Professional Learning Conversations

Developing Confident Lifelong Learners

2011-01-18T12:42:00.001-06:00

The second outcome named in the new GSL mission statement is to develop confident lifelong learners. Seems to me this has many separate parts:

How does one develop confidence?

How do we engender learning for one's whole life?

How does one learn to learn?

How does one instruct the skills of learning?

Then, there are the institutional issues:

How do I develop a lifelong learner in my classroom? in our division? at our school?

If each individual, each division, and the school are to perform on this mission promise, it will be by paying attention and acting with intention. So, what are the steps in that?

Confidence, Efficacy, and Self-Reliance

2011-01-18T12:32:00.016-06:00

Confidence is a sense of knowing you can prevail over a challenge or a struggle. One develops this sense of knowing (one's confidence) by having positive experiences of overcoming challenge, difficulty, and struggle. One becomes confident as one connects effort to mastery. Confidence is a mindset.

How does a child develop confidence at various ages?

What is a parent's role in challenge and confidence?

What is a teacher's role in challenge and confidence?

Are our assessments effective in creating confidence, efficacy, and learning motivation?

How can school best be structured and design to offer a variety of challenge learning?

Pitfalls to avoid:

Criticism, which is different from guidance

Cynicism

Overprotection and rescuing

Lack of feedback and reflection

Confidence builders:

an awareness of strengths, personality, and other self-knowledge

ability to analyze a situation and develop a sense of where to start

knowing how to learn and develop, deliberative practice

honest support of a community

praise of effort and process

willingness and ability to see mistakes as necessary part of learning process

Some related reading:

Psychological Resilience
Positive Psychology
Maslow and Esteem
Self-Efficacy

Learning about Learning

2011-01-18T12:22:00.000-06:00

Education psychologist J. H. Flavell first used the word metacognition. He describes it in these words:

"Metacognition refers to one’s knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive processes or anything related to them, e.g., the learning-relevant properties of information or data. For example, I am engaging in metacognition if I notice that I am having more trouble learning A than B; if it strikes me that I should double check C before accepting it as fact."

In plainer words, metacognition is knowing about how you learn, having reliable learning strategies and skills, and knowing when to use each for maximum performance.

For one to be a lifelong learner, he or she must be a knowledgeable and expert learner, and he or she must be motivated to learn i.e. curious.

How do I learn best, most effectively?

What are my learning tools?

Am I curious and motivated to learn?

Does my environment support my individual learning style and needs as well as my curiosity?

What is in the way of my learning?

What do I need to learn? Why?

Metacognition: An Overview

About Metacognition

Curiosity

2011-01-18T12:12:00.000-06:00

The important thing is not to stop questioning… Never lose a holy curiosity. - Albert Einstein

Curiosity, imagination, and creativity are often cited as qualities of genius. These are qualities of active and inquiring minds. These are qualities of wonder, which children are born with, not in limited form, but in a driving and motivating form that helps them develop and learn, on their own. Buckminster Fuller shared the idea that all children were born geniuses, and that it was the process of schooling that de-geniused them. Picasso described his aim in life as trying to recover his childlike wonder and vision, that unbridled curiosity that drives young children's chorus: why? why? tell me why? Curiosity is a trait of a growth mindset.

Curious people ask questions.
Curious people believe they have the ability to listen, understand, make connections, and learn.
Curious people are open and attentive.
Curious people are driven by wonder and intellectual yearning.
Curious people are good observers and good at connecting ideas.
Curious people are more likely to be optimistic and feel empowered to contribute.
Curious people are lifelong learners.

Is school set up to engender and develop curiosity?
Can you learn without being curious - i.e. "doing school"?
Can you lose and regain curiosity?
Can an non-curious teacher create a learning environment that fosters curiosity?
What are we curious about and how are we developing that curiosity?

Related reading:
Life Hack and Why Curiosity is Important
The Power of Curiosity

Assessing Lifelong Learning

2011-01-18T12:01:00.000-06:00

How will we measure and assess confident lifelong learning?

How will we determine, create, and model the right inputs?

How will we talk about developing lifelong learning and the proof in ourselves, our students, our institution, and our community as a result of our efforts?

What does confident lifelong learning look like? What are the attitudes and behaviors manifested?

What must be existence and true on a daily basis for our vision of what lifelong learning looks like to come true?

How do we shift from where we are today to making that vision come true?

Discussing Our Mission

2010-09-18T18:00:00.000-05:00

The new mission statement:

Grace St. Luke's Episcopal School

prepares

boys and girls

to become

creative problems solvers,

confident lifelong learners,

and

responsible citizens

in their communities and the world.

- approved by the Board of Trustees, May 2010

In our three professional learning conversations this year, we will discuss practical implications, challenges, opportunities, questions, and concerns stemming from the new mission statement. Each session will be devoted to discussion of the three stated student outcomes of the mission statement.

Wednesday, September 22nd
Creative Problem Solvers

Wednesday, January 19
Confident Lifelong Learners

Wednesday, April 20th
Responsible citizens in their communities and the world

Creative Problem Solvers

2010-09-18T17:59:00.001-05:00

Creative problem-solving is the process of developing a solution to a problem for which there is not pre-determined right answer. There are many parts to this process, all of which can be taught for mastery. Some of the steps are identification of the problem, exposure of the assumptions that underpin our understanding of the problem, generating solution needs, gathering necessary information needed to develop a solution, solution creation and communication.

Creative problem-solving is grounded in higher order thinking skills and synthesis of information rather than matching an answer to a problem that is given.

Creative problem-solving always requires creativity. Creativity is to be understood in this way as generating new - new perspective, new use of information, new combination of information. Creativity is the act of creating or developing.

One cannot be creative in solving a problem for which there is one well-known and expected right answer.

Teaching in the 21st Century: Why Creativity Now by Ken Robinson

2010-09-18T17:50:00.000-05:00

Creativity is a process that involves critical thinking and critical judgment as well as imaginative insights. The societal challenges we face currently are without precedent in history. Students that are in school today will have the responsibility to solve these overbearing problems of our society: poverty in the world, economic disparities, social unrest and conflict, limited global resources to name a few.

Our Creativity Crisis

2010-09-18T17:46:00.001-05:00

Over the summer, two articles about the importance of creativity and developing disciplines thinking skills were published. Both are worth reading because they add to the conversations that are ongoing in education about teaching 21st century skills.

Newsweek: The Creativity Crisis by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

Fast Company: The Most Important Quality for CEOs? Creativity

How Creative Are You?

2010-09-18T17:45:00.001-05:00

Newsweek slideshow: How Creative are You?

This slideshow offers a few completed tests of the Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT). The Torrance Test of Creative Thinking (TTCT) purports to measure one's ability to build on ideas, have original ideas, to use a varied perspective like seeing an object from a different angle. Although the test is visual and based in drawing, it is not a measure of artistic ability.

The TTCT is a 90 minutes test and has three parts:

1. Thinking Creatively with Pictures measures creative thinking using three picture-based exercises to assess five mental characteristics: fluency, originality, elaboration, abstractness of titles, and resistance to closure.

2. The Figural TTCT contains abstract pictures and the examinee is requested to state what the image might be.

3. The Verbal TTCT: contains presents the examinee with a situation and gives the examinee the opportunity to ask questions, to improve products, and to “just suppose.”

The TTCT is normed for age 5+.

Points are deducted from the score for responses that are very common and points are awarded for originality.

Teaching (Math) Creatively

2010-09-18T11:45:00.001-05:00

Dan Meyer is a high school math teacher who spoke at TEDxNYed 2010. Dan says that the way we teach math is not preparing our students to expect and know how to solve complex problems because we teach right answer learning, not necessarily thinking. His talk is quite convincing. If we want problem solvers, we need to prepare them by giving them the necessary motivation and skills: perseverance, reasoning, relevance, initiative, problem formulation, confidence, creative and imaginative thinking. Dan is talking about math, but really his ideas about how and what we teach applies to all subjects and all ages.

What can Students Do?

2010-09-17T23:44:00.002-05:00

What can students do? The answer to this question lies in what you believe about the process of education and the role of the student. Reggio thought gets at this issue by articulating their vision of the child as genius and capable. This is in contrast to the mechanistic view of education that we have inherited from the Industrial Age which seems the child more as a blank slate to which we must rigorously add consistent, compatible and uniform inputs, like building a car or any assembled item on a production line.

If you believe children are already genius and subscribe to the idea that they need facilitators to define the path and be ready to help find knowledge and resource as needed, then you will offer students a wholly different learning environment and learning experience, one that is potentially problem-solving oriented, process-oriented, entrepreneurial and focused on skills and thinking development more so than content kill and drill.

What can students do? This video is from one of Tina Seelig's classes on entrepreneurialism at Stanford. These student are just a little older than middle school or high school students, but what they can do is nothing short of change the world. High school students, middle school students, and younger kids can as well....., that is, if we let them; if we help them, if we provide the proving grounds.

Do Bands

Adora Svitak: What Adults Can Learn From Kids

Change the World in 5 Minutes - Everyday at School

Previous Professional Learning Conversations

2010-09-12T18:00:00.001-05:00

School Year 2009 - 2010
The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner, 21st century survival skills

Making Learning Whole by David Perkins, teaching for understanding: "It's about the learning!"

Blooms 3.0, technology is an essential tool.

Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change How the World Learns by Clayton Christensen, Michael Horn, and Curtis Johnson: Learning as we know it, is obsolete.

Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, why we don't do what we say is needed.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink, understanding motivation.

School Year 2008 - 2009
The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, and the changed world is changing education

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-brainers Will Rule The Future by Daniel Pink; is a whole new school needed?

Out of Our Minds by Sir Ken Robinson: are schools killing creativity?

Five Minds for the Future by Dr. Howard Gardner: varied learners and strengths focus

"Digital Native, Digital Immigrants" by Marc Prensky

What is Your Learning Story? -- setting a path forward that helps us stay ahead

School Year 2007 - 2008
The Price of Privilege: How Parental Pressure and Material Advantage are Creating A Generation of Unhappy and Disconnected Children by Madeline Levine

Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck

Totally Wired: What Tweens and Teens Are Really Doing Online by Anastasia Goodstein

The Path to Purpose: Helping Our Children Find Their Calling in Life by William Damon

Your Child's Strength: Discover Them, Develop Them, Use Them by Jenifer Fox

Other:
Not Much Just Chillin': The Hidden Lives of Middle Schoolers by Linda Perlstein

Dan Pink Bio

2010-04-13T20:58:00.000-05:00

A free agent himself, Dan Pink says he "held his last real job in the White House," where he served from 1995 to 1997 as chief speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore. He also worked as an aide to U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich and in other positions in politics and government.

