Eric Mazur introduced the flipped classroom to much interest a couple of decades ago. The idea—and a very good one—is that the time we have together in class is precious, and is being totally underutilized by a one-to-many dissemination of information. In the internet age, Mazur thought, why couldn’t we do the lecture outside of class,Continue reading “Assisted Accountability – The True Flipped Classroom”
Category Archives: 21st Century Skills
Value-based Learning: From Bake-sale to Brilliant
Schools all over are trying to figure out how to provide real-world learning for their students and many are beginning to realize how much a regular school schedule gets in the way of curating authentic learning experiences. Part of “real-world” is rethinking how we structure our time. I have previously written about the importance ofContinue reading “Value-based Learning: From Bake-sale to Brilliant”
Redefining Academic Rigor
There are two kinds of academic rigor. The standard kind is measured in number of hours spent; in the amount of predetermined information memorized and regurgitated. It involves running fast to jump through the hoops put before you. It involves being handed problems and showing you can follow prescribed pathways to solve them. It involvesContinue reading “Redefining Academic Rigor”
Pedagogy vs. Curriculum – The How is the What
The How is the What What (content) and how (pedagogy) cannot be separated. How we teach also teaches a what. Example 1: Coercion has no place in education. If we use coercion to get students to study what we want when we want, we are teaching them that how you get people to do theContinue reading “Pedagogy vs. Curriculum – The How is the What”
The Entrepreneurial Learner
I’m currently directing a program at Green School in Bali on Entrepreneurial & Enterprise Education. My experience building and describing this program has given me some new language to talk about the paradigm shifts I have been advocating in education, heretofore enumerated as: Education must be real. Primary focus should be creating advanced learners (see my Teaching WithoutContinue reading “The Entrepreneurial Learner”
Reflection on Persuasion – Teacher Edition
This post relates to an exercise we did in the Communication and Media Literacy course I offer to new students at my high school. We are beginning to look explicitly at persuasion, and began by discussing persuasion in general, using these prompts: Why do we try to persuade people? Who do we want it for?Continue reading “Reflection on Persuasion – Teacher Edition”
Reflection on Persuasion
This reflection on persuasion was done by me as part of an exercise in my Communication and Media Literacy class. (You can find the Teacher Edition here). “On Persuasion” When I think about persuasion, I realize that we are always trying to persuade people to either do things or believe things. Often, it is ourselvesContinue reading “Reflection on Persuasion”
Measuring the Impact of Technology on Learning
Another post prompted by a query from a colleague at another school, who was looking for information on how to demonstrate the impact of technology on learning. Below are my thoughts To measure the impact of anything, benchmarking of pre-defined metrics is critical. Here are two primary areas where I think technology impacts learning, andContinue reading “Measuring the Impact of Technology on Learning”
Technology Idol Worship
A tech director colleague posted to a forum recently inviting feedback on whether or how he should re-institute a tech committee at one of his schools. Teachers there had requested it, but his trepidation is understandable, and here’s why: tech committees are part of the wrong paradigm. Focusing on technology is educational idol worship—it isContinue reading “Technology Idol Worship”
Physical Orientation Predicts Team Performance (concise version)
(This is the relatively concise version of this post, relatively light on the preaching. To see the full post, with more preaching and more details about the challenge, click here). I’m sure this has been written about in a thousand other places, but I have some recent evidence to support the idea that small teams thatContinue reading “Physical Orientation Predicts Team Performance (concise version)”
Edunautics 