November, 2022

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What Example Do You Set?

A Principal's Reflections

While there are some exceptions, most people do not like to be told what to do, especially when it comes to change. Not only does this often lead to resentment, but it can also inhibit people from doing their best work. I am sure many of us can recount numerous instances during our careers when directives have been leveled down by a leader(s). We end up following through with them in many cases because we are subordinate instead of empowered.

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18 Inconvenient Truths About Assessment Of Learning

TeachThought

It's an extraordinary amount of work to design precise and personalized assessments that illuminate pathways forward for individual students. The post 18 Inconvenient Truths About Assessment Of Learning appeared first on TeachThought.

Teaching 329
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The First 20th Century Genocide

World History Teachers Blog

Almost 50 years before the Jewish Holocaust in World War II, another holocaust, equally tragic and devastating, took place in Nambia in the early 1900s. In 1904, German colonizers in Nambia attempted to wipe out the Herero people who were fighting for their land. In order to defeat the Herero, German General von Trotha issued an extermination order.

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President’s Day Activities for Middle School

Mr and Mrs Social Studies

President’s Day Activities President’s Day is coming up soon, but how should you celebrate it with your middle school students? As a teacher, celebrating President’s Day with your students is a great way to help them understand the role of the presidency in our government and past presidents’ impact on our country. This post will highlight several President’s Day activities and teaching ideas that you can do with your students that are no-prep or low-prep!

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Can you break the code? A quiet warm-up?

Pedagogy to Share

Two of my didactics courses opened last week with the beginning of the 2022-2023 academic year. I began both lessons with a quiet activity which allowed the students to get seated, calm down, look around the room and get ready for the class in an easygoing fashion. I presented a message in code and asked the students to translate it into their notebooks.

Teaching 130
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The 4 Shifts Protocol in Kentucky

Dangerously Irrelevant

The Commonwealth of Kentucky has leaned hard into the 4 Shifts Protocol to support its schools’ technology integration and instructional redesign work. Over 650(!) Digital Learning Coaches (DLCs) across the state have received a copy of Harnessing Technology for Deeper Learning and are working with their local educators to use the protocol to redesign lessons and units for deeper learning, greater student agency, more authentic work, and rich technology infusion.

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Developing Resilience in Learners

A Principal's Reflections

The pandemic leveled down an array of lessons that should pave the way for future success. One that sticks out to me as the most critical is how resilience got us through one of the most disruptive events we have ever experienced. Adversity, like never before, compelled us to not only change but also to persevere in the face of countless unknowns. While the path was fraught with obstacles, we learned to overcome them together through innovative means.

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The path to a career could start in middle school

The Hechinger Report

DALLAS — In Levar Dobbins’ eighth grade classroom, a dozen students were learning about workforce trends. This story also appeared in Mind/Shift. “What do you think the future job market will look like?” Dobbins asked the class, at Piedmont GLOBAL Academy, a majority-Hispanic middle school in southeastern Dallas. “A whole bunch of robots,” one boy suggested.

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How to Help Kids Overcome Their Fear of Math, According to a Brain Scientist

ED Surge

For all that education has changed in recent times—from the disappearance of cursive lessons to the rise of computer science in classrooms to pandemic-forced remote learning—one thing has remained stubbornly unchanged. That’s stress and anxiety over math. Even before worries mounted over “ learning loss ” and the ongoing youth mental health crisis , researchers observed math anxiety in children as young as 6.

Research 141
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Peasant and Peasantry in Anthropology

Anthropology for Beginners

Contents style='mso-spacerun:yes'> TOC o "1-7" h z u Peasant: style='color:windowtext;display:none;mso-hide:screen;text-decoration:none; text-underline:none'> PAGEREF _Toc118993640 h 1 08D0C9EA79F9BACE118C8200AA004BA90B02000000080000000E0000005F0054006F0063003100310038003900390033003600340030000000 display:none;mso-hide:screen;text-decoration:none;text-underline:none'> History of the usage: style='color:windowtext;display:none;mso-hide:screen;text-decoration:none; text-underline:none'

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The 4 Shifts Protocol in Bismarck

Dangerously Irrelevant

It’s always gratifying to see your resources being used by educators. I’ve worked with the Bismarck Public Schools multiple times on leadership, vision, and instructional design for deeper learning (and we featured Legacy High School in Leadership for Deeper Learning ). They’ve got an amazing group of educators there and I always love to see what they’re up to… Thanks for sharing, Tanna !

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The 3 C’s to Survive and Thrive in Disruptive Times

A Principal's Reflections

We blink, and things change. While disruption is not new in any sense, it is happening at a more frenetic pace for a variety of reasons. I shared the following in Disruptive Thinking : With the exponential rate of change taking place in society, it is exciting to think about what the future may hold, despite many unknowns. However, we know that the future will be vastly different than what we are currently experiencing and that these changes will dramatically impact workforce expectations.

