Information for educators or anyone wanting to teach
Introduction
Pedagogy. The art & science of teaching - how knowledge & skills are learned and taught in an educational setting (instruction).
Curriculum. All the planned and unplanned experiences students experience in school and out.
Professional educators need to have mastery of:
Curriculum & pedagogy
- Continual inquiry & reflection - Professional development
- Know what information, theories & attitudes to use to guide their decisions - Professional development - Know what guides their decision making
- Know curricular organization & how to review & change them - Curriculum
- Stay literate in the subjects & disciplines they teach - Subject areas
- Use research & wisdom of practice to inform decision making - Research & wisdom of practice to inform decision making
Teaching - instruction
- Use a researched based learning theory & know human development - Learning & human development
- Use an instructional methodology - Pedagogy
- Select & unpack content appropriate for diverse learners - Unpacking content
- Plan instruction that facilitates learning - Instructional planning
- Select & use appropriate teaching methods & procedures - Selecting instructional procedures
- Assess & evaluate learners - Assessment & evaluation
- Assess instruction - Instructional assessment
- Manage individuals, groups, & classrooms - Self development & individual, group, & classroom management
Ideas, tools, and practices to attain mastery in all these areas has infinite possibilities. Therefore, it is necessary for educators to have sufficient knowledge, skills, and dispositions as big ideas at higher levels of understanding to be fluent enough to adapt what they know and make good decisions to faciliate the learning of all their students.
While communication and presentation of learning activities is a linear process, the order of selection and organization of information to plan and implement them has no particular order.
Let's start with a review of how to continually inquire & reflect on our practices & develop professionally.
Professional development
Educators continually inquire & reflect on their practices to develop professionally.
They rely on their personal reflections, colleagues, administrators, and professional organizations for suggestions to identify areas for possible change and support to assist implementing change from their personal assessment of their current practices.
Alone and together they use research and wisdom of practice to inform their decision making process. A process which challenges their current knowledge base, with new ideas. New ideas, which are analyzed and synthesized to suggest solutions. Solutions, which often change their conceptual framework or make their current philosophies, knowledge, and practices stronger.
Process for continual professional development:
- Professional educator conceptual framework & development cycle
- Conceptual framework visual
- Elements that inform & develop a conceptual framework
- Principled procedures
- Subject discipline knowledge content descriptions
- Professional educators and their development
- Professional educator development cycle
- Professional science educator development process: knowledge, skills, dispositions, & process of becoming an outstanding professional science educator
- Goal setting activity to focus on professional educator development
Know what guides their decision making
An important factor in making decision is knowing if the theories, beliefs, attitudes, and principled procedures used to influence and guide the decision making process are congruent with the goals and outcomes expected.
For example what is your belief for the purpose of education?
This is important for individuals to know and for groups who are charged with making curricular decisions to know so that what they teach will achieve the expected results.
Information to assist in this process include:
- Purposes of education: a meta analysis of reasons for education and schooling
- Educational Philosophy: resources to create educational philosophies
- Donkey Fable & Why philosophies or theories are important to have and use
- Two essays to think about education:
- Seven focus questions to consider to make a powerful educational theory
- Goal setting activity with a focus on teaching to coordinate teaching goals with an educational philosophy
- Characteristics of what is human? Humans & animals compared
- My response to the seven focus questions
- An educational philosophy in narrative form
- Research information & wisdom of practice to inform decision making
Principled procedures guide decision making to achieve the purposes of education. Here are some examples:
Standards & knowledge bases (science) (math) (multiMedia)
Instructional assessment
Consider there are three basic ways to improve learning: 1. increase the level of intended learnings, 2. change the role of the learners, and 3. increase the knowledge and skill of the teacher.
- Teacher Reflection - Ideas for reflecting -> mathematics instruction -> science instruction --->>> literature instruction --->>> writing instruction --->>>
- Student survey of teacher for reflection & assessment
- Some instructional indicators and lesson plan checklist - created 2001
- Micro teaching | directions | forms |
- Sample questioning dialogue from Smile to Go by Jerry Spinelli
Research & wisdom of practice to inform decision making
Textual resources
- Books for educators - annotated list of educational books: education, psychology, development, sociology, management, educational law, & other pedagogy related books
- Mathematics - annotated list of math content books
- Literacy, literature, media, & children's literature - - annotated list of media & literacy related books
- Science education - annotated list of math content books
Resources in this site (alphabetical)
- Augmented Reality ...
