Final Friday 4 for February

Posted on February 28, 2014 by Scott MacClintic

February may be the shortest month of the year as far as calendar days are concerned, but this year, with respect to the weather in New England, February has been one of the longest on record. As one frigidly cold blustery day blends into yet another sub-zero polar vortex of a night, I anxiously await spring and the first baseball practice outside when I do not have to wear my thermal socks. What better way to spend yet another day cooped up indoors than to consume one last Friday 4 missive. With no further ado, here you go…

Several colleagues mentioned in a recent survey on the Kravis Center that they would like some help effectively incorporating technology into their classrooms. Google forms is a powerful tool that can be used in a whole host of ways. There happens to be a Classroom 2.0 live show on Google forms on Saturday, March 1 at noon EST. You can join in here live or listen to the presentation at a later time.
Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne) recently wrote a piece on his Free Technology for Teachers blog about How to Add Voice Comments to Your Google Documents that can take your feedback on student writing to the next level.
7 Things Smart Learners Do Differently is a nice little piece that might be nice to share with your students and serves as a good reminder as we develop lesson plans.
Peter Gow (@pgow) recently wrote a piece on his blog titled “Why Twitter Beats February” that describes how he uses his Twitter PLN to make the days of February bearable. Seemed appropriate as I watch the weather forecast predicting yet another snow “event” in the coming days.
Examining Your Multiple-Choice Questions is a piece I ran across on the Faculty Focus website that begins an exploration of how to craft better multiple choice questions.
My final nugget is completely unrelated to teaching and learning, but given that the Loomis Chaffee mascot is a pelican, I could not resist! Get an up-close, face-to-face view of a rescued pelican learning to fly.

A Cornucopia of Interesting Items for Fall

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Scott MacClintic

Friday 4: Like the colors of the leaves of fall…random yet interesting.

This month has gotten off to a particularly busy start in my world which prevented me from posting a Friday 4 last week. I was fortunate enough to attend and present at the OESIS (Online Education Symposium for Independent Schools) last week in Boston and then attended the Westminster Teaching Symposium this week so I have been busy trying to take in and learn as much as I can and share what I have learned with my colleagues and my PLN.

There is no theme to this week’s Friday 4 other than here is a bunch of items that I have come across of late that have made it into my Diigo library.

This first piece appeared in the Washington post recently and caught my eye since I frequently hear people use the terms “Multiple Intelligences” and “Learning Styles” without really knowing what they are, mean or if they are even true. Howard Gardner: ‘Multiple intelligences’ are not ‘learning styles’
Hans Mundahl (@HMundahl) wrote an interesting piece Four Things You Need to Know About Online Learning following the OESIS conference that I thought summarized the current landscape surrounding the whole question of online learning.
Naomi Appel (@njappel) passed along an interesting article that she came across on Twitter that speaks to the power of truly student centered learning. How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses.
The last item for this week is actually a series of blog posts by Grant Lichtman (@GrantLichtman) that really resonated with me. The first piece Malcolm Gladwell Proves I Was Right About College! includes a MUST WATCH video from a talk given by Malcolm Gladwell at a Google conference. All college bound students, parents of college bound students or teachers of college bound students will find the talk quite interesting. Another post from Grant Re-post: The Busted Bell Curve includes links to three previous posts of his that look at the research surrounding the bell-curve of human performance. I would highly recommend checking out all of the related posts if you want to do a little head scratching.

Enjoy!

October is Connected Educator Month – Are you game?

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Scott MacClintic

For those of you unaware, the month of October is officially “Connected Educator Month” in the United States. CEM was started in 2012 by the U.S. Department of Education and is “part of the Office of Educational Technology’s Connected Educators initiative, which is supporting online, social and professional learning for educators by conducting research, hosting communities, and working with the field.” (http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-kicks-connected-educator-month)

From the Connectededucators.org website: “Online communities and learning networks are helping hundreds of thousands of educators learn, reducing isolation and providing “just in time” access to knowledge and opportunities for collaboration. However, many educators are not yet participating and others aren’t realizing the full benefits. In many cases, schools, districts, and states also are not recognizing and rewarding this essential professional learning. This year’s event will have a special emphasis on helping districts promote and integrate online social learning in their formal professional development.”