Pink's articles on business and technology appear in many publications, including the New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Wired, where he is a contributing editor. He has provided analysis of business trends on CNN, CNBC, ABC, NPR, and other networks in the U.S. and abroad. He also lectures to corporations, associations, and universities around the world on economic transformation and the new workplace.

Pink earned a BA, with honors, from Northwestern University, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a JD from Yale Law School. To his lasting joy, he has never practiced law. He lives in Washington, DC, with his wife and their three children.

Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

2010-04-13T20:54:00.000-05:00

In February of 2010, Daniel Pink published his fourth book about work. Here is a brief outline of his work treatises:

1) 2002 - Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself
This book looks at the rise of the individual entrepreneur, the creative, the "free agent" who seeks to do meaningful work for himself and rejects the structure and limitations of the corporate enterprise. Technology has reached the point that an individual can produce and connect like never before and compete with larger enterprises.

2) 2006 - A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future
This book identifies the 6 new skills will define those that are irreplaceable in organizations of the future: story, empathy, sympathy, meaning, design, play. This book was a breakout success in the independent school world as its ideas converged with a shifting in the conversation about how we are educating our students for a whole new technology driven "wiki world" that requires less content knowledge and more thinking skills and abilities. How are we in our schools fostering right brain skills?

3) 2008 - The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need
This book targeted the in college and recently graduated young adults to inspire them to jump headlong into the new world of work despite having been educated and indoctrinated by very conventional educational institutions. There are 6 big ideas:
1) There is no plan. Learn as you go - lifelong learning
2) Think Strengths, not weaknesses. Discover and make your strengths a competitive advantage.
3) It's not about you. It's about empathy for your client.
4) Persistence trumps talent every time. Have a growth mindset
5) Make excellent mistakes. Learning is hands on.
6) Leave an Imprint. Have a large, transformative purpose.

4) 2010 - Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates You
Drive is based on the premise that the factory model organization for the industrial age with its systems, structures, and motivation assumptions will not yield the inspiring, creative, innovative work environments that we need in today's culture. The old Motivation 2.0 way of sticks and carrots (rewards and punishments), Pink argues, is actually a factor in perpetuating the sluggish status quo organization that keeps plugging along while the world changes around them.

Motivation 3.0 is about three main ideas: autonomy, mastery, purpose:

autonomy - self direction and trusted environments are fulfilling and motivating;
mastery - we need authentic feedback and challenges that match our skills and interests;
purpose - a sense of creating and impacting something larger than ourselves.

For schools, Drive can be used to think about three big areas:

an individual's personal performance and engagement;
an team or division's structures and systems and the motivation tools used as we strive to reach goals;
the classroom and the environment that the teacher creates and manages for the learner.

Dan Pink at TED

2010-04-13T20:53:00.001-05:00

The Science about what motivates us.

Finding Your Purpose

2010-04-13T20:50:00.002-05:00

What is your sentence?

Daniel Pink asserts in his new book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us that asking yourself two questions each and every day is a great discipline to becoming motivated and reflective about your own performance.

The first question of what is your sentence? (fill in the blank "________________________") asks us to think about our purpose, our legacy, our individual mission. If we know what we are about and what we are working so hard to do everyday for ourselves, our family, our community and our world, then we should be able to express it as validation and aspiration in a single sentence. This sentence becomes a powerful reminder of our mission and the legacy we are striving to create.

The genesis of the one sentence idea come from Clare Luce Booth's statement to President Kennedy that every great man is a sentence. Why? Because it focuses his energy, his efforts, his aspirations. Bill Taylor, who blogs for Harvard Business Review, extends the one sentence challenge to companies in his article What's Your Company's Sentence?

The second sentence that Dan Pink recommends that we use, like a one-two punch combo, is was I better today than yesterday? Success at anything, personal or professional, takes intention, diligence, and discipline. Improvement is incremental. Each day is a part of the journey and it is through self-observation and self-reflexive objective feedback that we are able to chart our course.

Pink writes extensively about people not getting enough feedback, on the job and off. Annual professional reviews are hardly great sources of information that we are motivated to act on. Think of a professional athlete. They get feedback from their coach and from their own highly developed mechanism of self-awareness and self-observation with each attempt. Pink asserts that professionals on the job would not only benefit from more frequent and meaningful feedback but that they would be more motivated to act upon the feedback and adjust their actions.

Watch this vimeo to hear Dan Pink's story of the two questions.

Two questions that can change your life from Daniel Pink on Vimeo.

What's your sentence?

Inspiring and Motivating a Group

2010-04-13T20:30:00.002-05:00

What makes a workplace engaging, healthy, fulfilling, and productive? This is one of the questions that Dan Pink addresses in Drive. The old industrial age thinking is that rewards motivate us and punishment encourages us to behave right. Pink suggests that rewards and punishment work in the short term and for routine, tedious tasks that are quantifiable and measurable like stuffing envelopes on a tight deadline, paying per envelope is a good incentive. But, Pink says, that sort of incentive does nothing to inspire and motivate creative, innovative thinking and problem-solving which is a huge part of most organizations these days, schools included, as we adapt to this very changed work environment with very shifted education outcomes.

So, what motivates and inspires creative problem solving? Below are a few suggestions from Dan Pink's Drive.

1) Google's 20% Time or Fedex Days
Having the time to focus and work uninterrupted on something that interests you, whose work you can direct the pace and depth of, that is meaningful and important. Many of Google's innovative products and services have come from the autonomous work of their engineers during 20% time where they spent 20% of their work time of a project of interest to them. Another version is Fedex days where everyone in the organization has to deliver something for the good of the whole overnight, they can choose the project scope, whom they would like to work with, how to present the results using the constraints of time and budget imposed by the company. This is a terrific way to get everyone focused on the whole and sharing the responsibility for innovation and improvement.

2) Peer to Peer Bonuses
Recognition and validation for good work is a huge motivator. One firm Pink highlights in Drive has authorized the whole team to give any co-worker a $50 bonus on the spot for work that is remarkable and exceptional. There is great meaning and sense of reward in one's work being noticed and revered by peers who are more trusted and considered more authentic than management.

3) What's our company's one sentence and how are we doing at that?
One thing that should characterize an good independent schools is that there mission is relevant, actionable, and transformative. And, that each person and each division in the environment strives to live that mission. So, being mission-driven could provide a unifying sense of purpose, a specific plan and focus for mastery, as well as opportunities for autonomy and creativity.

Motivation: Whose Responsibility is it?

2010-04-13T20:30:00.001-05:00

One of the questions that Dan Pink raises in Drive is whose responsibility is it to motivate me - me or my boss? Really the answer is that the individual should seek to use the aspects Motivation 3.0 to become more excited and engaged in their work AND that the organization should seek to create, reinforce, and support an exciting, fulfilling, creative, motivating work environment with its structures, systems, aesthetics, and policies.

Unlike Motivation 2.0 where the system is structured around fear and scarcity, perform or be punished, Motivation 3.0 is about the mutual alignment of the individual becoming fulfilled and self-actualized as well as the aims of the organization reached in the process.

Here are some ways that Dan Pink suggested that an individual might increase their own motivation:

1) What's your sentence?
Develop your one sentence purpose statement that is transformative and gives meaning to your daily effort; gauge your own mastery and fulfillment of this purpose each day.

2) Take your own Flow reading.
Stanford psychologist Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi quantified and writes about the concept of "flow" where one is so focused and deep in thought about an idea or activity that you lose all sense of time. This is a feeling when your effort is so enjoyable and meaningful that you work without knowledge of the time passing. Developing knowledge of what circumstances and areas of interest give you flow or that feeling such that your skills are matched with the challenge at hand and you want to work endlessly in that arena will allow you to self-direct your projects, your assignments and responsibilities, and your daily rhythms to enhance the feeling of flow. If your environment and work never offer you a sense of flow, maybe you are in the wrong line of work.

3) DIY Performance Reviews.
It is common, standard practice in organizations to have performance reviews. Most are not helpful because the employee has little to no interest or say in what is review, how, when, where, etc. Pink suggests that if you are truly interested and desiring and mastering your field, set your own goals because you want to not because you have to, and make your own strategic plan for mastery, routinely give yourself helpful, honest feedback and write each month your own performance review of your own effort, work ethic, feedback system, etc etc. He even suggests, if you are serious about this, to solicit others' opinions willingly about your performance.

4) Two important questions.
Similar to the exercise to develop your own sense of purpose, Pink suggests using Alan Webber's guiding questions to develop a higher sense of purpose. Alan Webber was the co-founder of Fast Company magazine and author of the recent book Rules of Thumb. Webber suggests two questions for an individual looking to be fulfilled, inspired, and sustained over a long career. The two questions are:

What gets you up in the morning?

What keeps you up at night?

Webber suggests writing out one sentence answers to these two questions over a period of days or weeks until you hit upon two one sentence answers that offer you clarity about what you do each day and why, in effect becoming beacons of purpose.

Motivating Students

2010-04-13T20:00:00.000-05:00

The question of motivating students is really about developing intrinsic motivation and a desire to learn and engage in practice v. creating an environment where students are motivated by external rewards like stickers, privileges, grades, money. Pink suggests that external rewards can be effective for some tasks that are routine and easily defined and measured for the short term but actually external motivation can also intimidate a child from taking risks and reaching for hard tasks.

Pink's ideas are grounded in Carol Dweck's work about the difference between fixed mindset and growth mindset. A child with a belief that intelligence if a fixed entity and that hard work is not necessary if you are smart will stop working toward mastery because lack of high performance might symbolize lack of intelligence and acceptance. Where are a child that believes hard work results in better performances will be internally motivated to work hard to achieve and grow over a sustained period of time.

Pink offers some interesting ideas to motivate students:

1) Scrutinize homework for autonomy, mastery, purpose. Ask these questions:

Am I offering students any choice and self direction opportunity in how, when, with whom to do this work?

Does this assignment promote mastery or is it repeating something we know how to do?

Do my students understand the big picture purpose of this assignment?

2) Have Fedex Days for students.

