RSA Animate: Sir Ken Robinson

Education Week: Best Homework Practices?

What is the best approach teachers can take towards homework?

Here Larry Ferlazzo has assembled some answers from some edu-experts as well as answers from in-the-trenches teachers:

Education Week’s Best Homework Practices

Opinion: Learning faster without teachers

http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/27/opinion/ted-prize-students-teach-themselves?c=&page=1

Modern Assessment Philosophy: Via ActiveGrade

Although it this is produced by a company, ActiveGrade, it still has some interesting points.

teacherken: A warning to college profs from a high school teacher

 Posted by Valerie Strauss on February 9, 2013 at The Washington Post.

From The Washington Post: “For more than a decade now we have heard that the high-stakes testing obsession in K-12 education that began with the enactment of No Child Left Behind 11 years ago has resulted in high school graduates who don’t think as analytically or as broadly as they should because so much emphasis has been placed on passing standardized tests. Here, an award-winning high school teacher who just retired, Kenneth Bernstein, warns college professors what they are up against. Bernstein, who lives near Washington, D.C. serves as a peer reviewer for educational journals and publishers, and he is nationally known as the blogger “teacherken.” His e-mail address is kber@earthlink.net. This appeared in Academe, the journal of the American Association of University Professors.”

By Kenneth Bernstein

“You are a college professor.

I have just retired as a high school teacher.

I have some bad news for you. In case you do not already see what is happening, I want to warn you of what to expect from the students who will be arriving in your classroom, even if you teach in a highly selective institution.

No Child Left Behind went into effect for the 2002–03 academic year, which means that America’s public schools have been operating under the pressures and constrictions imposed by that law for a decade. Since the testing requirements were imposed beginning in third grade, the students arriving in your institution have been subject to the full extent of the law’s requirements. While it is true that the U.S. Department of Education is now issuing waivers on some of the provisions of the law to certain states, those states must agree to other provisions that will have as deleterious an effect on real student learning as did No Child Left Behind—we have already seen that in public schools, most notably in high schools…”

College Readiness: Reading Critically | Edutopia

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/college-readiness-critical-reading-ben-johnson?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=012313%20enews%204th%20active%20openers&utm_content=&spMailingID=5486043&spUserID=MjcyOTI0ODYxNzES1&spJobID=63913081&spReportId=NjM5MTMwODES1

Salman Khan Describes Future Classrooms with Blended Learning

Interesting video from the mind behind the Khan Academy. Here he discusses how online learning is meant to mesh with — not replace — classroom learning. For me, this echoes Karen Hume’s discussion of balancing tradition with innovation. “Salman Khan Describes Future Classrooms with Blended Learning” on YouTube:

Tornado of Change in Education

An interesting post by Will Richardson (thought-provoking as usual) about the value of a college or university degree. He also points out and questions (as I am starting to) the assumption that university is the best / only / necessary path to take after high school. http://willrichardson.com/post/36888521605

Classes a la carte: States test a new school model

http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE8B50LE20121206?irpc=932

Ernesto Sirolli: Want to help someone? Shut up and listen!

I think this video is a very cool real-world version of the philosophy of Differentiated Instruction. The part of DI that I really like is “Knowing the Learner” and then Engaging in “Responsive Teaching”.  On the home page of this   blog is a quotation about harnessing what already resides inside a student, which I think echoes the idea of passion in people that Ernesto Sirolli speaks of in this video.  Listening and responding. So simple.