Student-Centered Learning with Kasie Giallombardo
2017 Lawrence W. O’Toole Award winner Kasie Giallombardo is a social studies teacher at Nokomis Regional High School in Maine. A strategy she employs to empower student voice in learning is to act as a coach. She encourages students in class with probing questions to lead them deeper in their analyses. She approaches each lesson with… Read More ›
Playing Games with Formative Assessment
This article in Education Leadership looks at ways teachers can use games to conduct formative assessment. The article discusses the difference between as well as the benefits of two instructional approaches: game-based learning and gamified instruction. It provides several classroom examples of how to use games to measure student’s learning progress. This article provides a list… Read More ›
Kettle Moraine’s Approach to Personalized Learning
This series of articles provides an in-depth look at how personalization works in Kettle Moraine School District in Wisconsin. Articles cover the history of the shift to personalized learning in the district, pillars of teaching and learning, professional development for teachers, and distributed leadership, amongst other topics. Read all together, these articles provide a look… Read More ›
Why Seeking Purpose Matters for Opportunity Youth
This piece, originally posted in September 2016, remains relevant to the conversation about non-IQ competencies such as self-regulation and “grit”. The intersection of “grit” and equity remains an opportunity for further discussion and analysis. I recently read an article in The New York Times by Angela Duckworth entitled Graduating and Looking for Your Passion: Just… Read More ›
Disengagement Problems Disguised as Discipline Problems
In this article, a long-time principal discusses her school’s work to decrease behavior incidents by increasing student engagement. The school created an Incident Reduction Plan which included efforts to deescalate incidents as well identify and change punitive policies and practices that inadvertently contributed to incidents. The staff recognized that many incidents were the result of… Read More ›
Building a High-Quality System of Assessments to Advance Deeper Learning
Originally posted on February 1, 2018 as a Learning Deeply Blog for Edweek Are today’s students terribly over-tested, as many educators and observers argue—or, is it actually possible they’re not tested enough? This issue has been debated for decades. Finally, there’s an answer that makes sense, and it’s gaining ground across the country. Schools, students,… Read More ›
Student-centered Learning Reflects Science of Learning for All Youth
Originally posted in Youth Today My 6-year-old is obsessed with baseball stadiums. All summer his attention was captured by stadium history, especially for our local team the St. Louis Cardinals. Every day this summer, he constructed stadiums from magnet tiles and blocks. Before bed, he gave me tours of his elaborate structures and explained the… Read More ›
How Feedback for Teachers and Principals Helped Their Students Do Better in Math
This blog article discusses the results of a research study conducted by American Institutes of Research, on behalf of the federal Institute of Education Sciences which looked at the impact on providing feedback to teachers and principals 4 times a year. Results showed some gains in math during the first year, improved trust between teachers… Read More ›
In Our Connected World, What If Empathy Is Learning?
This article explores new ways of thinking about the science of learning. As the world becomes more connected and knowledge becomes socially constructed, the education system must move away from the traditional learning model in which knowledge is simple delivered to students. In particular, the author looks at the importance of empathy in new models of… Read More ›
Mindset Research Is Sound, That’s Not the Problem
Originally posted on Education Week’s 10 Big Ideas column on January 10, 2018. My career has been motivated by two questions: What underlies opportunity gaps in educational outcomes? And how can we use empirical insights to help close them? My first attempt to use scientific evidence to improve educational practice was with a team of… Read More ›
10 Game-Changing Ideas in Education
In this article, editors at EdWeek have compiled 10 commentaries that outline exciting ideas in the field of education. For example: In The Secret to Student Engagement authors Chip & Dan Heath assert that “peak moments”, events that represent the culmination of students’ work are remembered long after the event and can create engagement and motivation… Read More ›
Student-Centered Learning-in-Action: Students explore “Fact and Fiction”; Inspire a Principal
I am a high school principal. More importantly, I am an educational leader who is a proponent of student-centered learning – learning that is competency-based, can occur anytime and anywhere, personalized, and promotes student voice and choice. I am at a new school, in a new state. I recently moved from Vermont, a state that… Read More ›