Set aside a large block of time for students to identify and solve a problem that is important to the classroom or school environment. Let them chose the what, when, where, and how and deliver results in a public forum. Lots of 21st century skills would be required and reinforced for this project like collaboration, teaming, entrepreneurialism, critical thinking, communication, initiative, etc, etc.

3) Try DIY report cards.

Guide students in the process for identifying a goal, making a plan, working the plan, gauging process, gathering feedback and adjusting. While this is an important strategic learning thinking process, it is also an important life skill.

4) Reinforce a growth mindset. Model a growth mindset.

Praise effort and strategy, not intelligence or outcome.

Make praise specific.

Praise in private.

Offer praise only when there's good reason for it, when something is exceptional.

5) Turn students into teachers.

Give students a learning objective while teaching a lesson and then let them direct the specifics. One of the best ways to accomplish mastery is to try to teach it. It would be ideal if a student could combine this experience with an area of interest or passion and then you might be able to expose a kid to the feeling of flow as he engages in teaching something he is already motivated about.

Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey

2010-03-22T15:42:00.001-05:00

Robert Kegan is the William and Miriam Meehan Professor in Adult Learning and Professional Development at Harvard University. Additionally he is the Educational Chair for the Institute for Management and Leadership in Education and the Co-director for the Change Leadership Group. Kegan is a psychologist who teaches, researches, writes, and consults about adult development, adult learning, and professional development. His work explores the possibility and necessity of ongoing psychological transformation in adulthood. He is also interested in the fit between adult capacities and the hidden demands of modern life, and when there is a gap, how adults can best traverse that gap. In addition to his faculty appointment, Kegan serves as educational chair of the Institute for Management and Leadership in Education; as co-director of a joint program with the Harvard Medical School to bring principles of adult learning to the reform of medical education; and as co-director of the Change Leadership Group, a program for the training of change leadership coaches.

Lisa Lahey is associate director of the Change Leadership Group at the Graduate School of Education at Harvard and co-founder and do-director of Minds At Work. An expert in adult development and an experienced practicing psychologist and educator, she works with leaders and leadership teams in both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. With a doctorate from Harvard in developmental psychology, she combines her expertise of individual development with a deep knowledge of organizational psychology and teamwork. Her work focuses on the interconnection between these two arenas of change, with the goal of helping teams and groups to support individuals’ development and for individuals to enable teams to perform optimally. She specializes in helping adults close the gap between their good intentions and intended results by focusing on expanding mindsets and behavior options.

Kegan and Lahey are the authors of:

Immunity to Change: How to Overcome it and Unlock Potential in Yourself and your Organization (2009)
Change Leadership: A Practical Guide to Transforming Our Schools” (2006)
How The Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work (2001)

Immunity to Change

2010-03-22T15:30:00.001-05:00

Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization, published in January of 2009.

As adult learning experts, Kegan and Lahey are intrigued by why adults don't adapt to conditions that are necessary or even life enhancing. Situations that don't seems rational include the smoker who continues to smoke despite health issues, or the heart patient that refuses to change their lifestyle, or why people are so unsuccessful in changing their diet permanently?

The answer, they conclude, is that change is difficult, especially for adults who have invested many years in developing coping behaviors and underlying beliefs that actually compete with the new behavior that is needed. In Immunity to Change Kegan and Lahey discuss the steps necessary for adults individual and teams in organizations to discover what hidden commitments keep them locked in their habitual ways of thinking and behaving, keeping them immune to change.

Successful adaptation or change for adults (individuals and whole teams) begins with discovering the hidden or competing commitments and the set of beliefs (mindset) that keeps those behaviors strongly locked in place. Only by changing the mindset can individuals or teams make progress in adapting new behaviors.

This book is important to independent school audiences because it is a detailed and pragmatic companion work to Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck and because of the many, many schools seeking to achieve growth and adaptive change in their cultures.

Bloom's Taxonomy - Learning In Action

2009-11-12T20:14:00.004-06:00

Benjamin S. Bloom (1913 – 1999) was an American education psychologist who is best known for his mastery learning theory. Bloom received his bachelor's and master's degrees from Penn State University and a Ph. D. in education from the University of Chicago. In addition to serving as professor at the University of Chicago, Bloom advised the ministeries of education in foreign nations like Israel and India.

His basic theory of mastery learning is that learning objectives could be organized according to their cognitive complexity. His interest was in providing teachers a tool not only for assessment but for creating successful learning sequences in their lessons.

Bloom published his taxonomy in the 50's and it has been revised many times over the years. It is interesting to note that Benjamin Bloom, never used a pyramid to illustrate his taxonomy.

Bloom's Pyramid

2009-11-12T20:13:00.001-06:00

Now we see Bloom's in a more familiar representation, the pyramid. The idea behind learning taxonomies or classifications systems is that there is a hierarchical ladder of learning processes that one proceeds through. Higher order thinking would be those cognitive processes near the top of the pyramid which theoretically require base level knowledge and understanding. In Bloom's taxonomy, for example, skills involving analysis, evaluation and synthesis (creation of new knowledge) are thought to be of a higher order, requiring different learning and teaching methods, than the learning of facts and concepts.

Another Visual Bloom's

2009-11-12T20:12:00.000-06:00

This is another visual representation of Bloom's found on the wikispace Edorigami. Andrew Churches is the organizer of this wiki and can tell you an amazing amount of information about Bloom's then and now. The advantage of looking at Bloom's in this way is the idea that learning can begin at any point and that knowledge, skills, and affectation (mindset) all work together. Don't let the more complicated and less controlled nature of this visual be off-putting.

Bloom's Taxonomy - Basic Review

2009-11-12T19:54:00.003-06:00

This video provides a basic overview of Bloom's taxonomy and its laddered stages. The guy is Dave Knopp and he is director of assessment and evaluation somewhere.

Bloom's Taxonomy - Basic Review Part 2

2009-11-12T19:53:00.001-06:00

Dave Knopp with Part 2 of Bloom's review. This video focuses on the words to use when creating assessments.

Bloom's Taxonomy - Basic Review Part 3

2009-11-12T19:52:00.002-06:00

Dave again, with part 3 of basic review of Bloom's taxonomy. At this point, I would call this a thorough review! Thank you, Dave!

Bloom's Modified

2009-11-12T19:50:00.002-06:00

And, then people started messing with Bloom's, updating it for the way we teach and the way we learn now. This is a pretty good video, make in the Commoncraft style. Interesting that this guy (an English teacher) just decided to make this video. He has had over 5300 views. Pretty good!

Bloom's modified Part 2

2009-11-12T19:10:00.001-06:00

In this video, writing is the top and the guy shows how to use What, Why, How to teach paragraph writing.

Bloom's 1990's

2009-11-12T19:09:00.000-06:00

During the 1990's, Lorin Anderson worked with David Krathwohl to reconsider Bloom's Taxonomy. They published the Revised Taxonomy (pictured above) in 2001.

As is easy to notice, the major revision, as simple as it may seem, is the use of verbs rather than nouns for each of the levels. The other huge difference is a new understanding of the sequence and work accomplished in the levels. Here is a comparison:

Original Bloom's Revised Bloom's (from lowest order to highest)
Knowledge Remembering
Comprehension Understanding
Application Applying
Analysis Analyzing
Synthesis Evaluating
Evaluation Creating

It is interesting to note that Creating became the highest order thinking domain in the revised Bloom's.

Activities with the Domains

2009-11-12T19:08:00.000-06:00

There are many ways to learn and assess mastery in each of the Bloom's domains. What Bloom's (old and new) tries to capture is the learning process, creating understanding about how we learn.

Reasoning through the sequence, learning basically happens like this:

Before we can understand a concept, we have to remember it.

Before we can apply the concept, we must understand it.

Before we analyze a concept, we must be able to apply it.

Before we can evaluate its importance or impact, we must have shown proficiency in application.

Before we can create, making our own use of the concept, we must have remembered, understood, applied, analyzed, and evaluated the concept.

Creating is the highest order of thinking and learning mastery.

The process is one of basic knowledge acquisition, deepening understanding, new knowledge creation.

Student Voices

2009-11-12T19:07:00.001-06:00

Bloom's 3.0

2009-11-12T19:07:00.000-06:00

Obviously the reconsideration and redefinition of Bloom's that occurred in the 1990's did not include the huge advances in technology and the social revolution of collaboration that we have witnessed to date. Not to worry, Mike Fisher of DigiGogy has revisioned Bloom's once again.
DigiGogy is his blog about teaching with the new digital tools.

The question that this visual suggests is how are we using the free, digital tools at our disposal, to lead our students through knowledge acquisition, deepening understanding, and creating?

21st Century Pedagogy

2009-11-12T19:06:00.000-06:00

Greg Whitby is an Austrailian educator and is one of the foremost voices of what challenges and opportunities the 21st century is presenting. He is the Executive Director of Schools in the Catholic Diocese of Parramatta, NSW.

In 2007, Whitby was named as the most innovative and creative educator in Australia by the Bulletin Magazine in its annual Smart 100 Awards. In the same year, he received a Presidential Citation from the Australian Council for Educational Leaders of which he has been a Fellow since 2002. Whitby was also made an Apple Distinguished Educator "for his contribution to the implementation of Learning Technologies in Education".

Classroom 2.0

2009-11-12T19:05:00.000-06:00

Classroom 2.0 is a great, easy, free resource for teachers wanting to learn about integration of technology and collaboration into the classroom and curriculum. They have interested speakers and guest in their forums. There events are in the early evening and on Saturday mornings.

David Perkins Bio

2009-10-05T11:27:00.000-05:00

David Perkins earned his Ph.D. in mathematics and artificial intelligence from MIT in 1970. He is currently a senior professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is also senior co-director of of the educational research group, Project Zero.

Perkins researches and writes about teaching for thinking and meaningful learning. His books deal with learning for students in and out of the classroom, for teachers, and for institutions interesting in harnessing the power of their collective knowledge. One of Perkins' impact goals is to facilitate personal and organizational understanding and intelligence. His work reflects a theory of mind that emphasizes the interwoven relationship among thinking, learning, and understanding. The three are dependent upon one another. Meaningful learning leads to understanding and depends on thinking with and about what one is learning. In order words, thinking about what and how you are thinking is important to learning and understanding.