- How to Create an Augmented Reality Experience for Your Business includes education
- Behavior - holistic model of behavior
- Bruner's six instruction & three learning modes - Relates instruction to 1. concrete, 2. iconic or semi-concrete, & 3. symbolic or formal operational
- Censorship & dealing with controversy
- Classroom organizations map - eight attributes when organizing a classroom or groups
- Classroom as a social environment - creation of classroom environments & its curricular aspects
- Conversational interactions for a five step problem solving model or heuristic map
- Critical thinking curriculum - includes goals, outcomes, assessment, decision making, metacognition, problem solving, reasoning & proof
- Thought Process for critical thinking, and Metacognition - thinking about thinking to use as guide, poster, or handout.
- Quality characteristics for scholarly or critical thinking to use as guide, poster, or handout
- Media literacy & propaganda
- Culture model
- Curent issues & trends keep updated on recent issues & trends
- Erikson's psychosocial theory - review sheet
- What is hands on? - Activity to discuss & define hands on learning that uses learning theory to experiences to the learner's developmental abilities
- Illusions and other brain ideas that stop or hinder learning
- Imagination
- Influences on people or circles of influence map
- Influence systems map
- Inquiry theory & inquiry as an instructional method or strategy
- Instructional theory
- Instructional strategies that work (Robert Marzano, Debra Pickering, and Jane Pollock).
- Interview sample questions
- Kohlberg theory of moral development - review sheet
- Research based programs for improvement in: Learning difficulties, Listening & auditory processing, Memory, Attention and ADD, Reading comprehension, Sound discrimination, Dyslexia, and Language skills
- Learning theory
- Learning theory variables
- Literacy as communication through multiMedia
- Literature & literacy model
- Literature responses model
- Management of individuals, groups, & classrooms research to inform curriculum & pedagogy
- Maslow's hierarchy of needs
- Middle school characteristics, theory, development, teaching, and instruction resources
- Academic organizational possibilities - illustration of organizational possibilities to consider when planning, based on eight variables
- Moral & ethical - reviews ideas related to morality and ethics to provide a background to understand the moral choices and decisions we make and how they are made. Topics include: a process of moral reasoning, its development relative to human intuition, judgment, & reasoning using, an analogy of the elephant & rider. Identifies moral actions with ethical behavior, character, values, & conscience. Includes reasons to help, punish, forgive, or use restorative justice along with rules to live by. Golden, silver, platinum, brazen, iron, bullies, blood, tit-for-tat and the prisoner's dilemma. Also studies, findings, & suggestions along with teaching & learning guidelines, characteristics of learning environments for moral & ethical development, dilemmas to initiate discussion on morality, and resources.
- Motivational theory & theory of self-efficacy
- Physical activity & learning - slide show and .PDF on research to support the importance of physical activity and how to justify its inclusion for academic improvement
- Portfolio: annotated outline for creating subject centered portfolios
- Projects - Ten step planning process to guide the development of an independent project --->>>with a completed sample
- Multiple intelligences theory - reviews nine categories, explanations, examples, and discussion on on how activities fit or don't fit the different intelligences
- Reinforcement chart
- Social theory - notes on how social learning supports content & is necessary for social learning - cooperative & group skill
- Success attributes that contribute to self-efficacy & flow chart
- Technology - directions and tutorials for IPhotos, IMovie, ITunes, and Windows media
- Visual spatial abilities, skills, instruction, research
Video
- VideosÂ
- Hole in the Wall in India (6:04) - Children can educate themselves and future of the human brain with technology
Web sites
- WomenEd - a global grassroots movement to connect aspiring & existing women leaders in education
Curriculum
Curriculum. All the planned and unplanned experiences students experience in school and out of school.
Each learner's education includes all of their experiences, which is important when considering how to assist them to achieve their educational goals. However, when planning and implementing curriculum it is necessary at times to focus on specific ideas and context areas. This results in a variety of documents, personal and public to communicate with your self, fellow educators, others interested in education, learners to facilitate their learning, administrators, and public stake holders who are curious or desire educational information.
Documents include, but are not limited to: theories, mission statements, philosophies, principled procedures, action plans, standards, maps, webs, models, frameworks, instructional procedures, syntax, lesson plans, units, year plans, multi grade curriculum, and assessment plans.