So, you may be asking, “How do I become involved in Connected Educators Month?” It is actually quite easy and this week’s Friday 4 will provide you with 4 links to information that will help you on your path to becoming a connected educator.

The best place to start is actually the Connected Educators website where you can find a calendar of events that have already begun and will continue through the month of October. I encourage you to look through the calendar and find a webinar, podcast, twitter chat or discussion that is in an area of interest and take the plunge!
You can download a CEM Starter Kit here that includes introductions to what it means to be a connected educator and even 31 days worth of online activities you can try out.
Here is a blog post that was posted on the Edutopia website that offers “Ten Tips for Becoming a Connected Educator“
If you are really feeling adventurous and want to combine CEM with an Edcamp experience, I encourage you to sign up for and participate in the first ever Edcamp Online event that will be occurring on October 26th. If you are unfamiliar with Edcamps, here is a link to a good description of the Edcamp concept.

What are you waiting for? Become a Connected Educator this month and grow as a professional! As always, I welcome your comments or feedback. Enjoy.

Spring – A time to reflect and hone your skills

Posted on May 17, 2013 by Scott MacClintic

Spring in the education world is a frenetic time filled with final preparation for AP exams, honors teas and events for our best and brightest students, countless meetings and the final “push” to the end of the year in all of our classes. As busy as the final weeks can be, it is also an excellent time to actually take some time and reflect on the year that has past and consider how it has gone and how we might improve what we do the next time around. In that spirit, I have assembled a few items (more than the usual 4) that I ran across this week that will hopefully inspire you to think about some of the fundamental aspects of teaching and learning, and with some serious reflection, might help you to become a better teacher in the long run.

7 Characteristics of an Innovative Educator is a piece from the Teachamazing website that I thought did a good job of describing a mindset that leads to improved teaching.
The 10 Skills Modern Teachers Must Have comes from the Edudemic website and includes some sound advice that dovetails quite nicely with the previous piece. On a side note, Loomis Chaffee graduate Jeff Dunn ’00 (@edudemic) is the founder of Edudemic.
What if Finland’s great teachers taught in U.S. schools? is a piece that appeared in The Washington Post that came across my Twitter stream this week. The importance of a culture of collaboration among teachers was particularly interesting and intriguing to me. I am curious to hear what others think.
The Atlantic had an article this week titled Why Private Schools Are Dying Out that caught my attention and made me think about what we are doing as a school to remain relevant in an ever-changing educational landscape.
Open Your Classroom Door to ‘Be Better’ is a nice little piece from the Education Week Teacher website that provides some good practical advice that any classroom teacher can implement in the spirit of collaboration and improvement.

I welcome comments on any of this week’s “finds” and welcome suggestions for future editions of the Friday 4. Enjoy!

Teacher Appreciation Week Finale

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Scott MacClintic

Friday Four – May 10

I hope that you had a wonderful Teacher Appreciation Week and never forget that despite how it may feel at times, you do make a difference. I can think of no more important profession than the education of young people. THANK YOU!

An exciting collaboration was launched this week between two favorites in the education world – TED Talks and PBS. They produced a one-hour special “TED Talks Education” that was aired on PBS on Tuesday. You can read a NYT article on the project here and watch the actual show here.
The TeachThought website is a great resource that I recommend to all teachers who are looking for inspiration on just about any topic related to education. “TeachThought is a fluid platform that explores the best in learning innovation. We connect K-20 educators not only with resources and ideas, but models, frameworks and curricula. Many blogs cover progressive education and trending topics, but TeachThought also seeks to support the implementation of innovative learning.” A few of the current blog posts trending on the site are: “The Definition of Digital Citizenship” and “How 21st Century Thinking Is Just Different.”
A must read for this week has to be the article written by Annie Murphy Paul (@anniemurphypaul) that appeared on the KQED education blog titled “How Does Multitasking Change the Way Kids Learn?” The piece was so interesting that I sent it along to all of my students to read. Annie posted a followup to the article that can be found on her blog here that is titled “Reaction To My Multitasking Article: The Teenagers Speak.”
A final piece for the week is a provocative blog post written by Grant Wiggins (@grantwiggins) “Dereliction of duty by HS teachers.” The piece itself and the extensive comments posted by readers have made me challenge some of my complacency in the courses I am teaching…a good thing to continue to ruminate about over the summer.

