Over the course of the 2014-15 and 2015-16 school years, I worked with a group of instructional coaches in a district in Illinois to create an implementation matrix to guide educational practice in realizing the district’s vision of personalized, twenty-first century learning where all students are successful. After I framed the structure for the matrix based on the National Implementation … Read More
Reinventing the wheel?
A Reflection on Process, on behalf of the Freeport School District Instructional Learning Coaches by Laura Stocker Are we just recreating the wheel? It’s hard not to lament about this question when you’re in education. For every new idea that comes out, there’s someone out there who can say, “What? We were doing that in 1987!” The way practices swing … Read More
The Changing Face of Education?
I just returned from the invigorating and inspiring annual International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) conference, where this year’s focus included “blended”* along with “online” learning. iNACOL Executive Director Susan Patrick spoke almost wonderingly at the explosion of the organization, from seventeen people who met together ten years ago to the more than twenty three hundred who gathered to … Read More
10 Facilitator Moves for Adult Learning
Word association quiz. When someone pairs “School” and “Learning” who is the first learner you think of? A student? A class of students? If so, you are like the majority of people. And for good reason — the student learner is the most important point of focus for schools. However, capitalizing on the unique interests, affinities, and personalities of students … Read More
Resources for Talking to Your Kids About the Case of Trayvon Martin
With Zimmerman’s innocence decided, the underlying issues of race and profiling continue to ignite quarreling responses and catalyzing debates about race in America. Here are some helpful sources that can help you talk to your kids about the issues surrounding these debates. In an NPR post entitled, The Talk: What Did You Tell Your Kids After the Zimmerman Verdict, speakers share … Read More
The Motivation Equation
The upcoming new ibook by Kathleen Cushman, “The Motivation Equation,” stands to expand on her pioneering work in leveraging students’ voices in shaping learning environments, pedagogical practices, and transforming how we talk about learning. And thank goodness. Often missing from our education discourse is, ironically, the most important element of our education system: the learners. In this newest endeavor (you … Read More
Narrowing in on the Learner
Do you want to …. Boost your students’ self esteem? Keep them engaged? Have an alternative to testing your students to death? More specifically support their needs? If you answered yes to any of the above questions read the infographic below which is all about competency based learning. Source: Digital Learning Now
How Youth Learn: Ned’s GR8 8
This video needs no introduction. Just watch it and then file it under — “When Student Voices Align With Research From the Science of Learning.”
Disrupting Injustice: Principal Strategies to Advance Social Justice
The problem: Social injustice across our social landscape, with concentrations in schools where social justice is most needed. A solution: Leadership focused on targeting, disrupting, and transforming such norms into new outcomes. Teacher College Record published a paper by George Theoharis, an assistant professor in educational leadership and inclusive education at Syracuse University, titled “Disrupting Injustice: Principals Narrate the Strategies They … Read More
Racing to the Top and Leaving the Impoverished at the Bottom
Poverty cripples societal advancement. When prevalent in the richest nation in the world, it becomes mindboggling. Why are so many individuals struggling under the weight of poverty in America? Why is nearly 1 in every 4 children considered impoverished in this land of Race to the Top? Are we racing to the top of the wrong metric? My hat goes … Read More