Perkins' titles include:

The Mind's Best Work (1981) a look at the psychology of creativity
The Teaching of Thinking (1985) with Raymond Nickerson and Edmond Smith
Knowledge as Design (1986) about meaningful instruction design
Teaching Thinking: Issue and Approaches (1989) a practicioner's guide
Block: Getting Out of Your Own Way (1990) the psychology of counterintuitive behavior
Smart Schools: From Training Memories to Educating Minds (1992) a new vision of schooling
Inventive Minds (1992) a collection of articles about inventiveness
The Intelligent Eye (1994) learning to think by looking at art
The Thinking Classroom (1995) developing a culture of thinking
Software Goes to School (1995) role of technology in education
Outsmarting IQ (1995) how to grow your intelligence
The Eureka Effect (2000) an investigation and guide to breakthrough thinking
King Arthur's Round Table (2003) how collaborative conversations create smarts
Learning at Work (2005) about leading learning in the workplace
Making Learning Whole (2009) teaching for understanding and engagement

Edutopia's Intro to Project-based Learning

2009-10-05T11:26:00.002-05:00

This is a short and nice video that explains the difference between project-based learning and curriculum learning. This website has a lot of information and resources about project-based learning and experiential learning.

Making Learning Whole

2009-10-05T11:26:00.000-05:00

Using his memories and love of playing baseball as a kid, David Perkins, co-director of Harvard's Project Zero, describes how teaching all subjects at all levels can be made more effective through teaching the "whole game." Perkins presents the 7 principles of teaching the whole game. Here are the main ideas of the book:

"Play the Whole Game" explains how complete treatments of even more complex subjects can be presented in junior versions.
"Make the Game Worth Playing" understanding the whole game makes the game worth playing because students get the point of why they need to know what they're learning.
"Work on the Hard Parts" shows how teaching the whole game reveals gaps in knowledge that can then be addressed and focused on.
"Play Out of Town" challenges learners by taking them out of their comfort zones in a subject. Train them to be able to transfer their learning to related subjects.
"Find the Hidden Game" goes beyond the obvious to teach the rules, tricks, and strategies that are often hidden to students, but essential in the real world.
"Learn from the Team" encourages students to communicate and work with one another to improve learning, even in areas where collaboration is does not come naturally.
"Learn the Game of Learning" makes sure students are taught and given practice in how to learn. Help them become self-managed learners who will continue to learn even when you the teacher are gone.

The principles are universals of learning, applicable to any age from kindergarten through college.

Making Thinking Visible

2009-10-05T11:25:00.000-05:00

One of the biggest evolutions in teaching and learning since we have found ourselves in the knowledge age where information is easily accessible with a click is that the goals for learning are more about thinking than knowing. Knowing content is essential. Each domain still has certain foundational knowledge from which all else flows, however knowing is not enough. Thinking, problem-solving, and working through problems collectively are critical learning goals.

Helping students develop rigorous thinking and analytical abilities as they learn domain knowledge is the goal of "Making Thinking Visible" and "Making Learning Whole." Much of these thinking routines can be accomplished in collaborative learning with teams and with project-based learning.

From Making Thinking Visible by Ron Ritchhart and David Perkins (February 2008) in Educational Leadership

Six key principles of Visible Thinking:

1. Learning is a consequence of thinking. Students understand and remember content better when they think through it. Teaming allows learners to build and share knowledge with each other.

2. Good thinking is part skill and part attitude. It is essential to develop and foster open-mindedness, curiosity, attention and observation skills, imagination, inventiveness, and growth mindsets.

3. The development of thinking is a social endeavor. We learn best from those around us and our engagement with them. Social interaction in classrooms should be all the time, not sporadic.

4. Fostering thinking requires making thinking visible. Externalizing and documenting our thoughts in various ways helps us become aware of our thinking and how to make it grow.

5. Classroom culture sets the tone for learning and shapes what is learned. Depending on their form, these forces can support or undermine the rhythm of thoughtful learning:

(1) classroom routines and structures for learning
(2) language and conversational patterns
(3) implicit and explicit expectations
(4) time allocation
(5) modeling by teachers and others
(6) the physical environment
(7) relationships and patterns of interaction
(8) the creation of opportunities.

6. Schools must be culture of thinking for teachers. Instruction can only improve as teachers learn and develop. Administrators need to value, create, and preserve time for teachers to discuss teaching and learning, grounded in observation of student work.

How do we fostering thinking about thinking in our work across the grades?
What would we like to explore to evolve our practice?
What might be the pros and cons of adopting more thinking routines in our teaching?

Why Teach with Project Learning?

2009-10-05T11:24:00.001-05:00

reprinted from Edutopia

Why Teach with Project Learning?

Project learning, also known as project-based learning, is a dynamic approach to teaching in which students explore real-world problems and challenges, simultaneously developing cross-curriculum skills while working in small collaborative groups.

Because project learning is filled with active and engaged learning, it inspires students to obtain a deeper knowledge of the subjects they're studying. Research also indicates that students are more likely to retain the knowledge gained through this approach far more readily than through traditional textbook-centered learning. In addition, students develop confidence and self-direction as they move through both team-based and independent work.

In the process of completing their projects, students also hone their organizational and research skills, develop better communication with their peers and adults, and often work within their community while seeing the positive effect of their work.

Because students are evaluated on the basis of their projects, rather than on the comparatively narrow rubrics defined by exams, essays, and written reports, assessment of project-based work is often more meaningful to them. They quickly see how academic work can connect to real-life issues -- and may even be inspired to pursue a career or engage in activism that relates to the project they developed.

Students also thrive on the greater flexibility of project learning. In addition to participating in traditional assessment, they might be evaluated on presentations to a community audience they have assiduously prepared for, informative tours of a local historical site based on their recently acquired expertise, or screening of a scripted film they have painstakingly produced.

Project learning is also an effective way to integrate technology into the curriculum. A typical project can easily accommodate computers and the Internet, as well as interactive whiteboards, global-positioning-system (GPS) devices, digital still cameras, video cameras, and associated editing equipment.

Adopting a project-learning approach in your classroom or school can invigorate your learning environment, energizing the curriculum with a real-world relevance and sparking students' desire to explore, investigate, and understand their world. Return to our Project Learning page to learn more.

This article originally published on 2/28/2008

Think-Puzzle-Explore

2009-10-05T11:24:00.000-05:00

Here are the questions that would be used to guide students through the think-puzzle-explore thinking routine.

What do we think we know about this situation?

press the student: What makes you think that?

This first stage is like KWL except one major difference - conditional language: What do we think we know, (but it might not be correct?) This encourages students to offer tentative ideas and personal thoughts and to remain open to inquiry and discovery. Teacher respects the process of student generated ideas and inquiry, pressing for deeper thinking.

What are you puzzling over? More active and engaging than what would you like to know. Invites personal thinking and problem-solving than just stockpiling facts.

How might we solve our puzzles? What means and methods might we use? How might we work together?

goal: to make classroom inquiry more learning oriented than work oriented.

Introduction to Learning by Doing

2009-10-05T11:23:00.002-05:00

This is a 10 minutes video that highlights real students working in teams to think about real world projects, studying everything from worms to robots. The main advantages to this type of learning is that kids retain more of what they are actually able to to, skills such as research and communication skills are easily embedded in the learning, and kids have a voice in what they are learning out. The excitement about learning is very noticeable.

In the middle part of the video, MIT mathemetician talks about the first step to transforming our practice to learning by doing is giving up the idea of a staid and set curriculum and exchange it for pushing and challenging student to think and tackle real work challenges in real time. Learning becomes less controlled and more expansive and creative. Students become managers of their own learning. Students learn knowledge by using it.

Visible Thinking Core Routines

2009-10-05T11:18:00.000-05:00

This site offers a detailed explanation of the core thinking routines:

ore Routines

The core routines are a set of seven or so routines that target different types of thinking from across the modules. These routines are easy to get started with and are commonly found in Visible Thinking teachers' toolkits. Try getting started with with one of these routines.

What Makes You Say That? Interpretation with justification routine

Think Puzzle Explore A routine that sets the stage for deeper inquiry

Think Pair Share A routine for active reasoning and explanation

Circle of Viewpoints A routine for exploring diverse perspectives

I used to Think... Now I think... A routine for reflecting on how and why our thinking has changed

See Think Wonder A routine for exploring works of art and other
interesting things

Compass Points A routine for examining propositions

Learning in Today's World

2009-10-05T11:17:00.001-05:00

Marco Torres is a leading voice in creating engaging and technology rich learning experiences for kids. This video interview students, mostly high school age, about how realistic projects that empower them get them really excited and interested in learning.

Constructivist Learning - Not a New Idea

2009-10-05T11:16:00.000-05:00

This video is a very deliberate and academic look at what project-based and problem-based learning is. The video is direct and thorough, taking the listener through the benefits of project-based learning for developing thinking skills, independents, and concept integration. The video is good about explaining how a teacher might adopt a learning based style where he or she is more facilitator or coach who guides the process instead of the content deliverer.

Expedition-based Learning

2009-10-05T11:15:00.000-05:00

In this video, teachers talk about making learning more relevant and modern by using project-based learning that is interdisciplinary where all the content disciplines are wrapped into one Big Question they choose to learn around. These teachers like the hands-on inquiry based nature and the creative opportunity and collaborative opportunities offered by project-based learning.

5th grade Courtyard Project

2009-10-05T11:14:00.001-05:00

This video starts with a teacher planning meeting where they are starting to design a project for the 5th grade to undertake. It is interesting to see all of the ideas come out and how the teacher collaborate. This discussion highlights how the skills they are trying to engender are so much more forefronted than the content. Content is there but it is really about doing. The video then shows the kids attach the project of the courtyard. They are engaged, working, thinking, learning, and having fun in a real life project that is meaning and real.

Three Phases of Project Development

2009-10-05T11:13:00.002-05:00

from ProjectApproach.org

Projects, like good stories, have a beginning, a middle, and an end. This temporal structure helps the teacher to organize the progression of activities according to the development of the children's interests and personal involvement with the topic of study.

During the preliminary planning stage, the teacher selects the topic of study (based on the children's interests, the curriculum, the availability of local resources, etc.). The teacher also brainstorms her own experience, knowledge, and ideas and represents them in a topic web. This web will be added to throughout the project and used for recording the progress of the project.

Phase 1: Beginning the Project

The teacher discusses the topic with the children to find out the experiences they have had and what they already know about it. The children represent their experiences and show their understanding of the concepts involved in explaining them. The teacher helps the children develop questions their investigation will answer. A letter about the study is sent home to parents. The teacher encourages the parents to talk with their children about the topic and to share any relevant special expertise.

