Edutopia's CNN/YouTube Democratic Presidential Debate Question

by Milton Chen

Milton Chen, executive director of The George Lucas Educational Foundation, publisher of Edutopia, asks, "What would you do to bring our schools into the twenty-first century?" See it on YouTube.


This article originally published on 7/19/2007


Relavence, Rigor, Relationships

Submitted by Scott (not verified) on July 23, 2007 - 13:15.

1) Team projects; I break up my MS class into 5 groups of 6. I require they individually complete a preview packet. They take a test on the basic material, then a team test. They are assigned a series of progressionlly harder projects. Each project is primarily completed in class. Results are presented simultaneously, then analyzed. An individual test is given at the end of the section.

I recommend the book:
Team-Based Learning: A Transformative Use of Small Groups in College Teaching,by Larry K. Michaelsen

Videos of the concept in action can be found at:
http://www.ou.edu/pii/teamlearning/video.htm

2) Community Integration; At back to school night, I ask for people interested in informally discussing their profession. From these discussions, I try to find out what are the most interesting things they do. I then try to create similar classroom activities that use SOL concepts. I also ask parents if they would consider serving as mentors. If yes, they can come in to speak, electronically answer student questions, judge mini science fairs, etc.

A good organization to refer to is:
http://www.bigpicture.org/

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