2012 Gheens Institute

This page contains resources from my work with the Gheens Institute for Innovation and the Kentucky Association of Elementary School Principals. These materials are made available under a Creative Commons 3.0 attribution-share alike license, which means that you are both allowed and encouraged to use them! Please contact me if you have any other questions about these resources.

September 28, 2012

Some things to take home with you today

LEADERSHIP FOR DEEPER LEARNING

1. Bloom’s / Webb’s

2. How do we know it when we see it?

What does deep learning and teaching look like? How do you know it when you see it? What are students and teachers doing? What kind of conversations, behaviors, products, and other outcomes do you see?

ST-centered
project-based
collaborative
energetic
ST choice
synthesis
discourse
reciprocal teaching
creating and doing and making
ST ownership / research

plant a school garden – planning, cost-benefit analysis, local flora and fauna, math – see also landscaping /design grant proposal writing, public presentations

ST-initiated crayon doodlers for tornado relief – product development, selling, raising money, determining which org to give to

5th grade entrepreneur fair – spaces have differential rent, what do they want to sell, advertising – part of economics unit / curriculum – use $ for field trip

elementary STs – distance/time/rate – map of where they lived – estimation if walk/ride/bike/train

social studies – time machine – historical character – dress/play the role –

3. What kind of environments foster creativity and innovation?

4. What can you do to ensure this happens?

5. How do we balance this with current accountability demands?

Do students need to learn lower-level factual and procedural knowledge before they can do higher-order thinking?

See also: Problem- / Inquiry- / Challenge-based learning resources

Science Leadership Academy (Philadelphia, PA) core values
Center for Authentic Intellectual Work
Buck Institute for Education (videos; student testimony and teacher restructuring; technology and PBL)
College and Work Readiness Assessment (example report)
Whitfield Career Academy (example projects)
Discovery and Unlimited (Christchurch, New Zealand)
New Tech Network (videos; solar oven)
High Tech High (videos; projects)
Big Picture Learning (podcasts and videos; student testimony and personalization)
EdVisions (videos; traditional v. self-directed students)
Envision Schools (PBL in action and success story)
Expeditionary Learning (stories)
New York Performance Assessment Consortium
Independent Curriculum Group
Band of Educators
CASTLE’s list of exemplary 21st century schools

6. Some guiding questions

What can we do to increase the cognitive complexity of students’ day-to-day work so that they are more often doing deeper thinking and learning work?
What can we do to better incorporate digital technologies into students’ deeper thinking and learning work in ways that are authentic, relevant, meaningful, and powerful?
What can we do to give students more agency and ownership of what they learn, when they learn, how they learn, and how they show what they’ve learned?
What can we do to better recognize and assess when students’ deeper thinking and learning work is (or isn’t) occurring?
What can we do to build the internal capacity of both individual educators and school systems to be better learners and faster change agents?
As we move toward more cognitively-complex, technology-suffused learning environments, how do we bring educators, board members, parents, communities, policymakers, and higher education along with us?
As we move toward more cognitively-complex, technology-suffused learning environments, how do we ensure that traditionally-underserved student and family populations aren’t further disadvantaged?
As we move toward more cognitively-complex, technology-suffused learning environments, what individual and societal mindsets – and local, state, and federal policy supports and/or barriers – need reconsideration?

ADDING THE TECHNOLOGY LENS

7. Transition to technology

8. Scott’s slides