For my professional teachers, faculty, and administrators...
Just a quick update on a few articles...
Today eCampus news published an article on updates in the Distance Education Policy Standards. I believe this article, The Must-Know Changes in Distance Education Policy, is worth your time, since these policies directly influence our online instructors, students, administrators, and institutions.
In the article, Stansberry (2014, October 10), lists the five main categories of the new or updated polices as institutional context and commitment, curriculum and instruction, faculty and faculty support, student support, and evaluation and assessment. You can read her review by going to the link below.
http://www.ecampusnews.com/top-news/changes-distance-policy-691/
Although it is not new, Ebersole's Forbes article on the Top Issues Facing Higher Education in 2014 is interesting to review at this point in the year, since it reminds us that competency-based learning, changing student demographics, accreditation reform, assessment, and quality assurance should still be logged into our higher education GPS. If you want to take another look at that article, I do not think Ebersole would mind. I will link the article below. What do you believe the top issues are for higher education today?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/johnebersole/2014/01/13/top-issues-facing-higher-education-in-2014/
These articles gave me "food for thought" today. Happy Friday to all!
Blue skies and full sails,
mj
Friday, October 10, 2014
Thursday, September 18, 2014
KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES: HELPFUL SITES FOR TEACHERS
Keeping up with the changes in technology applications in education is a daunting task for most educators. To assist my teachers, I will submit a quick list here of some excellent sites for lesson plans, classroom activities, and ways to incorporate technology into your K-12 curriculum. These are just a few suggestions for my teachers who usually do not have much time to search online. :)
www.edutopia.org
This site hosts standards-based curriculum and assessment ideas for teachers, as well as professional development opportunities. This site's video offerings are especially well produced.
www.ascd.org
The ASCD organization has an excellent reputation with professional educators and curriculum directors. The site not only has sections especially designated for professional development, it also showcases some of the best edited books and online resources. Do not miss this site. Use the search option for specific curriculum or instructional strategies.
www.pbs.org
Most professional teachers are familiar with PBS and its many activities, media and video resources for students and teachers. Do a search for your grade-level and see what you find! What many teachers may not know is that the site offers unique opportunities for teachers in its online professional development section found at www.pbs.org/teacherline .
www.learner.org
The Annenberg Foundation's learner.org site has workshops, courses, activities, suggestions, and ideas for educators to help them enrich their curriculum and engage their students. Go to their site online to see lesson plans, interactives, blogs, and more. This site is particularly good for teachers who want to align seasonal aspects to their lessons or class activities.
A personal plug? My Teach-ologies Scoop.It curated site offers many links to articles, apps, and tech tools for teachers. You can see the RSS feed at the top of this site. Here is the link for this site:
Take care everyone!
mj
Keeping up with the changes in technology applications in education is a daunting task for most educators. To assist my teachers, I will submit a quick list here of some excellent sites for lesson plans, classroom activities, and ways to incorporate technology into your K-12 curriculum. These are just a few suggestions for my teachers who usually do not have much time to search online. :)
www.edutopia.org
This site hosts standards-based curriculum and assessment ideas for teachers, as well as professional development opportunities. This site's video offerings are especially well produced.
www.ascd.org
The ASCD organization has an excellent reputation with professional educators and curriculum directors. The site not only has sections especially designated for professional development, it also showcases some of the best edited books and online resources. Do not miss this site. Use the search option for specific curriculum or instructional strategies.
www.pbs.org
Most professional teachers are familiar with PBS and its many activities, media and video resources for students and teachers. Do a search for your grade-level and see what you find! What many teachers may not know is that the site offers unique opportunities for teachers in its online professional development section found at www.pbs.org/teacherline .
www.learner.org
The Annenberg Foundation's learner.org site has workshops, courses, activities, suggestions, and ideas for educators to help them enrich their curriculum and engage their students. Go to their site online to see lesson plans, interactives, blogs, and more. This site is particularly good for teachers who want to align seasonal aspects to their lessons or class activities.
A personal plug? My Teach-ologies Scoop.It curated site offers many links to articles, apps, and tech tools for teachers. You can see the RSS feed at the top of this site. Here is the link for this site:
Take care everyone!
mj
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Common Core Standards + Social Studies
Herff Jones | Nystrom
Common Core Standards and Social Studies Content
This article by Dr. Kristen Swanson on Common Core Standards gives K12 educators strategies to infuse Social Studies content in with the Standards. Reading through her suggestions may spark other ideas for K12 educators teaching in a variety of other content areas. The first step is knowing what Core Standards a teacher needs to address. The next step is aligning and working to weave these standards into regular classroom instructional planning.