Organized with different scopes, durations, grade levels, and information to learn.
First, a big picture of curriculum, then different areas of focus.
Big picture resources for elements of curriculum & development
- Introduction to Curriculum - discussion of curriculum, a survey to review different ideas of curriculum, an analysis of different meanings & definitions of curriculum, summarized with five categories of definitions. Introduces a curriculum development model to analyzing curricular change. Includes examples, suggestions, guidelines, & a model to analyze possible change & examples on how to initiate change along with documents & rationals to communicate & support decisions. Also a sample mission statement
- Pros & Cons for a National Curriculum & National or State Standards
- Organization of information: Big ideas ... Integrated ... Subject ... Narrow focus.
- Sample curriculum
Pedagogy
Pedagogy. The art & science of teaching - how knowledge & skills are learned and taught in an educational setting (instruction).
Instructional theory is the heart of pedagogy. It is a general procedure for how educators create and coordinate the environment, atmosphere, methods, procedures, syntaxes, strategies, and assessment to facilitate the intended learnings according to the learners needs.
While planning and teaching combines all of these, they can only be studied and talked about individually. Therefore, information is included in the areas of:
- Learning & human development
- General instructional methods or theories & three major methods
- Planning procedure & ideas to consider when planning
- Unpacking selected topics
- Planning details for content areas
- Planning that integrates or combines content
- Assessment & evaluation of learning
Learning & human development
- Learning theory - how humans learn from infant to adult. A constructivist model with a Piagetian base. Includes learning procedure, flow chart, variables that effect learning, what changes & doesn't change, explanations for children's thinking as naive understandings or misconceptions, physical activities that develop intelligence, logic and other thinking skills. Explains development over time:
- Human development tasks that represent ways of intellectual thinking - tasks across ages of development with directions, materials, responses & explanations.
- Moral & ethical - theory, development, teaching, & instruction notes
- Sequence to explore a constructivist learning theory
- Play & learning are intertwined, review the learning theory to see how
- Research on the importance of play by Brookings research: A New Path to Education Reform: Playful Learning Promotes 21st Century Skills in Schools & Beyond
- Carnegie Report on Preparing Adolescents - Middle level learners
- Development of Scientific Ideas and Reasoning - Tool Box
General instructional theories, methods, or models
A general instructional method or theory is presented, followed by three traditional instructional methods or theories.
- General instructional theory, method, or model is flexible enough to guide the design, implementation, evaluation, and improvement of instruction, at all levels of education, for all subject matter, and for any length of instructional time
- Support for an instructional methodology based on a constructivist learning theory
- The big three instructional models or theories
- Inductive or indirect theories are learner centered and based on a constructivist learning theory. A very common example id the Learning cycle, for which there are several versions.
- Learning cycle instructional model - topics include:
- Planning ideas
- Positive, Neutral, & Negative teacher and learner actions in a Learning Cycle Sample parts of a lesson as instructional indicators of who does what & its effect on quality instruction & learning
- Comparison of three versions of a Learning Cycles & the Common Knowledge Construction Model: Related to learning theory, instructional purposes, and each other
- Learning cycle in different blocks of time
- Sample plans to discuss as hands on and constructivist
- Learning cycle Sample lesson video - traditional electric circuit investigation
- Learning cycle instructional model - topics include:
- Cooperative learning theory or model is designed to include both a social dimension & other content dimension. Any content can be supported with the inclusion of social skills, which can be introduced, practiced, or maintained.
- Directed instruction model or theory
- Inductive or indirect theories are learner centered and based on a constructivist learning theory. A very common example id the Learning cycle, for which there are several versions.
How to use general models in education, is the planning , which includes selecting topics, unpacking them, and choosing information, activities, materials, procedures, and other resources to meet the needs of learners.
Planning pedagogy (instruction for teaching & learning)
Plan is a strategy for doing or achieving something. In education, planning is the process of creating procedures to achieve the purposes of education.
- Purposes, identified in the planning (mental & media), to communicate with ourselves, fellow educators, and other interested parties; what is to be achieved and procedures for how to facilitate it.
- Communicated purposes with goals, objectives, aims, outcomes, standards, & procedures usually in documents as beliefs, purposes, standards, mission statements, curriculum, & plans for teachers & schools.
- Communicate procedures that facilitate intended learnings with instructional methods, and instructional experiences and
- Positive learning environments.
