1, The Big Picture, Dennis Littky MetCenter.org <<<<< These links support the world described by these quotes. |