Unfortunately, it does not just happen. I guess if it did, teachers would not have to continually study these "best practices" on how to teach and encourage students to learn.
mj
Common Core Standards and Social Studies Content
This article by Dr. Kristen Swanson on Common Core Standards gives K12 educators strategies to infuse Social Studies content in with the Standards. Reading through her suggestions may spark other ideas for K12 educators teaching in a variety of other content areas. The first step is knowing what Core Standards a teacher needs to address. The next step is aligning and working to weave these standards into regular classroom instructional planning.
Unfortunately, it does not just happen. I guess if it did, teachers would not have to continually study these "best practices" on how to teach and encourage students to learn.
mj
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Technology enhanced instruction begins with ideas and suggestions! Go to some of the social or teacher-based community groups online and review the posts presented by your peers. We are energized when we see activities and strategies which we can use in our own classrooms to promote student learning. Check out a few of these free site links or go to TeacherTube to see video examples:
Edutopia -
http://www.edutopia.org/groups
TEL -
http://enhancingteaching.com/category/tel/
Google Teacher community -
http://www.google.com/educators/community.html
Elementary Teachers' Network -
http://elementaryteachersnetwork.ning.com/
http://www.teachertube.com
Edutopia -
http://www.edutopia.org/groups
TEL -
http://enhancingteaching.com/category/tel/
Google Teacher community -
http://www.google.com/educators/community.html
Elementary Teachers' Network -
http://elementaryteachersnetwork.ning.com/
http://www.teachertube.com
Thursday, October 6, 2011
"Flipping" Your Instruction with Videos - Faculty Professional Development
In a recent YouTube video uploaded by Edutopia, Salman Khan talks about "Liberating the Classroom" by using videos. In this short, ten minute video, Salman describes how video libraries can help instructors "flip" their teaching methods by using videos as a sort of pre-homework opportunity to eliminate or lessen lecturing on the basics, since it allows students to review course content first. This pre-class video method allows the teacher to focus on answering essential questions and to create engaging, on-topic conversations in the classroom. It saves classroom time and assists in motivating students in their own learning.
To see a K12 classroom teacher describe "flipping her classroom instruction," you can watch "Pocketlodge" describe how she did it and her experience. According to what she says in her video, she now feels that all of her students are engaged and challenged using this "flipping" model for her differentiated instruction.
Take a look at these videos and see how you might use this technique in your own instruction! It might be worth a try, and it should not be too scary. Hey, even if it was a bit scary, it's almost Halloween. :)
mj
To see a K12 classroom teacher describe "flipping her classroom instruction," you can watch "Pocketlodge" describe how she did it and her experience. According to what she says in her video, she now feels that all of her students are engaged and challenged using this "flipping" model for her differentiated instruction.
Take a look at these videos and see how you might use this technique in your own instruction! It might be worth a try, and it should not be too scary. Hey, even if it was a bit scary, it's almost Halloween. :)
mj
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Exploring Inanimatealice.com
The most dynamic product of our technological society is creative involvement and integration. In our online teacher education graduate programs we encourage teachers to use creativity and technological integration in their standards-based classroom instruction.
Today in a article on Technology in the Classroom (ASCD SmartBrief www.ascd.org ), I found a link which bounced me to a new tool to encourage personal reflection on reading processes and introduce examples of media literacy. It could also be used to encourage students to write or use media tools to elaborate about their own personal experiences. The site is called Inanimate Alice and it uses different media forms to integrate media literacy into classroom instruction or it could be used by online instructors to assist students to collaborate and explore media literacy in their online activities. As explained on the Web site, Inanimate Alice uses multimodality (images, sounds, text, interaction) "to enable students to see storytelling in a new, multi-sensory light." I was delighted that I could download an Education Pack and Curriculum suggestions directly from the site.
In our online graduate education courses, I think this site could be used to further collaborative engagement for our online K12 teachers and to encourage them to write or use new media tools to create stories for their own classrooms. Their students could then redesign and/or add to the storyline their own dynamic stories and media applications.
This media-rich site is an excellent example of online resources and opportunities which can be used to integrate technologies into classroom curriculum to further engage students in their own learning.
As Dr. Seuss would say, "Oh the places you'll go..."