Procedures as detailed anticipatory classroom management plans for every move from the first days of school to the last. They are like a pilots flight plan. Procedures govern everything done, therefore, the more procedures a person knows, the better prepared they will be for what ever happens. Procedures which can be in documents or in teacher's memories. They include
- General procedures for management steps and examples for interacting with individuals, groups, & classes can be documented in a Teacher action plan.
- Procedures for selected educational purposes, goals and outcomes for a specific content area, for students to learn to achieve the purposes of education.
- Learnings, which combine contextual areas, topics, subjects, dimensions of learning, literacy, skill, standards, outcomes, ... , for the purposes of education.
To summarize planning unpacks and organizes what is to be achieved and combines it with procedures to achieve it, based on:
- Purposes of education - use the educational goals, beliefs, philosophies, rationale, mission statements, action plans, principled procedures, ... for both holistically for overall education and for specific areas used to develop all educational contexts.
- Consideration of learners - consider the development, background, culture, interests, motivation, needs (Maslow), ... Specific learner or groups of students (lesson plan, IEP, remedial lesson, gifted lesson) or for a generic group of students (preschool, first grade, primary, middle level, chemistry, health, k-12 music, and k-16 curriculum, & standards for learning).
- Intended learnings - identify the content its relationships in contextual areas (time, relationships, symbolic, global, subjects, disciplines, content areas, ...) and how it is represented as perceptions, facts, observations, inferences, properties, concepts, relationships, generalizations, schemas, skills, ... Intended learning as specific or global; focused or integrated, contextual areas. Lesson plan, weekly plan, framework, unit, packet, yearly plan, K-12, K-16, curriculum, standards.
- Concepts, facts, and generalizations (big ideas) - suggestions & examples on how to write See unpacking topics ...
- Standards, standard documents, and organizations that developed and maintain them
- Classification theories and taxonomies for planning objectives, questions, activities, and instructional procedures.
- Selecting instructional procedures - Instructional procesures are learning opportunities, activities, sequences, procedures, methods, strategies, ..based on personal experiences to facilitate learning (teaching) -
- Consider theories, methods and models as a foundation to plan detailed instructional procedures
- Procedures - to make decisions, based on the intended learnings, on how to sequence instructional experiences with in an instructional methodology. A sequence to decide on specific and detailed to general and diverse information, easy to difficult, familiar to outlier, or general to specific. Consider what examples will best define the big ideas for the topic, inclusion of examples, non examples, and boundary cases. Examples on how to plan for specific content or subject areas to include within integrated or specific subject planning.
Different syntax or procedures to adjust theories & methodology procedures can be.- Instructional procedures, syntax, & strategies to implement a teaching model: Inductive-Thinking, Concept Attainment, Picture-Word Inductive, Cooperative learning, Science: Inquiry, Learning cycle, Inquiry Training, Memory, Synectics - Creating Something New ,Advance Organizer, Group Investigation Model of Learning and Teaching, Role play - Role Play Reversal and sample role play steps Sample role play in classroom and behavior management scenario, Jurisprudential Inquiry, Non directive, Reciprocal teaching , Skills instruction, Simulation, Philosophy for Children & critical thinking
- Questioning strategies - overview and article with suggestions and examples
- Activities to practice questioning and wait-time | Raisins Activity | Cartesian diver |
- Brainstorming, creative thinking, divergent thinking, lateral thinking, & kicking ideas around suggestions & procedure.
- Notice and wonder worksheet - notice & wonder statements are great to use to draw attention to observational information to analyze and question with critical thinking for deeper understanding without a lot of judgmental or disapproval. Can be used with or without a worksheet.
- What do you know? Worksheet for Form, Function, Connection, & Reflection as a procedure for deeper understanding
- Problem solving, metacognition, and reflection outline with focus points
- Decision making and change
- Issue Analysis Heuristic - bank worksheet & sample issues analyzed for democratic education for all
- Position Analysis Heuristic - explanation and worksheet
- PQRST Single-sentence-pattern to present an argument - explanation and work sheet
- Reasoning & proof
- Activities
- Kinds of activities, questions, problems - list to consider for different learning experiences. Examples t0 sequence as learning procedures.
- List of real world ideas to adjust activities & learning outcomes - activities and topics related to the real world are more motivational and will have greater application for learners.