Phase 2: Developing the Project

Opportunities for the children to do field work and speak to experts are arranged. The teacher provides resources to help the children with their investigations; real objects, books, and other research materials are gathered. The teacher suggests ways for children to carry out a variety of investigations. Each child is involved in representing what he or she is learning, and each child can work at his or her own level in terms of basic skills, constructions, drawing, music, and dramatic play. The teacher enables the children to be aware of all the different work being done through class or group discussion and display. The topic web designed earlier provides a shorthand means of documenting the progress of the project.

Phase 3: Concluding the Project

The teacher arranges a culminating event through which the children share with others what they have learned. The children can be helped to tell the story of their project to others by featuring its highlights for other classes, the principal, and the parents. The teacher helps the children to select material to share and, in so doing, involves them purposefully in reviewing and evaluating the whole project. The teacher also offers the children imaginative ways of personalizing their new knowledge through art, stories, and drama. Finally, the teacher uses children's ideas and interests to make a meaningful transition between the project being concluded and the topic of study in the next project.

This summary outline has explained some of the common features of projects, but each project is also unique. The teacher, the children, the topic, and the location of the school all contribute to the distinctiveness of each project.

2009-10-05T11:13:00.001-05:00

This website, ProjectApproach.org, offers lots of resources for project learning with younger children.

Elementary School Garden Project

2009-10-05T11:13:00.000-05:00

This is a short video of a principal who takes about the learning, emotional, and social awards of her elementary school students understanding a garden project at their school. It is a nice commentary on how academic skills like writing can be embedded in meaningful hands-on learning projects.

Tony Wagner Bio

2009-09-16T22:11:00.004-05:00

Tony Wagner is the Co-Director of the Change Leadership Group (CLG) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. He is also the Senior Advisor to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for the past nine years. Wagner has worked for more than thirty-five years in the field of school improvement. Prior to his current position at Harvard, Wagner was a high school teacher for twelve years; a school principal; a university professor in teacher education; co-founder and first executive director of Educators for Social Responsibility; project director for the Public Agenda Foundation in New York; and President and CEO of the Institute for Responsive Education. He has definitely come up the ranks.

Wagner earned a M.A. in Teaching and Ph. D. in Education at Harvard.

Wagner has had two books published in the last year:
The Global Achievement Gap
Change Leadership

Rigor Redefined

2009-09-16T22:10:00.001-05:00

In his article, "Rigor Redefined", Tony Wagner lays out his case for a paradigm shift in education. He outlines 7 sets of survival skills that students need to demonstrate fluency in to be well prepared for the dynamic, global, information-saturated environment that they will relatively soon inhabit independently. While some things are not new, like the communication skills, what is new is the argument that these process-oriented skills are as vital as content-driven curriculum.

This article is an excellent synopsis of Wagner's book, The Global Achievement Gap (GAG), and a lot shorter!

As Wagner explains in the article, GAG tells about the hundreds of interviews he conducted with business leaders asking what they noticed young people lacked. A fascinating and very pragmatic approach: start at where we need to end up and design backwards. The most often answer that Wagner was given was that the young adults need to ask good questions, reflecting a dire need for better critical thinking skills.

“First and foremost, we look for someone who asks good questions,” Parker responded. “We can teach them the technical stuff, but we can't teach them how to ask good questions—how to think.”

"We can teach them the technical stuff", the content. What Wagner discovered was more process-oriented critical thinking skills were needed.

Are our learning environments, teaching habits, and curricular objectives set up to foster the type of critical thinking skills Wagner suggests?

The 21st Century Survival Skills

2009-09-16T22:09:00.002-05:00

Wagner's list of 21st century survival skills is being used widely in education to redesign and reframe curriculum at both the secondary and university level. Wagner asserts that these seven sets of skills are critical for students to gain today in preparation for their future work and citizenship. Here is Wagner's essential list:

1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving

In a society where adaptability to new situations and where there is a need to continually upgrade products, processes and services, Wagner found that business executives told him that the ability to ask the right questions lies at the heart of critical thinking and problem solving. He asserts that in areas where markets quickly change, incremental improvement is no longer an option. Businesses need people who offer options that haven't been done before. In this way, critical thinking is closely aligned with creativity.

2. Collaboration and Leadership

Knowing how to influence for change through collaboration and the use of leadership skills will be critical as the 21st century unfolds. Teamwork will mean more than working with those in your department or building. Today's teams work together across time zones in the U.S. and throughout the world using Web casts, Wikis, Blogs, and virtual telecasts.

3. Agility and Adaptability

Many businesses today expect their employees to think, be flexible, ready to change and use a variety of skills and tools to solve unexpected problems. Wagner shares that Clay Parker at BOC Edwards points out that "I can guarantee the job I hire someone to do will change or may not exist in the future, so this is why adaptability and learning skills are more important than technical skills."

4. Initiative and Entrepreneurialism

Self-directed people who have an achievement focus and a drive for results are being sought out in business and government. The world is facing some very challenging problems and needs creative solutions. Taking initiative and leading teams of peers through influence to solutions that bring about successful change is a highly sought after skill set.

5. Effective Oral and Written Communication

Whether writing a report, sending an e-mail, giving a presentation in a business setting or taking part in the democratic process, effective communication is critical. Effective communication is key in everything we do, especially across cultures. Clear communication of one's thoughts in a concise way that brings focus, energy and passion will allow our students to be more successful in the workplace, society and in making a contribution to the world.

6. Accessing and Analyzing Information

With the advent of the internet, Google searches, and Wikipedia, we know that there is a tremendous amount of information available at the touch of a button. Businesses and effective governments need citizens who are able to process, analyze, and evaluate information effectively. Finding the important details in the information and using it to make informed decisions is critical to effective businesses and a democratic way of life.

7. Curiosity and Imagination

It's not enough in today's world to be smart and get good grades. Highly valued employees must also know how to come up with creative solutions and design products and services that are noticeably different than the competitions. This takes not only intelligence and disciplined thinking but curiosity and imagination as well. Wagner quotes author Daniel Pink from his book A Whole New Mind:

"For businesses it's no longer enough to create a product that's reasonably priced and adequately functional. It must also be beautiful, unique, and meaningful.... In an age of abundance, appealing only to rational, logical, and functional needs is woefully insufficient. Engineers must figure out how to get things to work. But, if those things are not also pleasing to the eye or compelling to the soul, few will buy them. There are too many other options."

How do we create curriculum around these essential skills for all the grade levels we serve?
What is the resistance in doing so?
What do we really believe when we hear, "we already do that"? Do we?
Do the think the traditional teacher-at-the-front-of-the-room teaching style is the best pedagogy for these outcomes? Why or why not?
What do we need to do, learn, adapt, foster in ourselves to create the learning environments and outcome that Wagner suggests?

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills

2009-09-16T22:08:00.000-05:00

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills is the key organization producing a framework for schools and teachers that incorporates 21st century skills through curriculum and project-based learning. Their website is an invaluable resource for teachers and administrators seeking to understand the big picture in 21st century education. Their recommendations combine specific skills, content knowledge, expertise and literacies, not just reading but concepts like media literacy, visual literacy, global literacy (understanding of other cultures).

The foundation recommended is the familiar core subjects: English, World Languages, Arts, Math, Economics, Science, Geography, History, Government. The Partnership for 21st Century Skills also recommends weaving the interdisciplinary themes of global awareness, financial and entrepreneurial literacy, Civic literacy, and Health literacy. So the new core, once more people adapt, will be fuller.

In essence, what the 21st century requires is much of what we have been doing and more. Yet, we only have so much time. So, the bottom line is some things have to go to make room for the breadth that is required. Teaching for content will also have to include the layering of other skills and competencies that can be utilized in a project-based approach. If one has not been teaching in that way, learning about project-based teaching will also be necessary.

Where are we now?
Where do we want to go?
How will we get there?

Councils Release New Maps

2009-09-16T22:07:00.000-05:00

Many of the curriculum councils are partnering with the Partnership for 21st Century Skills (P21). In June the National Science Teachers Association, and the National Council for Geographic Education released new curriculum maps that included the 21st century survival skills that Tony Wagner highlights in The Global Achievement Gap. Maps for social studies and English were released in 2008.

Read about these new maps in Education Week's Curriculum Matters column.

Wagner on YouTube

2009-09-16T22:06:00.005-05:00

"No one has done anything wrong." This is what Wagner believes. The problem, or a better word, is that the world has changed. Fundamentally changed, and education has not. The American education system (public and private) is much as it has been over the last 120 years. Very much design (that you Frederick Taylor) to prepare its students for work in an industrial economy (think GM, Xerox, IBM, newspapers). We now have an information society (think Google). Wagner's message is much like what we heard from Thomas Friedman in The World is Flat, Daniel Pink in A Whole New Mind, and Howard Gardner's Five Minds for the Future. Ladies and Gentlemen, this is not a passing pad. This is a fundamental, lasting shift. Just as we could not imagine going back to carbon copies, memeograph machines, and Britannica Worldbook Encyclopedia A-Z, we will not return to a slower, more stable culture. Schools are in a gap and have to adapt. And, it's difficult for lots of reason.

What are the main reasons we find adaptation difficult?
How might we break through in our understanding, our sense of necessity, and our sense of urgency?

Global Achievement Gap Powerpoint

2009-09-16T22:06:00.004-05:00

This is a nice Powerpoint that summarizes Wagner's GAG. It was posted to YouTube by Ben Johnson, Iowa State University student and Assistant Principal at Fort Dodge Senior High in Fort Dodge, Iowa.

Tony Wagner at The Asia Society

2009-09-16T22:04:00.001-05:00

This is a longer keynote address that Tony Wagner gave to educators this summer at The Asia Society in New York. I like how he formulates the situation in which we as teachers, administrators, and citizens find ourselves: between a rock and a hard place. This is an especially good presentation to help grasp the essential imperative which is a different sort of education that creates different needed outcomes.

Do you believe his case statement and argument?
If not, why not?
If so, what are you prepared to do about it?
How can others support you?
If it were your child caught in this gap, what would you want for him or her?
How would you want school to be different for him or her?

Some Wagner Quotes

2009-09-16T22:03:00.000-05:00

Below are some quotes that I have collected from Wagner's The Global Achievement Gap. As you can infer from his bio and seeing his videos, he is not puffy like some academics. His written language is down-to-earth, clear, yet determined to make his case.

