Author Archives: Katrina Schwartz

Flipped Classroom 2.0: Competency Learning With Videos

May 21, 2013 | 9:28 AM | By
flipped-classroom

Jeremy Wilburn/Flickr

The flipped classroom model generated a lot of excitement initially, but more recently some educators — even those who were initial advocates — have expressed disillusionment with the idea of assigning students to watch instructional videos at home and work on problem solving and practice in class. Biggest criticisms: watching videos of lectures wasn’t all that revolutionary, that it perpetuated bad teaching and raised questions about equal access to digital technology.

Now flipped classroom may have reached equilibrium, neither loved nor hated, just another potential tool for teachers — if done well. “You never want to get stuck in a rut and keep doing the same thing over and over,” said Aaron Sams, a former high school chemistry teacher turned consultant who helped pioneer flipped classroom learning in an edWeb webinar. “The flipped classroom is not about the video,” said Jonathan Bergmann, Sams’ fellow teacher who helped fine tune and improve a flipped classroom strategy. “It’s about the active engaged stuff you can do in your class.”

“There is no place for them to hide. They had to converse with me and tell me when they were ready to be assessed on something.”

The two teachers admit when they started flipping their classrooms they put everything into video form. Now, they’ve taken a step back and realized some things shouldn’t be in lecture form, and Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, Teaching With Tech, competency-based education, Flipped classroom, mastery

Can a Toy Spark Interest in Engineering for Girls?

May 17, 2013 | 7:00 AM | By
DebbieSterlingPic

Katrina Schwartz

It’s a common refrain that there aren’t enough women in jobs that require math and science skills like engineering and computer science. Though more programs are cropping up geared towards girls involved in science through camps, rocketry clubs or with more focused courses on STEM subjects, the gender imbalance is still striking.

The discrepancy became all-too apparent to Debbie Sterling, a budding inventor who was one of the only girls in her engineering courses at Stanford. So she came up with an idea to encourage more girls in  is why she’s spent the last several years developing GoldieBlox, a toy focused on developing spatial skills in girls.

“I just think there need to be more options, more role models, more career paths for girls to see and that’s what I’m trying to do with GoldieBlox,” Sterling said.

Sterling discovered her interest in engineering almost by accident — a math teacher suggested she take a course when she got to college — and she wonders if girls would choose science careers if they were exposed to basic engineering and physics concepts earlier in life.

“Some modeling of a cool, young girl engineer could be useful if the girl playing can see a path from where she is to where the cool, functioning engineer is.”

Research shows that building toys like Legos or Erector Sets are good for building spatial skills, but those typically fall under the stereotype of toys for boys. After visiting the toy store and experiencing what she called “the pink explosion isle for girls” Sterling decided she needed to build an engineering toy that would appeal to girls.

GoldieBlox and the Spinning Machine is a construction kit with pieces that clip into a board to make a simple belt drive. The set comes with a story that tells of a girl engineer named Goldie who Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, Research, Carol Dweck, Games, STEM, stereotypes

What It Takes to Become an All Project-Based School

May 16, 2013 | 7:00 AM | By
New-Tech-students

New Tech Network

In many schools, project-based learning happens in isolated cases: in certain teachers’ classrooms here and there, or in the contexts of specific subjects. But for students to benefit from project-based learning, ideally it’s part of a school’s infrastructure — a way to approach learning holistically.

For one quickly growing network of schools, project-based learning is the crux of the entire ecosystem. New Tech Network, which was founded 15 years ago, is taking its school-wide project-based model to national scale. The organization, which offers a paid program for schools to use its model, began with a flagship school in Napa and has grown to 120 schools in 18 states, most of which are public schools.

The network has not only grown in size, but also in notoriety. President Obama visited Manor New Tech High School in Texas last week, as part of an effort to promote an education agenda focused on producing graduates that can compete in today’s global economy.

The nod from the president comes at a time when New Tech is attempting to position itself as a successful model to follow. But rather than relying on test scores and such quantifiable numbers to prove its value, New Tech’s own 2013 annual report frames success by focusing on deeper learning that can’t be measured by standardized test scores and their college readiness. Yet it’s that lack of emphasis on test scores, an all-consuming worry for many districts, that makes it more difficult for the organization to pin point numbers to tell its story.

