5 Great Videos for Clarity on Blended Learning and its Power

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5 Great Videos for Clarity on Blended Learning and its Power

Educational systems

Blended learning can be simply defined as a formal education program in which a student learns at least in part through online delivery of content and instruction with some element of student control over time, place, path and/or pace and at least in part at a supervised brick-and-mortar location away from home.

It is a mix of different learning methods brought together to meet your learning objectives. Blended learning is not one size fits all, learner’s needs and circumstances are different. These are key reasons to introduce blended learning.

  • More efficient long term results.
  • Students are more involved using a diversity of content types.
  • Diverse learner, diverse learning style.
  • Teacher has the capability to evaluate learner tendencies and turn accordingly.
  • Improved Feedback.
  • Blended Learning can make learning fun.

Here we are presenting five great videos for anyone to get more clarity on blended learning and its power.

Blended learning and the future of education: Monique Markoff at TEDxIthacaCollege

In this TEDxIthacaCollege talk, Monique Markoff sharpens the idea of blended learning with good examples. You can learn some great vision on possible successes and drawbacks of applying a true blended model.

Blended Learning: The Proof and the Promise

We are in the midst of disruptive innovation that can radically improve the learning experience for the students and increase access to quality education globally.

This distinguished panel of Salman Khan, Sandy Speicher, Stacey Brewer and Debra Dunn will discuss Can the use of technology radically improve educational quality and access globally?

The video is a presentation made by a student of The University of Auckland on impact factor for blended learning outcomes in higher education. The presentation contains a mixed method research based on students’ perceptions.

Blended Learning: Making it Work in Your Classroom

Blended learning provides educators the flexibility to describe and apply online teaching to meets student’s requirements.

Julie Henderson, Coordinator of technology, Media and International Relations, P.K Yonge Development Research School says, “We define blended learning as the combination of digital content and activity with face-to-face content and activity.”

“It sounds easy to Blend, but it looks really difficult in every classroom. So if a teacher is using something that works really well in a face-to-face situation, they should continue to do that because it works well.”

If they can find something else that works better, is more efficient, or more effective then that would be implemented.”

Kristin Weller a geometry teacher says, “I can say that the things I’ve been doing the last two years have really made a difference, because my kids have scored the highest in the State’s standardized test.”

7 Excellent Free Blended Learning Resources — the Whys and Hows of Mixed Mode Instruction

The video presents a set of seven excellent free resources for blended learning.

Share with us the best resources on blended learning that you may know of.

How Do We Improve Positive Discipline for Teachers?

Educational systems

I mean, we’re teachers! Right? If there is anything we are supposed to know about it’s well, teaching and learning. So then why are so many conferences and workshops less than completely satisfying? And how can we change this?

Let’s do something obvious. Let’s approach a Positive Discipline from the perspective of a class. Which it is.

Let’s look at:

  1. Engaging student interest through differentiation
  2. Using backwards planning (or beginning with the end in mind)
  3. Starting with a provocation & allowing for ownership through choice
  4. Incorporating both formative and summative tasks
  5. Offer support throughout the learning process

We know it works for student so let’s put it to work for us. DISCLAIMER: From this point onwards I will be describing a DEEP Learning conference style. Still very pertinent to you but I DO hope you will look at the website.

1. Engaging Student Interest Through Differentiation
From the outset we focus on making learning relevant. Different people have different needs. A common framework for a DEEP Learning conference is the three-pronged approach. Our strands:

  • iTeach #GAFE Nov8 - 4Google Apps for Education
  • Apple technologies for education
  • An open-ended pedagogical strand (which may or may not have a technology connection)

You can start thinking about what you might like to attend from the workshops on offer before you arrive. You can even start devising your own personal program through Sched, the online app we use to help you organise your personal program online and/or through your phone.

2. Using Backwards Planning (or beginning with the end in mind)
We want everyone to have a meaningful experience. What better way to ensure this than by setting up a takeaway project? This should be something that you create and can bring back to your school community, teachers, classes, and/or students. Your assigned group leader will be able to check for understanding and essentially “assess” that learning was complete through the development, to some stage, of a usable product. You can also think of it as just another way we are working  to help you stay focused as well.