"In today's highly competitive global "knowledge economy," students need new skills for college, careers, and citizenship. The failure to give all students these new skills leaves today's youth-and our country-at an alarming competitive disadvantage. Schools haven't changed; the world has. And so our schools are not failing. Rather, they are obsolete-even the ones that score the best on standardized tests."

"The "problem," simply stated, is that the future of our economy, the strength of our democracy, and perhaps even the health of the planet's ecosystems depend on educating future generations in ways very different from how many of us were schooled."

"The global achievement gap remains invisible to most of us-in part, because it is fueled by fundamental economic, social, political, and technological changes that have taken place so rapidly over the last two decades that they seem more like static in people's lives than like tangible forces that are shaping our future. But these changes are powerful, and until we understand them and rethink what young people need to know in the twenty-first century and how they are best taught, our future as a country remains uncertain."

"I have observed that the longer our children are in school, the less curious they become. Effective communication, curiosity, and critical-thinking skills, as we will see, are much more than just the traditional desirable outcomes of a liberal arts education. They are essential competencies and habits of mind for life in the twenty-first century."

"Corporate CEO most values asking good questions; his child gets into trouble at school for asking the teacher a question. The problem of students getting into trouble for challenging something a teacher says is not new to me, but I found this juxtaposition especially jarring."

"Taking issues and situations and problems and going to root components; understanding how the problem evolved-looking at it from a systemic perspective and not accepting things at face value. It also means being curious about why things are the way they are and being able to think about why something is important. Indeed, Ms. Neal herself went on with a list of questions: What do I really need to understand about this; what is the history; what are other people thinking about this; how does that all come together; what frames and models can we use to understand this from a variety of different angles and then come up with something different?"

(about the schools in Singapore which are called Thinking Schools. Singapore aims to become a Learning Nation)
"Thinking Schools will be learning organizations in every sense, constantly challenging assumptions, and seeking better ways of doing things through participation, creativity and innovation. Thinking Schools will be the cradle of thinking students as well as thinking adults and this spirit of learning should accompany our students even after they leave school. A Learning Nation envisions a national culture and social environment that promotes lifelong learning in our people. The capacity of Singaporeans to continually learn, both for professional development and for personal enrichment, will determine our collective tolerance for change."

A Teacher on 21st Century Teaching

2009-09-15T22:05:00.002-05:00

21st century Pedagogy: We need a new DNA. This is a rather nice video that just states the fundamental gap. A new world needs a new way of teaching the digital learner.

Writing with Voice

2009-09-14T12:20:00.000-05:00

One of the areas most severely underdeveloped, the CEOs reported to Wagner, was young people's ability to write with Voice. They noted that students tended to write without much personality and unable to take a stand, that they writing lacked critical thinking.

These following articles offered further discussion of the importance of teaching students to write persuasively.

Researchers Try to Promote Students Ability to Argue

An Argument Worth Having

2009 - 2010 PLC Schedule

2009-08-30T18:29:00.000-05:00

Wednesday, September 23:
The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner, 21st century survival skills

Wednesday, October 28:
Making Learning Whole by David Perkins, teaching for understanding: "It's about the learning!"

Wednesday, November 18:
Blooms 3.0, technology is an essential tool.

Wednesday, February 10:
Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen, Learning as we know it is obsolete.

Wednesday, March 31:
Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, why we don't do what we say is needed.

Wednesday, April 14:
Drive by Daniel Pink, understanding motivation.

GSL Professional Learning Conversations 2009-2010

2009-08-25T18:09:00.004-05:00

Here are the dates and topics for this year's learning conversations.

Wednesday, September 23:
The Global Achievement Gap by Tony Wagner, 21st century survival skills

Wednesday, October 28:
Making Learning Whole by David Perkins, teaching for understanding: "It's about the learning!"

Wednesday, November 18:
Blooms 3.0, technology is an essential tool.

Wednesday, February 10:
Disrupting Class by Clayton Christensen, Learning as we know it is obsolete.

Wednesday, March 31:
Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, why we don't do what we say is needed.

Wednesday, April 14:
Drive by Daniel Pink, understanding motivation.

Everything Twitter Place

2009-05-17T11:00:00.003-05:00

Alltop.com is the brainchild of Guy Kawasaki,successful Silicon Valley venture capitalist. He got his start as the guy that first marketed Apple's Macintosh computer back in 1984.

Alltop is a cool thing to know about because it can save you lots of time when you are searching a topic because other people have already collated information for you.

It you are trying to get the hang of using Twitter, or if you are trying to figure out why use Twitter at all, the Twitter Alltop space is really helpful. Twitter Alltop

Here is another helpful Alltop: All the top news in Education.

Twitter 101: Clarifying the Rules for Newbies

2009-05-12T22:02:00.004-05:00

This is a helpful list of things to consider if you are new and learning to using Twitter.

Here are the basic considerations:

How many people is a lot of people to follow?

What, how, and why should I tweet?

What are good tweeting habits?

And, of course, do you have twalance (tweet balance)?

Read the brief post here and see if it makes sense to you.

Advice for Teachers New to Twitter

2009-05-12T21:51:00.003-05:00

Liz Davis is the Director of Academic Tech at Belmont Hill School, an independent school outside of Boston. She blogs about the power of technology in transforming learning. I subscribe to her blog and follow her on twitter, and you can, too. Here is a link to her blog and to her twitter profile.

This particular recent post gives advice to teachers that are new to Twitter. It includes the basics like using your real name and a real photo of yourself, filling out your profile info, and what and how often to share. She also lists a number of good people to add to your network if you are a teacher.

Liz is a good teacher to follow. She shares a lot and gets what teachers are interested in and need. Once you follow someone like Liz, look at whom she is following, and start following some of them. That is utilizing good people as a filter. This is how you build up a good and useful network.

9 Great Reasons Teachers Should Use Twitter

2009-05-12T21:20:00.003-05:00

Katie Donald shared this blog post with me tonight. I tweeted it to my network, and I hope you will do the same with yours. I also condensed the 9 things, and posted a link to the orginal blog post by Laura Walker, a Modern Language teacher in a high school in the UK. About Laura.

Here is a great quote from the post:

“Following smart people on Twitter is like a mental shot of expresso!”

1. Together we are better.

2. Global or local: you choose

3. Self-awareness and reflective practice

4. Ideas and workshop sounding board

5. Newsroom and innovation showcase

6. Professional development and critical friends

7. Quality-assured searching

8. Communicate, communicate, communicate

9. Getting with the times has never been so easy.

I would add a 10th, because top 10 lists just rest better: It's fun!

I'll admit that it takes a little time to get your head around why you should invest the time and energy, and it takes a little time and work until you see any payback, but it can become a great source of encouragement, connection, and information for passionate professionals.

Thanks for passing along the info, Katie!

Follow MrsLWalker on Twitter.

9 Great Reason Teachers should Use Twitter original blog post

The Lubin Files: Annotate the web with Diigo. A Technology Review

2009-05-03T17:35:00.001-05:00

Check out this website I found at lubinlib.typepad.com

I am liking Diigo. It has helped me learn to enjoy reading on the web. In fact, I am liking it so much that I transferred all my Delicious bookmarks, so my devotion is feeling pretty permanent at the moment. (That was rather Yogi Bera-ish!)

Posted via web from jamiereverb's posterous

Marc Prensky Bio

2009-03-18T13:00:00.000-05:00

Marc Prensky is an internationally acclaimed speaker, writer, consultant, and designer in the critical areas of education and learning. He is the author of Digital Game-Based Learning, and Don't Bother Me Mom -- I'm Learning.

Prensky is also the founder and CEO of Games2train (whose clients include IBM, Nokia, Pfizer, the US Department of Defense and the LA and Florida Virtual Schools) and creator of the sites www.dodgamecommunity.com and www.socialimpactgames.com.

Prensky has created over 50 software games for learning, including the world's first fast-action videogame-based training tools and world-wide, multi-player, multi-team on-line competitions. He has also taught at all levels.

Prensky has been featured in articles in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, has appeared on CNN, MSNBC, PBS, and the BBC, and was named as one of training's top 10 "visionaries" by Training magazine. He holds graduate degrees from Yale (Teaching) and Harvard (MBA).

Marc Prensky on YouTube

2009-03-18T12:55:00.001-05:00

This YouTube features Marc Prensky talking about handheld learning.

Read About Digital Learning

2009-03-18T12:54:00.000-05:00

Forty years after Joan Ganz Cooney's landmark study stimulated the creation of Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop has established a new center devoted to accelerating children's learning in a rapidly changing world. The Joan Ganz Cooney Center will focus new attention on the challenges children face today, asking the 21st century equivalent of her original question, "How can emerging media help children learn?"

These studies are worth looking at:

Pockets of Potential -- Examining over 25 handheld learning products and research projects in the U.S. and abroad, the report highlights early evidence of how these devices can help revolutionize teaching and learning.

The Power of POW! Wham!: Children, Digital Media and Our Nation's Future -- this paper specifically deals with digital technologies and elementary school students.

Getting Over the Slump: Innovation Strategies to Promote Children's Learning -- this report deals with using media technologies to help 4th grade students get over the reading slump.

Engaging Digital Natives

2009-03-18T12:10:00.000-05:00

In the 21st century, teaching is about "engaging digital natives." What this means is that we adults have a lot of learning and catching up to do compared to our students who were born into a digital age and seemingly with digital intuition.

Below is a comprehensive slideshare presentation that outlines the different aspects of "engaging digital natives."

Marc Prensky Articles

2009-03-18T12:00:00.000-05:00

Marc Prensky has tons of articles posted on his website.
Our discussions are going to focus on these articles:

Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants Digital
Natives, Digital Immigrants Part II
Backup Education?
Marc Prensky's Essential 21st Century Skills
The Role of Technology and Teaching in the Classroom

All of these articles can be downloaded and none are very long.

Digital Learners New Literacies

2009-03-18T11:50:00.000-05:00

This video illustrates Curriculum 2.0

The iTouch for Learning

2009-03-18T11:47:00.000-05:00

How can we use technology in learning everyday? You know the students would like it, so why not?

Just the Right Touch: Culbreth Students Show Off Their iTouch and its Capabilities

"About a dozen Culbreth faculty members also demonstrated how the iPod Touch is useful in their classrooms. Pre-algebra teacher Robert Bales showed how students can pull stats from a recent Carolina basketball game, for example, off of the ESPN application. Bales said the stats are a fun and exciting way to learn about important math fundamentals like fractions, decimals and percentages.