- Length of time (daily lesson plan, weekly plan, unit, year plan, or multiple years)
- Classroom environment and atmosphere - created with the interactions of all of these elements of planning. social aspects,
- Classroom organizational model - possibilities for classroom organizations based on eight variables
- Classroom as a social environment
- Environmental management considerations
- Management - self, individual, groups, & classrooms knowledge base
- Motivation
- Social theory - notes on how social learning supports content & is necessary for social learning - cooperative & group skill
- Directions - suggestions for writing and giving directions
- Assessment- method, times, outcomes, levels, ...
Planning outlines
The following outlines suggest how these common elements can be included in short and longer term plans.
Let's connect the kinds of documents typical for each of the areas so we can quickly and efficiently deal with large amounts of information and their relationships to planning and teaching.
To create instructional procedures and implement them, consider the following information and its organization ...
Unpacking content
Unpacking is the process of selecting the information and skills necessary to know; to decide instructional experiences and procedures, to use with instructional methods to create learning environments to achieve the purposes of education.
It starts with referencing our understanding, other documents, standards, curriculum, text books, research articles, maps, and other resources to gathering information and organize it according to the learners' needs to facilitate their learning.
Information, which can be displayed in maps, webs, diagrams, lists, tables, charts, matrices, frameworks, outlines, narratives, ... as contextual areas, subjects, topics, focus questions, facts concepts, generalizations, schema, and their relationships necessary to understand them, select methods and procedures to learn thems to achieve the purposes of education.
Unpacking examples:
Maps, webs, and charts that focus on intended learnings
Webs and maps are nonlinear visual tools to organize information. Below is a map of map, possible uses, and examples of their use for planning, teaching, and instructional tools.
Intended learnings as concepts
- Animals - map structure to unpack properties and needs for animals
- Juice - chart with characteristics, exemplars, & non exemplars
- Colors - web to unpack colors, representative objects, & associated ideas
- Rock cycle map - unpacked content necessary for the rock cycle
- Survival - map with seven conditions for survival, no details or examples
- Interactions - observation, interactions, change, chart ready to use
- Compare and contrast - web for nickel & dime, mostly completed
- Compare and contrast - web blank
- Concept chart - to examine concepts features, none features, examples & related concepts - blank
- Frayer Model - explanation, three samples, uses definition, facts & characteristics, examples, non examples, words, & pictures. Use to find the level of concept mastery
Planning that combines contextual areas
- Culture model
- Holistic model of behavior
- Influences on people or Circles of influence map
- Influence systems map
- Integrated planning framework for a theme integrated with school goals & outcomes
- Frameworks to plan for integrated schooling - includes blank matrices to relate school goals to content areas. Sample completed that relates focus questions to school goals & content areas for the theme of water - integrated curriculum
- Literacy as communication through multiMedia
- Literature & literacy model
- Literature responses model
- Math dimensions
- Science dimensions
Planning procedures & frameworks to organize & document information with instructional ideas
- BLANK planning map with categories for - Focus area or topic, focus question, relationships & concepts, perceptual responses, observations, properties, transformations, tasks & activities, assessment levels, real world value, classroom atmosphere, & instructional assessment. More information in general planning model.
- Planning framework with categories & explanations to consider when planning to teach big ideas, concepts or generalizations in map format . More information in general planning model.
- Planning map - sound - includes focus question, concepts, perceptual responses, observations, facts, properties, transformations, activities, assessment levels, real world value.
- Planning map - classification as a process dimension with categories for - focus question, concepts, perceptual responses, observations, facts, properties, transformations, activities, assessment levels, real world value
- Map - geometry, area, mathematics - with categories for - focus question, concepts, perceptual responses, observations, facts, properties, transformations, activities, assessment levels, real world value
- Planning map - proof and reasoning - with categories for - focus question, concepts, perceptual responses, observations, facts, properties, transformations, activities, assessment levels, real world value
- Planning map - dystopian society - media, social science, literature - with categories for - focus question, concepts, perceptual responses, observations, facts, properties, transformations, activities, assessment levels, real world value
- Internal combustion four cycle engine - with categories for - focus question, concepts, perceptual responses, observations, facts, properties, transformations, activities, assessment levels, real world value
- Frameworks for planning learning experiences - includes instructional methods or models for a learning cycle, cooperative learning, directed instruction & the common knowledge construction model. These procedures are connected to elements for intended learnings, development, & assessment.