Vernal Equinox Edition of the Friday 4

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Scott MacClintic

Friday Four – Is it Spring yet?

Well, it appears that spring may actually have arrived in New England and baseball season can finally start. To celebrate the arrival of the Vernal Equinox, I offer up this week’s interesting finds. Enjoy!

Here is a recent post from Annie Murphy Paul (@anniemurphypaul) on the power and use of feedback in the classroom based on research by John Hattie. If you do not already follow Annie on Twitter or subscribe to her blog, I would encourage you to do so. She is a wonderful resource for information about thinking and learning for those who do not have the time to scour through lots of research on their own.
Tired of hearing about the five or six or seven “C’s” of essential learning for the 21st century learner? (When will we finally admit that the “C’s” are timeless and have not all of a sudden become important?) Bo Adams (@boadams1) may have a simpler solution that he posits in this post from his blog.
Looking for a way to easily create multimedia presentations either to use in class or for your students to create instead of a poster or traditional paper? Check out Soo Meta a website where you can pull together images, video clips and all sorts of content and create short little videos. Thanks to Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne) and his blog freetech4teachers for bringing this neat tool to my attention.
The final piece this week is a long but interesting research report that I came across via one of Annie Murphy Paul’s blog posts (I can not find her post unfortunately so you may have to search her blog if you are interested in her summary of the piece) that is titled “Improving Students’ Learning With Effective Learning Techniques: Promising Directions From Cognitive and Educational Psychology.” Daniel Willingham, whose work I really like, is one of the authors which immediately drew me to the piece. From the abstract…”In this monograph, we discuss 10 learning techniques in detail and offer recommendations about their relative utility. We selected techniques that were expected to be relatively easy to use and hence could be adopted by many students.” There conclusions may surprise you on a few of the techniques they studied.

Enjoy the weather!

Planting seeds

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Scott MacClintic

Friday 4 – March 1

With spring and baseball season right around the corner, (or so I hope!) I thought I would plant a few intellectual seeds with this week’s missive. With a little watering, care and time, perhaps the ideas in this week’s pieces will germinate into new and exciting possibilities for you.

Why Don’t They Apply What They’ve Learned, Part 1 is a piece that I ran across in The Chronicle of Higher Education that explores the concept of “transfer” in teaching and learning.
Why They Don’t Apply What They’ve Learned, Part 2 is obviously the second piece in the series on transfer in which James M. Lang considers what kinds of students prove successful at far transfer.
A colleague passed along this link to a thought provoking TEDTalk that challenges the current model of schooling.
Can Repetitive Exercises Actually Feed the Creative Process? is a piece that looks at the relationship between two apparently incompatible concepts.

I hope that these seeds germinate and sprout for you and that you are willing to share the harvest.

Technology in the classroom – The why and a few hows.

Posted on February 23, 2013 by Scott MacClintic

Friday Four – Feb 22

Of all the “issues” that teachers have to deal with, effective and appropriate use of technology in the classroom is probably the one that elicits the most fear and anxiety. Part of the anxiety comes from the fact that technology changes so rapidly and it is impossible to be the master of all of it. This anxiety or fear cannot prevent us from actively seeking out and learning how to use new technologies in our classrooms.

This week’s first piece is actually a series of three posts written by Chris Lehmann (@chrislehmann), the founding principal of the Science Leadership Academy. Chris is well known for his belief that “Technology must be ubiquitous, necessary and invisible.” He addresses each of his claims in the series of posts that can be found here
Now for a few of the “hows.” Chris Betcher (@betchaboy) is an IT teacher from Australia that I follow on Twitter who recently wrote a blog post “Office vs Drive: Some thoughts” that makes a good case for switching from “old school” to “new school” when it comes to word processing, spreadsheets or presentations.
If you are already a Google Drive user or are intrigued after reading the previous piece, this post from Richard Byrne (@rmbyrne) will walk you through how to use Drive on your iPad.
If you are really ambitious and want to seriously add to your technology toolbox, check out this page 100+ Google Tricks for Teachers.

