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Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World’s Leading Systems

mspathas — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 04:09:59 +0000

The National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) hosted an event with Thomas Friedman (New York Times columnist and co-author of the new book, That Used To Be Us: How America Fell Behind In the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back) and Marc Tucker (President and CEO of NCEE and author of Surpassing Shanghai: An Agenda for American Education Built on the World’s Leading Systems) on the need to redesign the U.S. education system to meet the demands of today’s workforce and global economy. The conversation was moderated by NBC Correspondent Luke Russert.

Stop Teaching Kids To Compute Math!

mspathas — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 16:22:14 +0000

Do we really believe that the math most students do in school is really more than applying procedures to problems students really d not understand for reasons they don’t get? Is what they are learning even practical anymore. Conrad Wolfram says in math education, we’re spending about perhaps 80 percent of the time teaching students to calculate math. Yet, that’s the one step computers can do better than any human after years of practice. Instead, we ought to be using computers to do the calculating and have the students to spend much more effort on learning how to pose the right questions, apply to real world and verify. Wolfram says important to understand that math does not equal calculating – it is a much broder subject. Watch Conrad’s though provoking Ted Talk!

Over 1 Billion People Competing For Our Jobs

mspathas — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 15:03:28 +0000

Over 16 million Americans are out of work. But that is only part of the story – there are over 1 billion people entering the global workforce that are competing for our jobs. Don’t believe me? See elance.com. Post your job, see how fast the world bids on it. I have done this – and in less than one hour I had several bids from around the world. A few hours later I clicked the “I Agree” button to hire a small firm in India to do some web based design work. I also had two new friends from India, Pushpak and Dharma. The work product was excellent, timely (close to half the project was complete when I awoke the next day) and much less expensive than it would have cost in the US. The flat, connected world will require us all to develop new kinds of skills to to compete in the “global talent cloud”. I hope the next generation is ready….average is over.

Why Do I Have To Memorize This? You Don’t!

mspathas — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:49:01 +0000

Ian Jukes is the founder InfoSavvy Group. He has been a teacher at all grade levels, a school, district and provincial administrator, a university instructor and is a passionate educational evangelist. He asks why do students have to memorize location of states when they can Google the answer? If a student asks “Why do I need to learn this?” and we can’t answer the question, it’s probably not relevant. Watch the short clip below and make sure to see Literacy is Not Enough and The 21st Century Fluency Project.

Edmodo – A Great Classroom Tool That Engages and Empowers Students

mspathas — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 15:17:48 +0000

Over the weekend at a picnic I was talking to a friend’s daughter (Bree, a 7th grader) who asked me if I had heard of the web site called Edmodo, which is a “Facebook like” social media site for education. Bree went on to explain what a great learning and collaborative tool it has been in her classroom. There is no greater testimonial for any learning tool than from a student who uses it! Take a minute to learn about Edmodo and how you can leverage it in your classroom to enhance learning and collaboration. It is a fabulous 21st Century tool. Thanks for sharing, Bree!

A Look At What Schools Could Look Like!

mspathas — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 16:46:51 +0000

Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning (SCIL) is the research and innovation unit of Northern Beaches Christian School (NBCS) in Sydney, Australia. NBCS, through SCIL, is seeking to create models for 21st century education that change the focus from teacher-directed paradigms to self-directed engaged learning. video captures a number of the ‘spaces for learning’ created – using the campfire, watering hole and cave architectural motifs. Learn more about Principal Stephen Harris.

SCIL: Spaces to learn from SCIL on Vimeo.

How Khan Academy Is Changing the Rules of Education

mspathas — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 02:36:00 +0000

Shifting metric from "teachers per student" to "time per student".

Wired Magazine 7.15.11 The disruptive forces of of 21st Century learning are becoming more evident in schools of the future. Read and watch how schools are leveraging online resources like the Kahn Academy to “flip” learning environments – where students can learn at home and get help at school.

>>Read more

From Classrooms To Learning Environments

mspathas — Mon, 30 May 2011 22:08:25 +0000

Sydney Center For Innovation in Learning (SCIL) actively seeks to Lead the Change in education. Our vision to engage C21st learners in action. Located in Sydney, Australia, Principal, Stephen Harris, adopts a holistic approach to the process of change across the school, summed up in three words – people, places and pedagogy.

Student Centric Learning Disrupts Traditional Delivery

mspathas — Mon, 30 May 2011 15:17:23 +0000

Dana Middle School piloted a “blended environment” for a 5th grademath class. With a physical teacher in the room, the curriculum and assessment was all web based – the provider was Apex Learning. This drastically changed delivery – students moved at their own pace (one was done with the course mid year), the teacher was no longer inventing lesson plans or manually correcting work.

The traditional “teacher per student ratio” being replaced by a “time per student ratio” – teachers had more time to spend with students one on one and in small groups. Web enabled curriculum and assessment becomes the enabler for the shift from a traditional teacher centric classroom to student centric classrooms that can pace and personalize learning.

Teachers and students have access to real time data to assess progress and optimize remediation. Students can work from anywhere in the always on learning environment.

Schools of the Future Look More Like Starbucks….

mspathas — Mon, 23 May 2011 16:48:59 +0000

Moving from teacher centric to student centric learning environments

Schools of the future look much different than the schools we have today. Think about a Starbucks, comfortable, collaborative and engaging. Technology becomes the enabler of personalized, paced and student centric learning. This is not the school we attended.

The needs of students have changed, and so have the tools we now have to engage them. We know that students learn in many different ways – and the current 1 on 30 model of educational delivery with one teacher, 30 textbooks does not enable a personalized learning experience.

So, imagine this learning environment – laptops, online curriculum and assessment, a real time online student tutor AND teacher in the classroom (oh and the classroom is comfortable and collaborative). As curriculum and assessment shift to online delivery for standards based content, teachers become relieved of manually “inventing lesson plans and correcting homework” – so they have more time. Students become enabled to move at their own pace to master content – not forced to follow the one size fits all the pace of the class. Students, parents and teachers have real time assessments – to track progress and implement remediation. So think of the student centric learning environment as “personalized, paced, relevant and adaptive”.

Web based curriculum 2.0 is coming – and it will be rich, relevant, real time and engaging – not to mention multi lingual and have a smartness to remediation. Learning environments of the future will give teachers more time with students – so the new ratio becomes “time per student” not “teacher per student”.

To learn more, see: Schools of the Future, watch Sir Ken Robinson RSA Animation, Listen to Harvard Professor Clayton Christiansen and read his book Disrupting Class.

Listen to Dr. David Thornburg, Making The Shift From Teaching To Learning

View Engaging, Empowering, and Educating All Students For the 21st Century!