Planning that combines contextual areas across age levels
- Step by step example of how to construct concept maps for a topic across grades - Annotated step by step directions for planning instruction for magnetism from preK through eighth grade.
- Water cycle map - unpacked for the development of information from preschool to science literacy of the water cycle
- Frameworks for year plans & multi year plans
Instructional planning
When educators feel they have gathered enough information, then they begin to create procedural information, by inserting it into planning outlines or frameworks or start with a blank document.
Procedures as lesson plans
Four lesson plans: two in a linear outline & the same two in a table format content is probability for one die and the sum of two dice. Followed with a probability unit with these and four additional activities.
- Probability with one die - linear outline, same plan in a table
- Probability sum of two die - linear outline, same plan in a table
- Probability unit that combines the two activities above with four more in a linear outline.
Historical introductory light bulb activity for the learning cycle instructional method, model, theory or procedure.
Information includes:
- Introductory narrative
- Video of instruction in a fifth grade classroom
- Table with an analysis of the different phases of learning cycles (Karplus Their, 4 E, 5E learning cycle, and the Common Knowledge Construction Model) inclusion in the activity.
- Intended learnings, unpacking of concepts, mapping of concepts, information to facilitate understanding of electric circuits and the use of scientific models to explain & predict.
- Instructional procedures that use a learning cycle methodology & related information for learners to facilitate their learning with the introductory activity & additional activities to see how each activity can provide learned information that will connect to the next activity to increase understandings of electrical circuits and how science helps us understand the world.
Walk through of lesson planning or teaching with educator's mental thoughts and reflections.
- Planning for activities for science cross-cutting concept - evolution
- Planning for activities for physical science concept - solutions
- Planning for activities for physical science concept - light
- Planning for language arts activity - writing a paragraph
- Planning activities for math - infinite sets and subsets
- Planning activities for math - logic
Plans have strengths and weakness, which can be assessed with a check list of quality attributes for lesson plans.
Planning sequences
Units or packets by the amounts of integration
Traditional curriculum is organized by subjects or disciplines. Examples below are grouped into four different kinds and amounts of integration.
- No integration. Planning for only the knowledge content of a subject, discipline, or other topic. Focus is on one idea.
- Subject integration. Curriculum or lesson sequences focus on subjects or disciplines. However, they are defined with multiple dimensions and planning integrates these different dimensions. Subject with dimension integration or integration within one subject.
Examples:- The Mitten, Jan Brett - early grades language arts book study with six language dimensions
- Light unit annotated creation discussion - grade 4+ physical science dimension plan with some integration of other science dimensions
- Sound unit annotated creation discussion - grade 2+ physical science dimension plan with some integration of other science dimensions
- Animals and environments - kindergarten+, dimension life science, habitat, Gerbils, & animal care - learning cycle plans
- Air Sequence - grade range 2-5 physical science dimension plan with integration of other science dimensions, learning cycle (exploration, invention, expansion)
- Reading and Writing Numbers with Numerals and Words - middle level+ math dimension number systems, focused on place value, patterns, & number communication. Learning cycle with some directed instruction.
- Rounding Numbers - grade 4+ dimensions measurement of body parts, proportion, number value rounding with activity descriptions.
- Mixing 4 different colored water solutions - grade 4+ dimensions processes science observation & inquiry. Discussion questions include questions for both.
- Physical science plan for - density.pdf See also its assessment data base.pdf
- Card Trick Sequence - focused elements - content (problem solving, reasoning and proof, and patterns)
- Ecosystems integrated science dimensions - life science: biodiversity, ecosystem services; cross-cutting: stability and change; technology: making and evaluating solutions in a 5E learning cycle instructional procedure or model
- Relative position & motion - integrated science dimensions with content
- Sound unit - sequence with science dimension integration
- Density - Unit with many activities, pop float, wood, metal, plastic, integrated properties, variables, operational definitions Assessment data base for density related concepts*
- Integration of different subjects, which may include dimensions for each of the included subjects or not - subjects integration with or without integration of dimensions,
- Contextual integration of four context areas & school goals, more real life integration or integrated studies. Example - Prospectus for Real Integration school and how to plan units of study based on a big idea or theme around four world contexts and school goals.
Assessment & evaluation
Assessment and evaluation can be embedded in planning and instruction without being labeled. However, it is helpful when it is not only identified, but four general types are considered and included. Details follow:
- Assessment and evaluation article: topics include:
- Why assess? What is assessment? Assessment related tasks, & Selecting & unpacking ideas for assessment,
- Quality Assessment Standards - check list Determining outcomes
- What is authentic assessment?
