It has never been easier to practice learning a new language. Check out a couple of the most popular language apps out there today.
Teaching Strategies
Carol Dweck’s TED Talk: The Power of Believing You Can Improve
From TED:
“Carol Dweck researches “growth mindset” — the idea that we can grow our brain’s capacity to learn and to solve problems. In this talk, she describes two ways to think about a problem that’s slightly too hard for you to solve. Are you not smart enough to solve it … or have you just not solved it yet? A great introduction to this influential field.” read more here.
A Look Inside the Classroom of the Future
Photo Credit: AnnaKika via Compfight cc
Great read on Edutopia by Dana Mortenson. She asks:
“Will our children be ready, and is the education they’re receiving today preparing them for the world they’ll inherit in a decade or two? Skills that globally competent students will require to successfully navigate college, career, and life in the 21st century include:
- An appreciation for cultural differences
- An ability to understand and consider multiple perspectives
- Critical and comparative thinking skills
- Problem-solving abilities
- Comfort with ambiguity and change
- An understanding of globally significant issues.”
Read more here.
Globally-Minded, Student-Driven & Authentic
Below are 5 clips from the COETAIL final project files (you can see more from the YouTube playlist here) that provide strong examples of units and classrooms that are globally-minded, student-driven and authentic.
Emily Roth, Grade 4 Blogging Project:
Julie Bredy, Grade 7 Humanities (Search, Infographics, & Google Earth)
Leslie Davison, Grade 9 Spanish (Communication, Global Awareness, & Connections)
Tabitha Johnson, Grade 2 (Power of Choice, iPad Apps)
Jessica Faivre, Grade 10 Language Arts
Project Based Learning ~ What it is and isn’t ~ Great Clip!
In this clip, High Tech High teacher and artist Jeff Robin animates and explains the differences between project oriented learning and project based learning.
Flipped Classroom ToolKit
Flipping your classroom can have some interesting and positive consequences. The above clip is part of an Edutopia series called the Flipped Learning Toolkit.
Don’t try to flip an entire unit — start by trying to flip a lesson to see how it feels for you and your students.
Other resources in the toolkit include:
Is Your Feedback Helping or Hindering Student Learning?
Photo Credit: nexus6 via Compfight cc
We know how important feedback is for student learning, but what if it’s having the opposite effect? In this new post by Dylan Wiliam, he examines the research and helps us distinguish between helpful and unhelpful feedback for student learning.
“In 38% of well-designed studies, feedback actually made performance worse—one of the most counterintuitive results in all of psychology.
If there’s a single principle teachers need to digest about classroom feedback, it’s this: The only thing that matters is what students do with it. No matter how well the feedback is designed, if students do not use the feedback to move their own learning forward, it’s a waste of time. We can debate about whether feedback should be descriptive or evaluative, but it is absolutely essential that feedback is productive.
Add to that concept a second related principle: Feedback should be more work for the student than it is for the teacher.” Read the entire post here.
Strategies for Enhancing Student Engagement
Photo Credit: EU Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection via Compfight cc
When our students are engaged, everything feels right with the world.
Student engagement is essential for learning and strong school communities. In this Edutopia post, humanities teacher Joshua Block shares six strategies to strengthen engagement:
“Each new school year is an opportunity for me to develop new skills and try out different strategies with my classes. Throughout this year I want to use backward design to plan for deeper student engagement. I’ve come up with a list of six different strategies that I’ll refer to regularly as I plan my courses:
1. Authentic Learning
I strive to find ways to have my students do work that has meaning in the world, beyond classroom walls. As I plan, I will attempt to always have a rationale for learning content and a clear reason for doing the work that we do. In the past, I’ve had success designing projects that grapple with current issues or are created for an outside audience.” Read the rest of the piece and the other five strategies here.
Collaborating Among Schools
Another exceptional person to add to your learning community is Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano. Silvia blogs at Langwitches and writes about globally connected learning, technology integration, and 21st Century skills and literacies.
Her slideshare presentation above is full of excellent ideas!
10 Things Your Students Need From You
One of Teachthought’s latest post serves as a good reminder of student perspective on their needs for success.
“As educators, we have a huge responsibility towards each child entrusted to us.
It is our duty to try our best to meet the needs of the students in our classroom and to help them become productive members of our communities. Sometimes we need to step out of our ‘teacher shoes’ and step into the shoes of a student to help us better understand them, since they are not always very adept at verbalizing their thoughts. Here are ten things you would learn from their point of view.” Read more here.
Resources for the @AAS-Sofia Learning Community 