Ann Collins said students in the Culbreth writing center used their iPods to look up YouTube videos of Supreme Court Justice John Roberts swearing in President Obama as part of a discussion on the finer points of public speaking."

Trends in Technology

2009-03-18T11:46:00.001-05:00

The link below is to the 6th Horizon Report which is published annually highlighting and describing the emerging technologies likely to have a great impact on teaching, learning, research, and creative expression in learning environments. This report is the culmination of a long-term research collaboration between the New Media Consortium and EDUCASE Learning Initiative.

Some of the trends discussed in detail are:

Mobile everything
Cloud Computing
Geo-everything
The Personal Web
Gaming for learning
Cell phones in learning

Reading this report gives a great overview of what is on the horizon in technological advancement.

The 2009 Horizon Report

Horizon Report K-12 Edition

Blooms Taxonomy 3.0

2009-03-16T08:00:00.001-05:00

Blooms has been through versions that missed, namely 2.0. But, you can read about Bloom's taxanomy updated for the digial age here:

Blooms 3.0 - large downloadable .pdf

About Jenifer Fox

2009-03-08T14:14:00.002-05:00

Jenifer Fox, author of Your Child's Strengths: Discover Them, Develop Them, Use Them will speak at Grace-St. Luke's Episcopal School on Tuesday, March 31 at 7:00 p.m. in the church sanctuary on the corner of Peabody and Belvedere. Jenifer Fox was the President of Purnell School, an independent, girls boarding high school in New Jersey until this fall when she became the full-time director of The Strengths Movement. Passionately written, Your Child's Strengths proposes a strengths-based philosophy that provides the tools to prepare kids for their future in a world that demands greater adaptability and creative thinking than ever before. Fox draws on both her research and her experience as Head of School to show parents and teachers how to identify a child's strength based on their actions, how to encourage those strengths once you have identified them, and how to help kids implement the strengths they reveal. Fox's strengths curriculum, The Affinities Program, grows out of a belief that building on students' strengths is the best way to help them grow into the people they were meant to become. The program provides specific and engaging exercises and activities to help young people discover their strengths and use them to carve out a path toward a meaningful future.

Jenifer Fox wrote and implemented The Affinities Program, the first four year strengths-based high school curriculum, at Purnell School. The Affinities Program won a Leading Edge Award in 2004 from the National Association of Independent Schools. In 2007, Jenifer Fox, the Purnell School and The Affinities Program were featured in PBS Special "Go Put Your Strengths to Work" with Marcus Buckingham. Fox, Buckingham and Purnell School were featured on The Today Show in April, 2007. Fox earned a B.S. in Communications from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an M.A. in English from Middlebury College and an M. Ed. in School Administration from Harvard University.

Grace-St. Luke's is excited to host Jenifer Fox because her perspective that education should focus on developing each child's strengths and abilities to their fullest potential is a long held belief and school practice. Teachers and school staff are leading the way at Grace-St. Luke's focus on strengths awareness and self understanding by assessing each of their strengths using Tom Rath's book, Strengths 2.0, determining their individual learning styles, which correlate to teaching styles, and by engaging in a multiple day school workshop on Myers-Briggs personality types and conscious communication. Being dedicated to educating children for their future, not our pasts, is driving Grace-St. Luke's initiative to align is programming, organizational learning, and curricular emphasis with the demands of the 21st century culture and marketplace.

Jenifer Fox in Independent School magazine

2009-03-08T14:13:00.000-05:00

There are certain things that educators know, and that is why parents and society entrust them to educate children. One of those things is how children best learn.With rapid advances in technology, there have been rapid and paradigm-shifting streams of new information about how children learn and this creates a big challenge for classroom teachers and schools as they strive to know best how children learn. The rub: how to keep up with the most recent and most helpful information. One of the universal classroom tensions that this situation has created is this, as Jenifer Fox illustrates it:

"Tutoring vs. a Developmental Approach to Learning
If, as educators, we understand how children learn, we know that conceptual structures are formed in sequences and these sequences must be achieved through scaffolding of simple understandings to more complex ones. A variety of factors affect these essential linkages and, if one link is weak, each newly added concept becomes confusing to a child...Many teachers and parents believe that one-on-one tutoring works because kids perform better when the focus is only on one child. Or they believe that a child doesn't understand because the child takes longer to learn and, if the tutor can simply take more time with the student, he or she will grasp the concepts. Both assumptions may be true, but the problem is that, most often, tutoring is practiced as if they are always true. When there is a developmental weakness in a child's conceptual understanding, tutoring will not work unless the tutor understands both where the weakness in the scaffolding occurs, and how to ameliorate understanding. Unless tutoring takes a developmental approach, students will not understand the problems simply because the tutor is working one-on-one or taking more time. "

Learning - whose problem is it? This is one of the most crucial debates infusing education circles across the country right now in both the public and private school arenas: Are teachers responsible for teaching or for student learning, or both?

I am not suggesting that Jenifer Fox and The Strengths Movement is the answer, but without a doubt, Fox is weighing in on the paradigm shift and is one of the leading voices in the conversation.

What do you think?

Read full article:
Questioning The Tutoring Paradigm by Jenifer Fox, Independent School Summer 2008

Jenifer Fox Videos and Podcasts

2009-03-08T14:10:00.000-05:00

You can listen and hear Jenifer Fox talk about the Strengths Movement here:

The Strengths Movement Videos and Audio

Five Minds For The Future

2009-02-09T15:01:00.003-06:00

Howard Gardner's newest book (2007), Five Minds for the Future, outlines the specific cognitive abilities that will be sought and cultivated by business leaders in the years ahead.

The five types of mind that Gardner believes will be most needed in the future are:

The Disciplinary Mind: the mastery of major schools of thought, including science, mathematics, and history, and of at least one professional craft.

The Synthesizing Mind: the ability to integrate ideas from different disciplines or spheres into a coherent whole and to communicate that integration to others.

The Creating Mind: the capacity to uncover and clarify new problems, questions and phenomena.

The Respectful Mind: awareness of and appreciation for differences among human beings and human groups.

The Ethical Mind: fulfillment of one's responsibilities as a worker and as a citizen.

In the sub-category of each of these minds, Gardner outlines the skills and intellectual approaches that adults will need to tap in order to function successfully in the 21st century. Unlike Tony Wagner, who enters the 21st century skills conversation with a defined list of the skills schools need to add to their programming, Gardner describes the end-product of education in these minds, suggesting that one specialize in a particular mindset.

How are we creating these types of minds in our students?

Video Intro of Gardner

2009-02-09T14:59:00.001-06:00

This is a good video about the impact of the theory of multiple intelligence in context of the other thinkers in the field of measuring IQ.

Five Minds Excerpts

2009-02-09T14:59:00.000-06:00

Howard Gardner is suggesting that the Five Minds that he describes increase one's likelihood of success in fulfillment in a hyper-competitive, hyper-connected world where information overload is almost a permanent state of being for many. His newest books is an extension, or is at least congruent, with his theory of Multiple Intelligences in that no one person is realistically expected to be competent at all aptitudes.

Below are mini-descriptions of each mind or aptitude in Gardner's own words:

"The disciplined mind has mastered at least one way of thinking. Without at least one discipline...the individual is destined to march to someone else's tune." Key to understanding this mindset is to understand the difference between learning a discipline versus learning subject matter. Learning a discipline means that you learn to think in a trained way like every other person working in that discipline. Scientists are a good example. Scientists observe the world, develop hypotheses and theories, design experiments etc. There are a myriad of subject areas in science. Subject matter would be the facts, formulas, and historical figures etc. within a certain subject ares. A disciplined mind is a developed and fluid critical thinking framework that is developed.

"The synthesizing mind takes information from disparate sources and puts it together in ways that make sense to the synthesizer and also other people. The capacity to synthesize becomes ever more crucial as information continues to mount at dizzying rates."

"The creating mind breaks new ground. It puts forth new ideas, poses unfamiliar questions, conjures up fresh ways of thinking, arrives at unexpected answers. In doing so, the creating minds seeks to remain at least one step ahead of computers."

"The respectful mind notes and welcomes differences among human individuals and between human groups [cultures]...In a world where we are all interlinked, in-tolerance or disrespect is no longer a viable option."

"The ethical mind conceptualizes how workers can serve purposes beyond self-interest. The ethical minds acts on the basis of analysis [ethical literacy]." Cultural and religious values would play an important part in developing the ethical mind, as well as domains such as philosophy and theology.

Podcast - Five Minds

2009-02-09T14:57:00.000-06:00

Here is the link to Harvard Business Review Ideacast with Howard Gardner"

HBR Ideacast #37: Five Minds for the Future (13:48)

Five Minds for the Future: This week, IdeaCast Producer Steve Singer talks with Howard Gardner, author of the new Harvard Business School Press book Five Minds for the Future. We live in a time of vast changes, and those changes, says Gardner, call for entirely new ways of learning and thinking. In our HBR IdeaCast interview, Gardner defines the cognitive abilities that will command a premium in the years ahead, and helps us understand how we can cultivate them.

Another Gardner Podcast

2009-02-09T14:55:00.002-06:00

Here is another podcast option:

Austalian Institute of Company Directors Five Minds For The Future (29:49)

This interview focuses on the synthesizing brain as it relates to the work that a board member is called to do.

How Children Learn

2009-02-09T14:36:00.000-06:00

This interview talk specifically about The Disciplined Mind.

Howard Gardner: How Children Learn on CNBC

Howard Gardner and Multiple Intelligences

2009-02-09T14:33:00.004-06:00

Howard Gardner is an American psychologist who is based at Harvard University and is best known for his theory of multiple intelligences. The categories of intelligence that Gardner has quantified are: 1) bodily-kinesthetic 2) interpersonal 3) verbal-linguistic 4) logical-mathematical 5) naturalistic 6) intrapersonal 7) visual-spatial 8) musical. His theory was laid out in the 1983 book, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.

The theory of multiple intelligences was proposed by Gardner in 1983. His motivation was to more accurately define the concept of intelligence. His theory argues that intelligence, as it is traditionally defined, does not sufficiently encompass the wide variety of abilities humans display. In his conception, a child who masters multiplication easily is not necessarily more intelligent overall than a child who struggles to do so. The second child may be stronger in another kind of intelligence, and therefore may best learn the given material through a different approach, may excel in a field outside of mathematics. The theory suggests that, rather than relying on a uniform or one-size-fits-all curriculum, schools should offer "individual-centered education" with curriculum tailored to the needs of each child.