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How to Bring Students’ Lived Experiences into the Classroom and Spark Authentic Learning

Digital Promise

The post How to Bring Students’ Lived Experiences into the Classroom and Spark Authentic Learning appeared first on Digital Promise.

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Play is crucial for middle schoolers, too

The Hechinger Report

CHANTILLY, Va. – In Fairfax County, Virginia, thousands of middle school students experience what most of their peers leave behind in elementary school — recess. This story also appeared in Mind/Shift. The break is only 15 minutes long. But at Rocky Run Middle School, about 25 miles west of the nation’s capital, the seventh and eighth graders make the most of one of the few stretches of time in school that they can truly call their own.

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The Metaverse Is Built on University Innovation. Higher Ed Should Stake Its Claim.

ED Surge

The past 12 months may be a year that will live in infamy for fans of the metaverse. Meta itself, the artist formerly known as Facebook, spent $10 billion on building its grand vision of a digital world and allocated $150 million to immersive learning projects, including funds for universities to create digital versions of their campuses that students can access—wearing Meta VR headsets, of course.

Economics 139
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Five Ways to Center Equity when Celebrating the Holidays in Your School or District

Education Elements

And just like that, summer has ended, and pumpkin spice lattes are back. It’s that time of year: the Winter Holidays are among us! Like other times during the year, this is a great moment to pause and be intentional about centering educational equity in your school and district. Consider these 5 tips as we head into the holiday season.

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How Teachers Like Me Can Use AI to Improve Teaching (eSchool News)

Edthena

If you’re an educator trying to improve teaching, you’ve likely wondered questions like these: “Is my instruction still engaging and fun?” and “Am I really helping my students become independent thinkers?”. Whether you’re a new teacher or have a decade of experience in the classroom, it’s tricky to continually improve teaching.

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Are You Juggling or Leading?

A Principal's Reflections

All leaders most likely view themselves as jugglers. Who could blame them when there are always multiple areas to address and the fact that the buck stops with them when it comes to making big decisions? Here are just a few: Accountability Morale Meetings Professional learning Stakeholders Achievement Budget Crises The act of juggling requires concentration and focus.

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Learning How to Learn: Teaching to Engage Students

Digital Promise

A. B. C. D. F. How did five letters of the alphabet become a measure of one’s capabilities? In today’s day and age, grades have become everything; people are practically defined by the grades they earn in school, leading to academic competition to be the top of the class. But is the emphasis on a mere letter or number worth it? In many instances, grades become counterintuitive as they lead to more students cheating; in other situations, too much stress on grades can lead to depreciating mental h

Teaching 117
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Want resilient and well-adjusted kids? Let them play

The Hechinger Report

In 1966, when psychiatrist Dr. Stuart Brown was assigned to a commission to investigate what led University of Texas student Charles Whitman to kill 12 people in one of the country’s first mass shootings, Brown and his colleagues considered many different aspects of Whitman’s background. The student had access to firearms at home; he had witnessed abuse while growing up; and he had a difficult relationship with his father.

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Why I’m Integrating the World Cup Into My English Class, Despite My Disinterest in Sports

ED Surge

In late September, my sophomores were packing up for the day when I noticed a group of boys, heads down, all focusing on what looked to be magazines open on their desks. They lifted each page carefully, with a mix of reverence and deep concentration. ”¿Tengo Andres Guardado?” “Sí… ¿Tengo Mbappe?” The boys burst into rib-busting laughter. I moved closer, trying not to disturb the scene unfolding before me.

Cultures 120
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What Principals Need to Know About High Quality Instructional Materials

Education Elements

The most successful school leaders we work with understand that high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) improve student engagement and are a key resource in addressing schooling loss. They also know that materials, while a critical lever, are only one piece of the necessary elements for shifting teacher practice and improving student outcomes. In this blog post, we provide a brief list of things principals should know about high-quality instructional materials as they get started with adopti

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Book Review: Annotation

Dangerously Irrelevant

I finally had a chance to read Annotation by Remi Kalir and Antero Garcia. Although I’ve never met Antero, Remi is my faculty colleague here at the University of Colorado Denver. Remi tells fascinating stories about annotation (no, really!), so I was excited to read his thoughts in print. The book highlights five key functions of annotation: providing information, sharing commentary, sparking conversation, expressing power, and aiding learning.

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Sharing the Story & Songs of Christmas

Pedagogy and Formation

Storytelling is a central part of what it means to be human. Holidays often create the perfect context for storytelling. They create 'space' to spend time with family and friends in varied contexts, and each offer opportunities to share stories and yarns. In Australia, schools have their longest break of about 6 weeks in Dec-Jan as we approach Christmas.