-0-
Today in a article on Technology in the Classroom (ASCD SmartBrief www.ascd.org ), I found a link which bounced me to a new tool to encourage personal reflection on reading processes and introduce examples of media literacy. It could also be used to encourage students to write or use media tools to elaborate about their own personal experiences. The site is called Inanimate Alice and it uses different media forms to integrate media literacy into classroom instruction or it could be used by online instructors to assist students to collaborate and explore media literacy in their online activities. As explained on the Web site, Inanimate Alice uses multimodality (images, sounds, text, interaction) "to enable students to see storytelling in a new, multi-sensory light." I was delighted that I could download an Education Pack and Curriculum suggestions directly from the site.
In our online graduate education courses, I think this site could be used to further collaborative engagement for our online K12 teachers and to encourage them to write or use new media tools to create stories for their own classrooms. Their students could then redesign and/or add to the storyline their own dynamic stories and media applications.
This media-rich site is an excellent example of online resources and opportunities which can be used to integrate technologies into classroom curriculum to further engage students in their own learning.
As Dr. Seuss would say, "Oh the places you'll go..."
-0-
Thursday, July 28, 2011
A Competency-Based Learning System
I often look for discussion topics for my online courses and this Journal article was perfect for my August Advanced Teaching course. In the article, David Nagel talks about the new iNacol report which promotes a "comprehensive policy redesign" with valid technology practices and professional development. Nagel refers to to this new competency-based learning as a new paradigm, and I agree.
When I submit this article for my K-12 teachers to read and discuss, I am sure that they will feel that any policy and politics necessary for any type of realignment to take place is almost insurmountable.
They are entitled to their negativity, simply because America's education system is such a huge organizational machine! It has too many leaders stirring the pot ("too many cooks in the kitchen") who have a stake (financial, political or otherwise) in the outcome. Change does not come easily to our nation's education community.
Teachers know that our education machine is a roller-coaster ride. They have all been on it. No matter what political party is in control in Washington, or in their states, teachers have to deal with whatever twists and turns they dictate. Then after national or state changes, teachers must work through with the new standards or models with their local principles and administrators. These adminsitrators, may or may not agree with their new classroom assessments and curriculum in the current standards-based system, much less in a newer competency-based system. For teachers, a new paradigm is just one more issue which may change their workload and their instruction, and in the process, uses their students as guinea pigs. Teachers are tired of new educational paradigms which may or may not affect student learning.
Even Bill Gates admits that his foundation could not discover how we create great teachers. Everyone wanted to know, since the research shows that great teachers correlate directly to enhanced student learning.
Whatever the experts come up with on the subject of "great teachers," I am sure my teachers would tell you, it does not happen by changing rules or paradigms. Let's make a difference in our teachers' lives by developing a comprehensive system for our nation's educational systems (by a team of education experts - not politicians) and then seal it for ten years to allow us to find out if it works or not. Don't keep changing the rules each year with each new idea. Even coaches know better than to do that to their players.
-0-
When I submit this article for my K-12 teachers to read and discuss, I am sure that they will feel that any policy and politics necessary for any type of realignment to take place is almost insurmountable.
They are entitled to their negativity, simply because America's education system is such a huge organizational machine! It has too many leaders stirring the pot ("too many cooks in the kitchen") who have a stake (financial, political or otherwise) in the outcome. Change does not come easily to our nation's education community.
Teachers know that our education machine is a roller-coaster ride. They have all been on it. No matter what political party is in control in Washington, or in their states, teachers have to deal with whatever twists and turns they dictate. Then after national or state changes, teachers must work through with the new standards or models with their local principles and administrators. These adminsitrators, may or may not agree with their new classroom assessments and curriculum in the current standards-based system, much less in a newer competency-based system. For teachers, a new paradigm is just one more issue which may change their workload and their instruction, and in the process, uses their students as guinea pigs. Teachers are tired of new educational paradigms which may or may not affect student learning.
Even Bill Gates admits that his foundation could not discover how we create great teachers. Everyone wanted to know, since the research shows that great teachers correlate directly to enhanced student learning.
Whatever the experts come up with on the subject of "great teachers," I am sure my teachers would tell you, it does not happen by changing rules or paradigms. Let's make a difference in our teachers' lives by developing a comprehensive system for our nation's educational systems (by a team of education experts - not politicians) and then seal it for ten years to allow us to find out if it works or not. Don't keep changing the rules each year with each new idea. Even coaches know better than to do that to their players.
-0-
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