- When do teachers assess students' attainment of outcomes?
- Four different times for assessment - diagnostic, formative, summative, and generative,
- Steps for creating criteria referenced, Assessment
- Procedure for Creating a Scoring Guide or Rubric,
- Norm-Referenced tests,
- Accommodation information
- Assorted assessment and evaluation links,
- Practice scenarios and role play for preprofessional and professional educators
- Procedures & guiding principles for assessment decision making to insure consistency, reliability, and validity
- Research, assessment measurements , normal curve, & related statistics
- Metacognition ideas for reflection and self assessment suggestions or thinking starters to reflect on self assessment
- Resources to support opt-out of standardized testing at United Opt Out National:
- How to File a ​Civil Rights Complaint
- Opt Out of Testing Letter Template
- Information on how resist corporate education reform
- Specific rubrics and scoring guides are located in subject or integrated plans
- Electronic assessment management system. Does exit survey, quizzes, and games on laptops, tablets, & smart phones- Socrative by Mastery Connect is a multi million dollar corporation that reached 21 million students and 1 million teachers in 175 countries as of June 2014.
Freedom Writers
... on the recommendation of my granddaughter, I saw Freedom Writers.
I was very glad I did. It is one of the best films I have seen. The film presents the struggles of teaching and the life of a teacher. The passion, desire, and commitment needed to determine and provide what students need for them to develop to the point of empowerment, as well as the persistence and determination to overcome barriers to provide it. While fear and hate are the major barriers depicted in this film, barriers of traditional schooling and public misconceptions of what it means to be educated and how to achieve it are just as great of barriers to be overcome for students to achieve a quality education. Find the time to see this film with a loved one. It has life long empowering possibilities.
The Freedom Writer's movie trailer
Demonstration Activities to teach, discuss, and understand a Constructivist learning theory: Piagetian based
A Pretest to challenge and focus on how children and adolescents develop based on a constructivist learning theory.
The following activities provide experiences to demonstrate how people learn and how their learning can be explained by a learning theory in conjunction with instructional methodologies and procedures.
- Start with a demonstration, like in the video above, using a pencil to pierce a plastic sandwich bag mostly filled with water. Information in science lesson format. Students will want to first discuss the physics of what happened. Do so and then turn the discussion to how it relates to learning and a learning learning theory.
- Can follow-up with another piercing this time of a balloon semi-filled with air with a bamboo skewer or sharpened knitting needle. Again discuss how it relates to learning and a learning theory.
- Follow the learning theory discussion with a discussion of how to provide learning experiences for learners that will take advantage of the theory. To be effective, educational methodology generally and instructional procedures more specifically to achieve this. Start with a review of a general instructional method and then learning cycle methodology.
- After reviewing these instructional methods decide on a personal model.
- Using your personal model, explore different ways to insert different syntax and strategies as might be necessary to plan procedures to meet the different needs of diverse learners.
A solid understanding of a constructivist learning theory and how to use it to make decisions based on the needs of your learners is critical for their development and depth of learning.
While the learning cycle is applicable for all ages, the different ways learners understand becomes more logical as they mature. However, while all learners advance in their ways of thinking as they mature from young children, adolescents, and adults. Not all learners advance at the same rates or to the highest levels of formal operational thinking in all areas.
Explore these activities and tasks to develop intellectual thinking for learners across all ages. Includes directions, materials, and variety of responses with explanations.
The Garduckals challenge and activity (5 minutes) will let you explore and discuss how a learning theory can explain the desire (motivation), search, and use of associations to find a solution as a person solves a problem or challenge.
The next set of activities present puzzles or problems which have been historically used to study the development of understanding of propositional logic, correlation, probability, and proportionality. For which the understanding of each can be represented as: pre-operational, concrete operational, and formal operational levels.
The activities are presented along with representative data to illustrate a comprehensive analysis of the thinking learners use to attempt to solve problems for these types of problems.
Summary sheet for the puzzles and development.
- Jo Short or Jo Tall puzzle / activity - representative sample solutions
- Water Machine puzzle sheet - representative sample solutions
- Transportation puzzle- representative sample solutions
- Frog problem / activity
- Meal worms experiment / activity - representative sample solutions
- Puzzle discussions - with Longitudinal Development Chart of Mental operations
- Rings around the rose logic game
- Post Puzzle review
A comprehensive review of many studies on logic and learning can be found in the book A Love of Discovery annotated in the sidebar on the right.
