When schools try to innovate, they often take a traditional top-down approach: devise a strategy, roll it out to teachers and support a high-fidelity implementation. The end result is often one that lacks teacher support or genuine enthusiasm — initiatives putter along and change is sporadic or modest.In education and beyond, innovation is usually the result of iteration rather than central planning. In schools that succeed in implementing real instructional improvements, teachers figure out how to improve teaching and learning by journeying through multiple passes of a cycle of experiment, reflection and adjustment.
Number one on their list is, what I feel, an important and overlooked aspect of education. Research and development is all too often replaced with, “the research says we should be doing this, so let’s implement this across the building or district, without doing any R&D”.
As a professional corporate trainer, I take the same care and attention when I prepare the room for a train-the-trainer workshop. I want my participants to feel welcome, comfortable and relaxed—just as if I were welcoming them into my own home. Depending on the workshop I’m delivering, we may be spending anywhere from one to five days together,…
Through these virtual escape rooms, librarians have been able to serve their communities, as well as those living far outside of them, by giving people something to do while stuck at home. These digital challenges have become a tool for teaching and homeschooling, librarians say, as well as a device for staff development and team…
10 Google Apps Tricks to learn for 2017. Increase your digital literacy with these Google Apps tricks: Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive Source: 10 Google Apps Tricks to Learn for 2017 – Teacher Tech One skill I’d add to this list is to learn how to bookmark individual files and folders in your browser toolbar for…
Audio books have surged in popularity in recent years, enabled by their ease of use and advancements in smart phones. Gone are the days of numbered cassettes and bulky players. Technology has created more opportunities to listen to good books. But not everyone believes listening to books is a good thing — biases in favor of reading…
I’ve been a psychology professor since 2012. In the past six years, I’ve witnessed students of all ages procrastinate on papers, skip presentation days, miss assignments, and let due dates fly by. I’ve seen promising prospective grad students fail to get applications in on time; I’ve watched PhD candidates take months or years revising a…
Educators are eager to know how the computers popping up in their classrooms actually affect student learning. Much of the research has focused on how computers and other digital devices increase thetemptation and likelihood of multitasking, leading to lower comprehension and reduced productivity. But until now, few people have looked into whether the method of…