“From where we stand, public school districts are as capable of innovative schools as charter schools.”

Here are a few of the statistics New Tech has gathered from their schools: students graduate at a rate six percent higher than the national average and enroll in college nine percent more than the average. They also persist in four-year universities at a 17 percent higher rate and 46 percent higher rate when it comes to two year colleges. Perhaps most importantly, they claim that Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Learning Methods, Teaching With Tech, New Tech Network, personalized learning, professional development, project-based-learning, school culture

Google Glass: Vision for Future of Learning?

May 14, 2013 | 2:00 PM | By

This is a shamelessly promotional video for Google Glass, but it shows the possibilities this tool opens up for learners. Andrew Vanden Heuvel teaches advanced physics online to high school students whose schools don’t offer the course. He explores CERN, the famous particle physics laboratory in Geneva, Switzerland, bringing it back into the classroom in real time with Google glasses.

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, Teaching With Tech, Google, videos

How Do You Teach Empathy? Harvard Pilots Game Simulation

May 9, 2013 | 8:00 AM | By
empathy-simulator

Elisabeth Hahn and Geoff Marietta

Disruptive students can be a big challenge for teachers in charge of a room full of 30 students. There isn’t always time to get to the bottom of student behavior and in a large class those students can derail learning for everyone. But what if there was a way to help kids stop acting out and show more empathy for classmates and teachers?

A group of Harvard education researchers have developed a virtual simulation for “walking in another person’s shoes” to help students relate to one another better. It’s part of a project called Social Aspects of Immersive Learning (SAIL) funded by the National Science Foundation. “The ability to accurately read people is really important to make compromises,” said Elisabeth Hahn, a doctoral candidate at the Harvard School of Education in a recent edWeb webinar.

The technical term is “social perspective taking” and it means understanding another person by taking in their thoughts, feelings and motivations. Accurately reading another person requires both motivation and ability, qualities that Hahn and other researchers are discovering can be taught.

“This has great potential to use virtual environments to improve interpersonal relationships that are not possible in the real world, to actually walk in the shoes of another party.”

The benefits of reading others are well documented, Hahn said. Taking in social perspective helps people become less ego-centric, decreases use of stereotypes, increases perspectives of similarity, and diminishes social aggression. These effects could make a big impact on many classrooms where the success of the lesson can hinge on how well a teacher is able to interact with the students. “It becomes much easier to empathize and leads to benefits in relationships and ultimately educational outcomes for kids,” Hahn said.

In an effort to create an experience that will help build these types of positive relationships through Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Culture, Research, game-based learning, social emotional learning

MOOCs for Teachers: Coursera Offers Online Teacher Training Program

April 30, 2013 | 9:00 PM | By
UTCLibrary6

Flickr: UTCI Library

Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, have forced universities to reconsider their value in light of free high-quality education available online. Coursera, a private company founded by two Stanford professors has been at the forefront of that movement, actively courting new institutions of higher education to their portfolio and trying to monetize the effort by certifying courses for college credit. Now they’re expanding that model to K-12 teacher professional development.

The courses will be free to teachers, and for those who want a verified certificate, there will be a $50 fee. Coursera will verify that the teacher actually completed the course and participated fully along the way.

“In speaking to school administration leaders, I was hearing over and over that many districts today don’t have the resources to deliver good professional development,” said Andrew Ng, co-founder of Coursera. For teachers, Ng said offering professional development online gives them more choices and could save districts money.

“The important part is the interaction among the teachers which is something that’s very hard to replicate on a MOOC or any kind of online program.”

Coursera is partnering with schools of education at the University of Washington, University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt University. In addition, the company is expanding its network of trainers beyond universities to include cultural institutions like the Exploratorium and the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA).

“It was the most natural thing in the world,” said Deb Howes, director of digital learning at MOMA. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, Teaching With Tech, Coursera, MOOC, professional development