Questions to help understand a learning theory and how to use it to make teaching decisions
- What is the difference between how children learn, how children construct knowledge, and what a learning theory explains?
- How do assimilation, disequilibration, cognitive dissonance, equilibration, accommodation, ZPG (zone of proximal development), and developmentally appropriate fit in a learning theory?
- What variables affect learning?
- How do learning styles fit a learning theory?
- Describe your interpretation of the statement: All people learn differently.
- How should instructional theories or models fit with a learning theory?
Using developmental ideas to adapt activities for students
Miscellaneous brain related topics
Real world application
- Parent, "How do you facilitate your student's learning?"
- Principal, "Tell me how you believe children learn?"
- Principal, "If I walk into your classroom what will I see?"
- Principal, "Describe how teachers can use a theory on how children learn and incorporate it into their classroom instruction.
- Principal, "Tell me how you will teach so children can learn?
Page contents:
- Introduction
- Professional development
- Purposes of education & philosophy & principled procedures
- Educational theories & research
- Learning & human development
- Curriculum
- Instructional theories - general & more
- Planning
- Instructional planning
- Instructional (teaching) procedures & activities
- Assessment & evaluation
Education in Madrawar, Afghanistan. 2006.
Late one February night, more than a dozen masked gun carrying Taliban burst into the 10-room girls' school in Nooria's village, Madrawar about 100 miles east of Kabul. They tied up and beat the night watchman, soaked the principal's office and the library with gasoline, set it on fire and escaped into the darkness.
The townspeople, who doused the blaze before it could spread, later found written messages from the gunmen promising to cut off the nose and ears of any teacher or student who dared to return.
The threats didn't work. Within days, most of the school's 650 pupils were back to their studies. Classes were held under a grove of trees in the courtyard for several weeks, despite the winter chill, until repairs inside the one-story structure were complete. Nearby schools replaced some of the library's books.
But the hate mail kept coming, with threats to shave the teacher's heads as well as mutilate their faces.
When, NEWSWEEK visited and talked to students and faculty on the last day of classes. Nooria, who dreams of becoming a teacher herself, expressed her determination to finish school.
"I'm not afraid of getting my nose and ears cut off," she said, all dressed up in a long purple dress and head scarf.
"I want to keep studying."
Newsweek June 26, 2006
A Love of Discovery: Science Education-The Second Career of Robert Karplus. Edited by Robert Fuller 2002.
Robert Fuller, compiled a collection of documents along with a narration that describes the positive impacts Robert Karplus had on science in elementary schools in the closing years of the twentieth century. Information that continues to shape elementary science education in positive ways.
Robert Karplus was a physicist who was asked to teach a science lesson in an elementary classroom. Inspired by how difficult it was to teach children, he began to research how to teach elementary students. He discovered Piaget's constructivist learning theory and discovered it helped to frame how student's learn, how they reasoned, how learning is comparable to doing science, and how these ideas could inform instruction. His background, as a physicist, helped him to research and understand how to apply new ideas through a process of curriculum development to implement continuous change. He demonstrate how a curriculum could be created and implemented in a manner which could be used that was developmentally appropriate, research based, facilitated science literacy along with a love of discovery, and develop reasoning and logic necessary to become critically thinking citizens. A very inciteful, interesting, and enjoyable book that can inform all science educators.
Middle & High School
Starting time:
The American Academy of Pediatrics & Centers for Disease Control recommend classes should start at 8:30 am. of later.
Albert Einstein said,
"It is a grave error to suppose that the joy of seeing and seeking can be furthered by compulsion or sense of duty."
Resources:
Legacy Piaget
Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development. editions 1-5 2003.
Classic book on cognitive & affective development. A must read for anyone serious in wanting to understanding learning and how intelligence, logic, and thinking develops cognitively and affectively.
Piaget for the Classroom Teacher. 1973.
Includes examples of how to use Piaget's learning theory and ideas on cognitive & affective development in the classroom. Source for many of the tasks to explore student development of reasoning, conservation, & logic.
Children and Adolescents: Interpretive Essays on Jean Piaget. 1974.
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A Piaget Primer: How a Child Thinks. Revised edition. 1996.