Blogs on Best Practices

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Suzie BossOctober 11, 2012

John Seely Brown, renowned scientist, insightful writer, and all-around big thinker, is serious about play. Playful, adventuresome experiences that engage both mind and body are how we learn best, he told a rapt audience at the recent Powerful Learning Practice Live conference in Philadelphia.

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Lisa Michelle DabbsOctober 10, 2012

The mobile learning revolution is alive and growing in popularity every day. When schools move toward mobile learning in the classroom, they can take advantage of electronic devices such as tablets and cell phones that offer portability and ease of use. Mobile learning technologies can offer teachers a flexible approach to learning with their students in a variety of locations, and encourage this learning to continue at home.

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Tanya KnightOctober 3, 2012

The one major factor that prevents millions of deserving students from going to college is absence of financial resources. Tragically this is often due to lack of awareness about how and where to get them. Fortunately the financial aid process is not hard if you have the information you need.

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Todd FinleySeptember 27, 2012

In The Checklist Manifesto, Atul Gawande writes about the importance of list making as a process of working through critical decisions, and list reviewing as a critical element to support aspirations. Marc Andreeson, a checklist user, attained extraordinary success by inventing the web browser. Later he joined the board of eBay and Facebook and co-founded Ning. Andreeson's secret: before going to sleep, he writes down three to five things he plans to accomplish the next day on an index card. " . . . I try like hell to get just those things done. If I do, it was a successful day." When he completes other tasks, he uses the back of the card (which he calls his "anti-to-do list") to record what he has finished. At the end of the day, he tears up the card -- mission accomplished -- and reaches for another.

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Elena AguilarSeptember 27, 2012

Last week, my son's third grade teacher sent home what at first glance looked like a long homework assignment -- three sets of survey questions with many lines for his responses. After reading the directions, we learned that I was to ask him the questions and transcribe his responses. Each night we settled down for what turned into a thoughtful, reflective conversation about my child: his reading preferences, learning style, interests, likes and dislikes, fears and hopes.

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José VilsonSeptember 19, 2012

Believe it or not, I had a bit of a freak-out before the first day of school. All summer, I had prepared my curriculum, re-thought my lesson plans, reflected on the energies I would put out to my students, and got plenty of professional development (specifically in science and math integration). Yet, a few hours before I went to bed, I posted on Facebook, "Always nervous about the first day of school with the students. Not because I'm scared of them, but because I want to do right by them." Despite my best efforts, I always feel like I can do better. Then, on the first day, I received a text message from one of my former students saying how much she missed her teachers -- including me.

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Adrienne Curtis DickinsonSeptember 18, 2012

Embarking on your first project-based learning unit is an exhilarating time full of big ideas and even bigger hopes about how this new avenue for teaching and learning will change your students' lives. As you begin to think about the intersection between the reality of your classroom and the promise of PBL, remember that PBL presents an authentic problem to the teacher, too!

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Amber GraeberSeptember 11, 2012

As a new teacher, I once believed that teaching and learning were one and the same. I taught, and the students learned. In creating a student-centered classroom, I began to embrace project-based learning. However, I did so in a very superficial way. I thought I had PBL nailed if my students did a presentation or poster at the end of an instructional unit. My room was full of student work. Anyone who walked in my room could see learning . . . or could they?

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Shawn CornallySeptember 11, 2012

This summer was quite literally a windfall for any teacher involved in educating students about STEM ideas. In one summer we were treated to the physics-laden Olympics, the engineering marvel of NASA's Mars Curiosity, and the statistically significant fingerprint of the Higgs Boson. It's little wonder why so many sources extol teaching STEM using current events in an attempt to generate relevancy in the classroom.

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Danielle Moss LeeSeptember 10, 2012

Even though I haven't been a student or a classroom teacher in a long time, the beginning of a new school year still fills my stomach with butterflies. For me, September still signifies crisply ironed clothes, spotless new shoes, and clean loose-leaf paper in an as-yet-untarnished new binder. As a teacher, the summer vacation gave me the time I needed to recover from the insatiable demands that being alone in a room with 20 or so burgeoning adolescents inevitably placed on me. I spent the last weeks of summer dipping into my own pocket to make sure that my classroom was beautifully appointed with pictures, posters, and various sundry learning tools; and that my bulletin boards stood at the ready -- waiting to showcase the brilliance that was sure to emerge from my students in those early months of the school year.

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