Reflections on Student-Centered Learning Part 1- Student Perspective
The International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) hosted their annual Symposium in Orlando, FL. last week. I attended—along with over 3,000 educators, experts, thought leaders, and innovators—and left with a sense of both the enormity of the charge of educating all young people to succeed in the world of the future, and the importance… Read More ›
Video Gaining as Key Tool in Teacher-Learning Plans
This article discusses the increase of video as a tool for improving and refining classroom practice for educators. Included in the article are mentions of several companies and schools that are actively contributing videos for teaching and professional development online, including the Teaching Channel and BetterLesson. Source Organization: Education Week Visit the Resource
Watch Lectures at Home, do Homework in Class
This article highlights blended learning classrooms at Revere High School in Revere, Massachusetts. According to the Revere High principal Mr. Lourenco Garcia, introducing flipped classrooms has fostered more personalized learning opportunities, increased student ownership of work, and has created a dynamic and engaging learning environment for all its students. Source Organization: The Boston Globe Visit… Read More ›
Making Learning Whole: How Seven Principles of Teaching Can Transform Education
This book focuses on how teaching any subject at any level can be made more effective if students are introduced to the whole game, rather than isolated pieces of a discipline. Authored by David Perkins, co-director of Harvard’s Project Zero, who explains how learning academic subjects should be approached like learning baseball or any game.… Read More ›
Continued Progress: Promising Evidence on Personalized Learning
This report examines achievement in 62 public charter and district schools that are pursuing a variety of personalized learning practices, and examines implementation details in 32 of those schools. Researchers obtained achievement data for personalized learning students and a matched comparison group of students attending other schools serving similar populations. They also collected and analyzed… Read More ›
What Are Teachers’ and School Leaders’ Major Concerns About New K–12 State Tests?
This report shares U.S. principals’ and teachers’ main concerns about testing, drawing upon new survey tools for understanding educators’ perspectives and implementation of major education policies: RAND’s American Teacher Panel and American School Leader Panel. The findings are drawn from the ATP and ASLP surveys fielded in February 2015, before the full administration of most… Read More ›
Competency-Based Education in Three Pilot Programs
This research brief summarizes findings of the RAND evaluation of Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s Project Mastery grant program, which was created in 2011 to support competency-based education initiatives in large school systems that serve a high proportion of disadvantaged youth. Competency-based education meets students where they are academically, provides students with opportunities for choice,… Read More ›
Measuring Hard-to-Measure Student Competencies
This report provides guidelines to promote thoughtful development of practical, high-quality measures of interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies that practitioners and policymakers can use to improve valued outcomes for students. Efforts to prepare students for college, careers, and civic engagement have traditionally emphasized academic skills, but a growing body of research suggests that interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies—such… Read More ›
The iNACOL State Policy Frameworks 2015: 5 Critical Issues to Transform K-12 Education
This policy brief from the International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) provides concrete, actionable recommendations for state policymakers seeking to build competency education based on new learning models that allow personalization of instruction for each student. The iNACOL State Policy Frameworks covers five main issues: create competency-based education systems, improve student access and equity,… Read More ›
Design Thinking in Schools: “You can’t make school better without student voice.”
Have you thought about bringing design thinking to your school or district? One of the major foundations for the Fuse Architect project is design thinking. Through a partnership with IDEO, the Fuse Architect schools’ design teams used and continue to use design thinking to help re-envision the way school happens. IDEO defines design thinking… Read More ›
Student-Centered Classrooms Foster Civic and Career Readiness
Studies show that the skills employers want in their employees align perfectly with the types of skills learners practice in a student-centered learning environment. In this post, we make some connections between the skills employers seek and how student-centered strategies help develop those skills in young people. What employers are saying In the article Workplace… Read More ›
STEM in Afterschool and Summer Learning: Issue Brief
This issue brief explores the role of after school and summer programs in building skills and interest in STEM fields. While practices that support STEM skills during the school day are critical, students traditionally spend only 20% of their waking hours in school. Afterschool and summer programs can offer hands-on experiences, expose students to STEM… Read More ›