Dedicated to relinquishing responsibility for learning to the students
Feeling left out (like me) that you’re not going to ISTE 2011?
Tell us how you will fill the void. Tweet out your grief at #isteless You are not alone …
image flickr/mohammadali
Note: Now that ISTE 2011 has concluded, I’ve replace an active scroll with a screen shot.
Here’s a thoughtful application of my “Taxonomy of Reflection” model to elementary students. Beginning with “brainstorming vocabulary words … that encourage reflection,” it details the steps they followed with their students and includes some inspiring reflective thinking by 2nd – 5th graders. Since I first posted my Taxonomy of Reflection in Jan 2010, I’ve seen it put to use many ways (including a financial reporting specialist). Yesterday Silvia Tolisano posted “Reflect…Reflecting…Reflection..” a thoughtful application of the model to elementary students. Beginning with “brainstorming vocabulary words … that encourage reflection,” she details the steps they followed with their students and includes some inspired reflective thinking by 2nd – 5th graders.
Here’s a site I created for my recent project-based learning workshop. You’ll find links to a variety of resources to help teachers get started using a PBL approach in their classrooms – handouts, videos, project ideas – plus tips on how to plan, manage, and evaluate PBL.
This is our 10th year at the Jazz Fest. Amazing lineup – with the “club pass” you can see it all. Here’s a visualizer of the Twitter feed following the hashtags #xrijf and #rocjazz.
Students explore their world with an expectation of choice and control that redefines traditional notions of learning and literacy. Educators are discovering that they can motivate students with a PBL approach that engages their students with the opportunity to behave like STEM professionals while solving real-world problems. I’m in the Wisconsin Dells to deliver a four-hour training session for CESA 6. It’s entitled “21st Century Skills in Action: Project Based Learning in the STEM Classroom.” We’ll be using a Turning Point ARS and lots of activities so that participants experience the why, what, and how of PBL in the STEM curriculum.
It’s unfortunate that student don’t get to use their innate perceptual skills more often in the classroom. Instead of discovering patterns on their own, student are “taught” to memorize patterns developed by someone else. Rather than do the messy work of having to figure out what’s going on and how to group what they see – students are saddled with graphic organizers which take all the thinking out of the exercise. Filling out a Venn diagram isn’t analysis – it’s information filing. Instead of being given a variety of math problems to solve that require different problem-solving strategies, students are taught a specific process then given ten versions of the same problem to solve for homework. No pattern recognition required here – all they have to do is simply keep applying the same procedures to new data sets. Isn’t that what spreadsheets are for?
Peter Pappas
I am proud of my life-long career in public education - especially the 25 years I spent as a teacher. For over 20 years, I have worked with school districts, state DOEs, leading educational organizations and companies to improve the quality of teaching and learning. I provide training and consulting services across the United States and internationally.More
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