In this TED-Ed video “How Simple Ideas Lead to Scientific Discoveries,” Adam Savage, best known for Mythbusters fame, explains how some of the most fundamental discoveries in science came from simple and creative ideas about how to solve problems. We’re all “meat and water,” he says, and we all have the capacity to work at the limits of human understanding if we are curious enough.
Case Studies: How Teachers Use Tech to Support Learning
Erin Scott
Starting the year off with ideas on the best ways to use technology to support learning, Larry Ferlazzo collected an invaluable list of criteria last year from educators, to which he added more resources in his recent blog post for EdWeek.Other posts in the series include Using Ed Tech to Create Deep and Meaningful Experiences and Effective Ways of Using Tech in the Classroom. Here is MindShift’s contribution to the collection of ideas.
1. GAMES AND GROUP WORK.
For those wondering what a game-based classroom looks like in a traditional school, take a peek into Ananth Pai’s third-grade class in Parkview/Center Point Elementary school in Maplewood, Minnesota. Using his own money and grants that he applied for, Pai has managed to round up seven laptops, two desktops 11 Nintendo DS’s, 18 games for math, reading, vocabulary, geography, and 21 digital voice recorders. Students’ reading and math scores went from below average for third grade to mid-fourth-grade level. Students compete in games with other kids across the world, learn about fractions and decimals by riding a virtual ghost train, for instance, work on their reading skills on sites like Razkids, figure out whether they can make a living by growing flowers, learn about their constitutional rights with the Go to Court Game, and so on.
2. LEARNING LATIN.
Teacher Kevin Ballestrini turned his introductory Latin class at Connecticut’s Norwich Free Academy into an alternate reality with an online video game. The students’ job: to save the world by joining a shadowy organization on a quest to find the Lapis Saeculōrum that was part of an Ancient Roman society. “It’s a mix of a role-playing game and an alternate reality game,” Ballestrini says. Students play the role of Romans in a reconstruction of ancient Pompeii (or ancient Rome) and have to learn to think, act, create and write like a Roman in order to win the game. And those are the same goals of any introductory Latin course.
3. REACHING STUDENTS.
In Ramsey Musallam’s A.P. Chemistry class at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory in San Francisco, cell phones are a natural extension of the way he communicates with his students. As soon as kids walk in, Musallam sends out a text blast through Remind101, asking them a challenge question that’s related to the day’s lesson. “First person to tell me the units on K for a second order reaction gets chocolate,” he types and sends off. His students know he does this regularly, Continue reading
Here Comes 2013: The Big Themes in Learning
Getty
Here are three big stories concerning education and learning that you’ll be hearing about in the year ahead—and some pointers on how to think about them.
1. SMART USE OF TECH.
Computers have been present in classrooms for a number of years now, of course, and in 2013 excitement about their potential to transform education will keep running high. Bulky desktop models will continue to give way to mobile devices like laptops, tablets, and even cell phones, and more schools will be experimenting with “BYOD”—telling students to “bring your own devices” to school. Innovative teachers and administrators will find ever more ways to integrate technology into instruction—from simulating science experiments on the screen, to turning boring math and vocabulary drills into enjoyable games, to promoting online collaboration among students on history and language-arts projects.
At the same time, the runaway enthusiasm about edtech will begin to be tempered, I predict, by a more realistic sense of what computers can do for students, and what they can’t. Young people will still need to interact with classmates and teachers face to face. They will still need physical activity Continue reading
What Online Tools Work for Teaching Language Arts?
Erin Scott
When it comes to language arts, the jury’s still out on the quality and effectiveness of the available software. Some schools are investing and experimenting with different products, with mixed results, while others are working with free available web 2.0 tools. Here are two case studies examining each approach.
THE SOFTWARE APPROACH
Firstline Schools, a public charter school company in New Orleans operating five schools, has aggressively pursued blended learning with hopes to help students who have fallen behind — especially after the devastating effects on schooling after Hurricane Katrina.
“We can’t imagine going back to a traditional model,” said Chris Liang-Vergara, director of instructional technology for personalized learning at Firstline. “It seems crazy with the amount of differentiation we need.”
Firstline uses Achieve3000 in some schools, a program that allows students to read a nonfiction
“The biggest issue I still see is that people are still trying to break it down when
it needs to be combined.”
article everyday and answer questions related to it. But the program is dry, according to Liang-Vergara, and it can seem random and disconnected to the rest of what students are doing in class. He says he’s seen it used well, but usually by experienced teachers who are empowered to use it for the best kind of differentiation. If the teacher takes the time to search the Achieve300 database for nonfiction articles that are relevant to other class work, discusses them, and wraps them into the curriculum that works best. And the software does provide differentiation, increasing the difficulty of vocabulary and sentence structure as a reader progresses.
“When you show it to any experienced teacher, they get very excited because they think about how much time they’ll save and how much information can be at their fingertips,” said Liang- Continue reading
Will Rocketship Change Its Learning Labs?
Rocketship Schools in the Bay Area have been one of the trailblazers in the ever-changing landscape of blended learning. Located in low-income neighborhoods, the schools’ Learning Labs — where students spend up to 90 minutes a day on computers working on math and literacy software — has been one of its defining characteristics.
But this model isn’t working, some Rocketship teachers say, and because it’s a charter school network with evolving systems, it may soon be changing, according to this PBS Newshour story.
“There’s definitely an aspect of us kind of not knowing enough about what’s going on in learning lab to be able to use that in our classrooms,” said teacher Judy Lavi.
“We don’t yet get data that says, OK, teach this differently tomorrow because of what happened here. And that is — that is a frustration point,” said teacher Andrew Elliott-Chandler.
Adam Nadeau, principal of Rocketship Mosaic Elementary, says he doesn’t think the Learning Lab model will continue next year. And Elliott-Chandler sees a different function for the computers.
“Next year, we’re thinking of bringing the computers back to the classrooms and the kids back to Continue reading
What Project-Based Learning Is — and What It Isn’t
Screenshot/High Tech High
The term “project-based learning” gets tossed around a lot in discussions about how to connect students to what they’re learning. Teachers might add projects meant to illustrate what students have learned, but may not realize what they’re doing is actually called “project-oriented learning.” And it’s quite different from project-based learning, according to eighth grade Humanities teacher Azul Terronez.
Terronez, who teaches at High Tech Middle, a public charter school in San Diego, Calif says that when an educator teaches a unit of study, then assigns a project, that is not project-based learning because the discovery didn’t arise from the project itself. And kids can see through the idea of a so-called “fun project” for what it often is – busy work. “They don’t see it as learning; they see it as something else to do,” said Terronez. “They don’t see the value.”
“If you inspire them to care about it and draw parallels with their world, then they care and remember.”
For Terronez, the goal is to always connect classroom learning to its applications in the outside world. He’s found that when the project is based in the real world, addressing problems that people actually face, and not focused on a grade, students are naturally invested. “If you inspire them to care about it and draw parallels with their world then they care and remember,” he said. Continue reading