How to (Once and For All) Correct Mistaken Beliefs “Often mistaken, never in doubt.” That wry phrase describes us all more than we’d like to admit. The psychological study of misconceptions shows that all of us possess many beliefs that are flawed or flat-out wrong—and also that we cling to these fallacies with remarkable tenacity. Although much of this research concerns misguided notions of how the physical world works, the techniques it has produced can be used to correct any sort of deficient understanding. The most important thing to realize is that just telling isn’t enough. Most methods of instruction and training assume that if you provide students with the right information, it will replace any mistaken information they may already possess.
New Bloom's Taxonomy Poster for Teachers August 29, 2014 Bloom's taxonomy is one of the most popular learning taxonomies ever. Since its release in the last half of the 20th century, it has been widely adopted within the education sector and was used extensively to design and create learning materials and curriculum content. Bloom's taxonomy maps out learning skills along a thinking continuum that starts with lower order thinking skills in one end (e.g. remembering and understanding) and moves up in difficulty to the other end that embraces higher order thinking skills (e.g. evaluating and creating). However, Bloom's taxonomy has been repeatedly modified to suit the requirements of the era in which it is used . Thus, we ended up having different versions of Blooms taxonomy. The visual below from Fractus Learning captures these versions into three main columns ( Bloom's original taxonomy, Bloom's modified taxonomy, and Bloom's digital taxonomy).
20 Collaborative Learning Tips And Strategies For Teachers 20 Collaborative Learning Tips And Strategies For Teachers by Miriam Clifford This post has been updated from a 2011 post. There is an age old adage that says “two heads are better than one”. Consider collaboration in recent history: Watson and Crick or Page and Brin (Founders of Google). But did you know it was a collaborative Computer Club about basic programming at a middle school that brought together two minds that would change the future of computing?
How in questions The word “HOW” is one of the most productive words in English. It helps us create meaningful questions and sentences. The word “HOW” combines with many other words to create these questions. In this post I try to introduce the basic phrases “How much”, “How many”, “How often”, “How well”, “How long”, “How far” and “How old”. How in questions – mindmap
Defining Collaborative Teaching If only Teacher A and Teacher B could check their calendars and begin scheduling weekly meetings they could create a true collaborative relationship. Together, they would begin to construct fully structured bridges between their curriculums that would not only bring them deep professional satisfaction, more importantly; they would enrich the learning experiences of their students. Try to picture the collaborative environment Teacher A and Teacher B could produce. Can you see each teacher bringing their respective curriculum guides to their first meeting?
A List of Some of The Best iPad Resources for Teachers Educational Technology and Mobile Learning has devoted a lot of its space to iPad and its educational usage. I know Android is not as much covered as iPad but as I have said before my second blog Teacher's Mobile Technology has all the educational apps and tips on how to use both Android and iPad, check it out and subscribe to stay updated about the future releases. Today's post is a culmination of all the hard work we have been doing here during this year. We have curated a list of some of the best iPad resources for teachers and educators. These are resources that we trust as being highly educational and can help you a lot in your daily search for apps to use with your students.
Why Inquiry Learning is Worth the Trouble Visualization of SLA principal Chris Lehmann's 2011 talk: guiding kids' to thinking about how they think. Nearly seven years after first opening its doors, the Science Leadership Academy public magnet high school* in Philadelphia and its inquiry-based approach to learning have become a national model for the kinds of reforms educators strive towards. But in a talk this past weekend at EduCon 2.5, the school’s sixth-annual conference devoted to sharing its story and spreading its techniques, Founding Principal Chris Lehmann insisted that replicating his schools approach required difficult tradeoffs.
A veteran teacher turned coach shadows 2 students for 2 days – a sobering lesson learned The following account comes from a veteran HS teacher who just became a Coach in her building. Because her experience is so vivid and sobering I have kept her identity anonymous. But nothing she describes is any different than my own experience in sitting in HS classes for long periods of time. And this report of course accords fully with the results of our student surveys. I have made a terrible mistake.
Four Ways to Move from ‘School World’ to ‘Real World’ General Assembly By Gayle Allen On a rainy Saturday at Hackbright Academy classroom in San Francisco, a group of 35 adults sat at tables, desks, and on couches learning how to code. Marcy, a former artist and now programmer for Uber, taught the class. Design Tips for Science Learning Spaces When I was a charter school principal, I had an old building in which I selected a room to be a science lab. I mistakenly thought a room was a room, but thank goodness the science teacher knew what she was doing. I was expecting to say to her, "Here are the keys" and let her prepare the room, but instead, she had a few questions for me: "Where do we keep the chemicals safely?"
13 Strategies to Improve Student Classroom Discussions Samantha Cleaver Leo Tolstoy's The Two Brothers tells the story of two brothers who are offered the opportunity to find happiness. One chooses to go on a journey and finds happiness—as well as difficulties—along the way, while the other stays at home and leads a happy but uneventful life. When Jasmine Williams' fifth-grade students at Carter School of Excellence in Chicago read The Two Brothers, they discussed this question: Which brother made the better choice? Williams' students sat in a circle, holding their books and graphic organizers filled with notes.
Some Struggles Teachers Face Using Games in the Classroom iStock Teachers have long known that making content more playful can be a great way to engage students and add diversity to classroom activities. As technology becomes an ever more significant part of modern classrooms, it makes sense that teachers are using video games for everything from teaching content, to keeping tabs on learning progress, and for skills practice. In a recent survey, the Joan Ganz Cooney Center found that 74 percent of K-8 teachers surveyed use digital games for instruction in some way and 55 percent use them weekly. While digital games are becoming more common, many teachers still use them primarily as supplemental material or as a reward when the “real work” has been accomplished, not as the main instructional tool. Many teachers are still skeptical that students will learn mandated content from digital games well enough to prove mastery on state exams.
Step by Step: Designing Personalized Learning Experiences For Students The phrase “personalized learning” gets tossed around a lot in education circles. Sometimes it’s used in the context of educational technology tools that offer lessons keyed to the academic level of individual students. Other times it’s referring to the personal touch of a teacher getting to know a student, learning about their interests and tailoring lessons to meet both their needs and their passion areas. As with most education jargon, the phrase isn’t fixed, but it usually connects to the idea that not all students need the same thing at the same time.
How Black Students Tend to Learn Science Transforming a lecture into a more active experience is one possible way of fixing STEM's diversity dilemma. Jirka Matousek/Flickr Ryan Hynd wouldn't call it an epiphany but he doesn’t deny that the research program he joined the summer of his junior year at Georgia Tech shaped his career. “It wasn't exactly a turning point, but it was like an awakening.