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Learning, Relationships, and Power: Attending to Each Moment of Teaching as Pedagogical Possibility Toward Equity

Digital Promise

The post Learning, Relationships, and Power: Attending to Each Moment of Teaching as Pedagogical Possibility Toward Equity appeared first on Digital Promise.

Teaching 113
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OPINION: Parents say enough with the strawmen, fix reading education based on the science

The Hechinger Report

Re OPINION: “ A call for rejecting the newest reading war ” (Nov. 18, 2022). For decades, parents like us have witnessed how our children were not successfully taught to read or write within education systems using curriculums written and supported by signers of the Nov. 18 letter to the editor. Our cries for content-rich curriculum firmly seated in how the brain learns to read and write, as evidenced by decades of scientific research, fell on deaf ears.

Education 126
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Reflections on 50 years of Game-Based Learning (Part 2)

ED Surge

Oregon Trail has an extraordinary origin story , illuminating many of the crucial elements that make games engaging and powerful for learning. Given its exceptional start within a favorable early ecosystem, one might expect hundreds—even thousands—of compelling games for learning on the market today. But, as with Oregon Trail, the path has not been straightforward or simple.

EdTech 118
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Honoring Teachers: an Underused Tool in Retaining Talent During the Teacher Shortage

Education Elements

The stories, run in newspapers across the country each week, paint a desperate picture: a Pre-K teacher in Texas juggling two classrooms alone; classes across the country led by a recurring series of long-term substitutes with no formal training ; a school district in Pennsylvania forced to shorten school days due to lack of staff; districts in North Carolina reporting hundreds of vacant teaching positions even as the school year begins.

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Worksheet Packets for Civics, World, & US History

Students of History

One of the most time and energy-saving strategies I started using in my social studies classroom was to employ unit guide packets for students. These thorough 9-page packets were a huge help in a few ways: Printing the majority of student work at once each unit instead of each day. Students know exactly what they need to know for the test and have it in one place.

Civics 52
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Improving Multiple Choice Questioning

The Effortful Educator

I am a big fan of the multiple choice question. I’ve written multiple articles discussing how to more efficiently and effectively utilize these questions in class. Probably one of my most seen tweets centers around the use of multiple choice questions: Enhancing Multiple Choice Qs Some blogs, some research, & a poster Ranking MC Answers [link] … Maximizing MC Effectiveness [link] … Confidence Weighted MCQs [link] … MCQs as a Learning Experience [link] … pic.twitter.com/TcUEQRcKwS — Bla

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How to Engage Students in Science Through Real-World Learning

Digital Promise

The post How to Engage Students in Science Through Real-World Learning appeared first on Digital Promise.

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The complex world of pre-K play

The Hechinger Report

SEATTLE — On a bright October morning, two dozen 4- and 5-year-olds were scattered around a classroom at Impact Salish Sea Elementary in south Seattle, enthralled by plastic food, dolls, blocks and clay. In the center of the room, four children buzzed around a wooden play kitchen, mixing various pretend food items in pots and pans. This story also appeared in Mind/Shift.

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When It Comes to Picking Edtech, Are Schools Listening to Teachers?

ED Surge

When a school or district decides to cut a check for an edtech product, the end goal isn’t about owning a shiny new piece of hardware or app. The administrators who sign off are thinking about how students will benefit long-term from more support in the classroom. But where in the conversation are the people implementing those tools: the teachers? And how much say do they—or should they—have in edtech decisions?

EdTech 115
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5 Things School Improvement Leaders Do: What to Do When Your District or School is Placed on the School Improvement List

Education Elements

Your organization has just been officially placed on the school improvement or district accountability list. As a leader, this likely comes as no surprise to you. In fact, you may have already taken steps over the last several months to make significant improvements around climate, instruction, curriculum, and leadership. However, for your staff, and likely the rest of the community, this announcement can be jarring and bring a range of emotions - embarrassment, discouragement, and even anger.

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Ty Cobb: Ballplayer, Investor, and Philanthropist.

History Havoc

Hall of Fame baseball player Ty Cobb had an interesting financial life. As one of the best players of his time, Cobb was one of the highest paid. But I want to focus on his financial life as a whole including his investments and even his philanthropy. First of all, let’s take a look at his salary. During his time he was one of the highest paid players in the league.

History 52
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Turkey Day Topics for Engaging Classroom Discussion

ACRE

As you approach those few days of class before Thanksgiving Break, where students’ minds are starting to drift towards turkey and time-off, what topics do you focus on in the classroom? If you’re interested in discussing the holiday season with students, you can use one or all of the articles below to create some fun classroom conversations. As students explore the articles, they will learn how this year compares to holidays past, how prices are determined, and what decisions consumers make duri

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Leveraging the Village for Community Science Learning

Digital Promise

The post Leveraging the Village for Community Science Learning appeared first on Digital Promise.

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