Article Worth Sharing

Alan November is an international leader in education technology.  He thrives on challenging educators’ thoughts about what’s possible in the world of teaching and learning. He presented one of my top 10 favorite TED talks of all time.  

In the following article, Mr. November lists 6 creative ways that our students can make valuable contributions to their learning community. 

Students As Contributors

Beyond Classroom Walls

The key to doing a Mystery Skype is allowing your students to take control of their learning and being prepared for the unexpected. Recently, our 6th grade social studies class performed their very first Mystery Skype.  After a 10 week study of Canada, Mrs. Richter decided to challenge them.  When our students arrived to school, they had no idea they would be thinking, learning, and growing together with students their same age over 1,750 miles away.  

Students in Oklahoma                                                                                                    Students in Alberta, Canada

These students are using maps to eliminate areas of the world as they work to develop their next question. 

These students use Google Maps to collaborate and answer the student created questions.

It was so great connecting with Prairie Waters Elementary School in Chestermere, Alberta, Canada and allowing our students to go beyond the classroom walls for a more authentic experience.  Mrs. Van den Eynden's class did a wonderful job describing their experience on their Class Blog.   

An Article Worth Archiving

This terrific article titled, Will Your PLC Put the One-Four in 2014? provides some essential strategies to a strong Professional Learning Community.  With our focus and belief being, All Kids Can Learn, we can make a difference within every student.  If you do not follow John Wink on twitter or subscribe to his blog, I encourage you to do so. Every blog post is worth the read.

"Say what you want about integrating technology, becoming more innovative with assessments or designing more real world learning environments, but if it doesn't guarantee that all kids will learn, those things are kind of pointless." - John Wink

An Article Worth Printing and Placing Inside Your Plan Book

This article titled, What Is Performance Assessment by Tom Vander Ark, explains that schools who value deeper learning work to design and to implement quality performance tasks. 

In the narrowest sense, according to ETS, performance assessment is “A test in which the test taker actually demonstrates the skills the test is intended to measure by doing real-world tasks that require those skills, rather than by answering questions asking how to do them.” – Tom Vander Ark

An Article Worth Sharing

In the article titled, Fostering Teacher Leadership Through Collaborative Inquiry, Jenni Donohoo presents a four-stage model that allow for teachers to become more meaningfully involved in school-improvement and a catalyst for change.   

"Rather than being merely consumers of research and the professional knowledge that accompanies it, teachers engaged in collaborative inquiry become producers and disseminators of knowledge." - Jenni Donohoo

Learning After Hours

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As a Result of Your Lesson.....

Dr. Justin Tarte recently published a piece called, It's Not Teaching If There's No Learning.   (Click to read full article)

"We can have the most wonderfully planned lesson in the world with varying degrees of differentiation, plenty of opportunities for global collaboration, autonomy and flexibility in how to demonstrate student understanding, and a healthy dose of technology integration, but if the students aren't able to accomplish or demonstrate any level of learning or understanding, then our lesson frankly was not a success." - Justin Tarte