I hope you enjoy these finds from the week and that you add a few new arrows to your teaching quiver. As always, comments and suggestions are welcome.

First Friday Four of 2013

Posted on January 4, 2013 by Scott MacClintic

Happy 2013!

I suspended posting my Friday 4 missive over the winter vacation but am ready to make up for lost time! I did a ton of reading over the break and came across a plethora of interesting sites/pieces that you may or may not have seen on your own. I will resist bombarding you with a huge list all at once and will keep a bunch in the hopper for future Friday 4 editions.

So, here are a few finds to start the new year off with…enjoy!

Got sleep? Here is a recent piece from one of my favorite cognitive scientist writer/bloggers, Daniel Willingham (@DTWillingham), titled “Are Sleepy Students Learning?” This piece appeared in this winter’s edition of the American Educator magazine and is a good overview of the research on sleep and student performance.
I do not quite remember how I stumbled across this next piece, but it is an interesting read for any classroom teacher. The post is about a legendary horse, Clever Hans, who could perform all sorts of mathematical operations…or so it appeared! The take home lesson in the piece is “never underestimate your ability to fool yourself into believing your students understand something when really what they are doing is watching you.”
The single best “find” from this past vacation has to be The Learning Pond blog by Grant Lichtman (@GrantLichtman). I spent several days reading his posts from this fall when he visited over 60 schools looking for ways in which educators were implementing changes to prepare their students for the 21st Century challenges. You can retrace Grant’s journey if you start with this post from right before he departed on his trek across the USA.
“The Need for Innovative Leadership” is the title of a thought provoking post from George Couros (@gcouros) that touches on so many of the same topics that Grant discovers on his journey.

As always, please feel free to contact me or leave comments.

Online Learning: What is our role?

Posted on December 7, 2012 by Scott MacClintic

Friday 4 – December 7, 2012

We are currently deep in the throes of exploring/discussing/debating the merits of online learning and how it could possibly enhance the experience for our students at Loomis Chaffee. There can be no doubt that the landscape in education is changing; and as a result, we may have to change how we do things in order to remain relevant and be able to compete in an increasingly competitive market. In this edition of the Friday 4, I will share a few of the interesting items I have come across this week that are related to the online education world.

The first item is a news piece from the Inside Higher Ed site reporting that Wellesley College is now partnering with edX, the MIT/Harvard entity, to put some of their coursework online as a MOOC. Wellesley joins Wesleyan as the second small liberal arts college to join the growing online education world. Thanks to my Head of School (@SCulbertLC) for passing along the article.
An older article “The Myths of Online Learning” from Forbes magazine came across my Twitter stream this past week. That is one of the nice things about Twitter, if you miss something the first time, don’t worry, it will come around again if it is at all valuable.
A second item for the week is another article that appeared on the Inside Higher Ed site “Conflicted: Faculty and Online Education, 2012.” The article gives an overview of a recent study that focuses on attitudes and practices related to all aspects of online education – including views on the quality of learning outcomes, issues of institutional support, and institutional rewards. You can read the entire report here.
A great resource for those looking to read up on the topic of online learning is the Sloan Consortium website. According to their website” “The Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C) helps learning organizations continually improve quality, scale, and breadth of their online programs according to their own distinctive missions, so that education will become a part of everyday life, accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time, in a wide variety of disciplines.” A great place to start on their site is the eLearn Magazine.

Regardless of your feelings about online learning, I encourage you to check out a few of this week’s links and take some time to think about how online learning might be able to enhance the experience for the students at your school. My initial reaction was probably not very different from many – “No way, not at my school. What we do is special and can not be replicated online.” After a great deal of reading on the topic and MANY discussions with colleagues in person and online, I have come to a very different place in my thinking. I will save my personal thoughts on the subject for a future post.

I welcome thoughts, comments or reactions. Enjoy!

Pelican Ponderings

Thoughts and ideas from another educator

Tag Archives: 21st century learning