Theory of Multiple Intelligence wiki

Howard Garner's homepage

Streamlining Email

2009-01-21T05:10:00.000-06:00

eNews recently published a really good article that provides helpful tips to decrease the amount of email that one manages each day. The article, "Buried in Email? Try These Six Tips to Dig Out," is linked here. Here are the recommended tips:

1. Don't check email first thing when you first start work. Do the most pressing thing of the day before you allow yourself to be distracted by email which tends to become a black hole. Email can give one the false feeling that you are actually getting things done when you are actually losing needed time.

2. Check email in batches instead of all day long as it is received. The author uses the analogy of doing laundry: you won't do a whole load for one pair of dirty socks, would you?

3. Minimize exchanges. This means learning to propose actions and alternative actions so that meetings can be scheduled and plans made with more efficiency. "I can meet at time a, b, or c. Let me know which is good for you and I will mark it on my calendar."

4. Limit sending email. Sending less means receiving less, and shorter emails generate shorter responses. (Be careful with this one and really think about the purpose of the email and the audience. Emails for logistics can be short and sweet. The trick is to consider if other situations are email-appropriate or phone call-worthy.) Also, before sending mass emails, consider if you have permission to use other people's time and mental space with the hottest chain letter or newest poem of advice.

5. Take it to zero. This sounds radical but the author suggests dumping your whole inbox and starting over if it gets too cumbersome. A quick email to your address book stating what you have done and asking people to resend anything pending or important would be in order.

6. Use other forms of communication. There are so many to choose from and now it is a true consideration to choose wisely the most appropriate form of communication.

GSL Speaker Top Ten Most Influential Technologist

2009-01-18T14:35:00.005-06:00

"Women who have succeeded in technology deserve recognition: They are an inspiration for everyone, demonstrating what can be achieved through creativity and hard work."

This is the first line in a recent article in Fast Company magazine entitled, "The Most Influential Women in Technology." Making the list of the top ten most influential women in technology is Anastasia Goodstein, author of Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens Are Really Doing Online, who spoke at GSL last fall. Goodstein blogs at YPulse which provides a glimpse of Gen Y and their online habits and preferences.

If you are wondering how to use texting, Facebook, music and other culturally relevant ways to connect with your students, YPulse would be a good place to spend some time.

I Could Have Been A Contender

2009-01-08T13:02:00.004-06:00

The article from The Boston Globe linked below illustrates what a fixed mindset looks like among high school students. The excuses become grander and actual self-sabotaging behavior becomes more rampant and dangerous. Learners who fail to study or exhibit other self-sabotaging behaviors may be attempting to protect their ego by lowering expectations. These behaviors are not only more common in males, but they may also spark a vicious circle in that learners who have a legitimate excuse for a poor performance on one exam are less motivated to study for future tests. "The handicap allowed them to say, 'All things considered, I actually did pretty well,'" said German psychologist Sean McCrea. "And there's no drive to get better."

After all, borrowing the words from Marlon Brandon, isn't it easier to not try at all, thus protecting your ego, and just settle regretfully for "I could have been a contender."

So, why is this related to middle, elementary, or preschool teachers? Because you and parents who are knowledgeable about the difference between a fixed and growth mindset can help students learn to take risks, learn to fail, learn a sense of efficacy (belief that hard work pays off), and develop a sense of resilence. Why you? Because it is easier to retrain in earlier years; high school is almost too late. Why you? Because learning to be a successful student involves developing a growth mindset and a curiosity and desire to learn.

Some Protect The Ego By Working On Excuses Early by Benedict Carey

The Power (and Peril) of Praise: How Not to Talk to Your Kids by Po Bronson

Review of The Element

2008-12-10T17:37:00.004-06:00

Below is an early review of Ken Robinson's book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, which is due out in early January 2009. He has re-defined his work from a focus on creativity to one of fully developing "human capacity", making the argument for the importance of actualizing one's fullest potential.

"One of the keys in finding a life of fulfillment and happiness is finding that work and interest that matches with one's strengths and abilities. Sir Ken Robinson weaves together stories, research and personal insight to illustrated the importance of developing one's human capacity to its fullest potential. And, for adults, especially those in education by virture of being a parent, teacher, or administrator, it is crucial for the health and well-being of our society to guide children to developing to their fullest capacity and thus helping them find joy in their lives. I recommend this book to anyone interested in the intersection of happiness, education, creativity, and the quality of our society. It is much more reader friendly and provocative than his first book, Out of Our Minds. This topic of human potential will easily occasion another infamous TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson. If you haven't see his first TEDtalk, it is a must!"

Sir Ken Robinson

2008-11-13T13:00:00.000-06:00

Sir Ken Robinson is an internationally recognized leader in the development of creativity, innovation and human resources. He has worked with governments in Europe, Asia and the USA, with international agencies, Fortune 500 companies, and some of the world's leading cultural organizations. In 1998, he led a national commission on creativity, education and the economy for the UK Government. All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education (The Robinson Report) was published to wide acclaim in 1999.

He speaks to audiences throughout the world on the creative challenges facing business and education in the new global economies. Commenting on his latest book, Out of Our Minds: Learning to be Creative, John Cleese says: "Ken Robinson writes brilliantly about the different ways in which creativity is undervalued and ignored in Western culture and especially in our educational systems."

For twelve years, he was Professor of Education at the University of Warwick in the UK and is now Professor Emeritus. He has received honorary degrees from the Open University and the Central School of Speech and Drama; Birmingham City University and the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts. He was been honored with the Athena Award of the Rhode Island School of Design for services to the arts and education; the Peabody Medal for contributions to the arts and culture in the United States, and the Benjamin Franklin Medal of the Royal Society of Arts for outstanding contributions to cultural relations between the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2005 he was named as one of Time/Fortune/CNN's Principal Voices. In 2003, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his services to the arts.

His new book, The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything, will be published in January 2009.

Sir Ken Robinson's website

Sir Ken Robinson: Creatively Speaking Part 1

2008-11-13T12:59:00.002-06:00

Sir Ken Robinson has become a very important figure in the independent school world as well s the education world. He speaks to teachers and school leaders imploring them to rethink what we are educating children for and how we are doing that. He believes that schools are failing miserably at preparing kids for places in the Creative Age, and that their Industrial Age education, which is the model most schools operate from, is actually doing them a disservice.

Sir Ken talks directly to teachers at the Apple Summit on creativity and teaching:
Creatively Speaking Part One

TEDtalk: Sir Ken Robinson

2008-11-13T12:59:00.001-06:00

Sir Ken Robinson's TEDtalk: Do schools kill creativity?

Students with restless minds and bodies -- far from being cultivated for their energy and curiosity -- are ignored or even stigmatized, with terrible consequences. "We are educating people out of their creativity," Robinson says.

He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence.

A visionary cultural leader, Sir Ken led the British government's 1998 advisory committee on creative and cultural education, a massive inquiry into the significance of creativity in the educational system and the economy, and was knighted in 2003 for his achievements.

Sir Ken Robinson: Creativity in Education Part 2

2008-11-13T12:58:00.008-06:00

Again, from the Apple Summit on Education:

Creativity in Education Part Two

Sir Ken Robinson Podcast

2008-11-13T12:57:00.002-06:00

Mediasnackers Podcast #88: Sir Ken Robinson

This podcast discusses how to cultivate creativity and how to talk to children properly.

TED - A World of Learning

2008-11-13T12:56:00.000-06:00

If you don't know about TED, then this will be greatly exciting for you. TED is amazing. Since 1984 people interested in ideas have been converging in Monterrey, California to share and learn from one another. Participants pay to have this opportunity and each of their presentations is strictly limited to 20 minutes.

In June 2008 TED passed an important milestone: 50 million TED talks viewed worldwide, nearly half of them outside the U.S. To keep pace with demand, TED is now releasing a new talk every weekday. One to watch is Boston Philharmonic conductor Benjamin Zander, who was a huge hit at 2008 TED conference.

To celebrate two years and 50 million TED talks, TED released for the first time the list of the Top 10 TED talks (below). These are the talks that have proven most popular over time, and -- interestingly -- they mainly feature speakers who were little-known before their talk was released. The most popular talk, viewed 2 1/2 million times and counting, features neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor, who observed her own stroke while it was happening.

Watch the Top 10 Talks highlights video >>

Top 10 TEDTalks of all time
1. Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight
2. Jeff Han's touchscreen foreshadows the iPhone and more
3. David Gallo shows underwater astonishments
4. Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos Photosynth
5. Arthur Benjamin does "mathemagic"
6. Sir Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity
7. Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen
8. Tony Robbins asks why we do what we do
9. Al Gore on averting a climate crisis
10. Johnny Lee demos Wii Remote hacks

Who owns TED

2008-11-13T12:54:00.000-06:00

TED is owned by The Sapling Foundation, a private nonprofit foundation, a 501(c)3 organization under US tax code. It was established in 1996 by Chris Anderson, who was at that time a magazine publishing entrepreneur. The goal of the foundation is to foster the spread of great ideas. It aims to provide a platform for the world's smartest thinkers, greatest visionaries and most-inspiring teachers, so that millions of people can gain a better understanding of the biggest issues faced by the world, and a desire to help create a better future. Core to this goal is a belief that there is no greater force for changing the world than a powerful idea. Consider:

An idea can be created out of nothing except an inspired imagination.
An idea weighs nothing.
It can be transferred across the world at the speed of light for virtually zero cost.
And yet an idea, when received by a prepared mind, can have extraordinary impact.
It can reshape that mind's view of the world.
It can dramatically alter the behavior of the mind's owner.
It can cause the mind to pass on the idea to others.

Sir Ken Robinson at NAIS 2008

2008-11-13T12:47:00.001-06:00

Sir Ken Robinson was one of the keynote speakers at the National Association of Independent Schools Annual Conference in New York last year.

Sir Ken Robinson at NAIS.

His message is that creativity should be valued as a critical skill in our school systems. It is not really a priority. Why not? If we are committed to preparing our children for the future in the 21st century, which we have identified as largely unknowable and highly different from the decades of the 50s, 60s, 70, and 80s, then why is it so crazy an idea that our educational systems need to rethink themselves?

One's capacity for imagination and creativity is fundamental to our future, as individuals and as schools.