3. Starting with a Provocation & Allowing for Ownership Through Choice
The next level of personalisation comes from the ability to further fine tune your experience based on the morning discovery sessions. During these 20 minute sessions workshop leaders introduce, demonstrate, and share their topics. These involve examples, demonstrations, direct classroom connections and challenges that allow participants to make informed decisions about which workshops to attend in the afternoon.

The afternoon DEEP sessions (50 minutes each)
If we consider our morning introduction as “discovery” then the afternoon workshops are the chance to engage, experience and participate in an inquiry-based challenge. Workshop leaders act as a facilitators for the participant-led challenges. Depending on the type of workshop you should expect a maximum of 10 minutes direct instruction as a group before embarking on your challenge.

These DEEP sessions are fuelled by “Challenges” to accomplish.  The challenges are introduced and facilitated by the presenters. The challenges could turn into the creation of your takeaway project.

4. Incorporating both Formative and Summative tasks
The focus on challenges (formative tasks) serves two main purposes. It keeps participants actively engaged and putting skills to work in every session they attend and these can be incorporated into the takeaway project (summative task) as they see fit.

5. Offer Support Throughout the Learning Process
Workshop leaders check-in throughout sessions. Group leaders follow up at appointed times. You have a short exit interview before receiving your certificate at the end to share your progress.

Sound familiar? If it sounds like your classroom it should. Good PD should be about modelling and following good teaching practice.

We are eager to hear from you about the possibility of:

  • Running an event for your school
  • Holding an event hosted by your school
  • Creating an event specifically tailored to your school’s unique environment
  • Consulting about how to improve systems and structures for more effectively managing the technology environment at your school.

5 ways of using Images in the Classroom

Educational systems

Pictures can pack a powerful punch and they can be a very handy tool for use in the classroom. Here are five different ways of using them:

1- The First Way

Choose a selection of images from the ELTtpics idioms collection.

  • Write out the corresponding idioms on separate pieces of paper and attach these to the classroom walls.
  • Put your learners in groups and give each group a few images to look at.
  • Each group should walk around the classroom, look at the idioms on the classroom walls and stick each picture they were given with the idiom that they think goes with it.
  • Form new groups, each consisting of two of the previous groups and give the learners time to explain their choices to the members of the other previous group.
  • Idioms are often used as a means of evaluating a situation or a story. Ask learners to think what kinds of situations could be evaluated using their idioms. Ask learners to think of a story that could be evaluated using their idioms. This could be of their own creation or a story/fairytale/myth/folktale of English or L1 background.
  • Do a mingle, allowing learners to tell their stories, using idioms to evaluate them. Give them a purpose such as deciding which story they hear is a)the funniest  b)the most interesting c)a superlative of their own choice.

 

2.  The Second Way

  • Find some interesting pictures, with lots going on in them.
  • Put learners in groups and give each group a different picture.
  • Ask learners to discuss what’s happening in the picture.
  • Ask learners to think about who the people in the picture are. Learners should give them names, personalities etc.
  • Ask learners to think about what happened before the picture was taken and what happened after the picture was taken. Encourage creativity.
  • Get the learners to turn their responses to the above three bullet points into a short skit.
  • Give learners the opportunity to perform their skit for the rest of the class to watch.

3.   The Third Way

  • Find some interesting pictures, with lots going on in them.
  • Put learners in groups and give each group a different picture.
  • Ask each group in turn to use themselves and anything else in the room (except other people) to make a tableau of the picture.
  • The other learners should then be given a few minutes to discuss what might be happening in the tableau and turn it into a short story.
  • Each group tells their short story to the tableau group.
  • The tableau group get to choose which story of their tableau they like best.
  • Optional writing activity could be done as a follow up.

 

4.    The Fourth Way

  • Gather a fairly substantial number of pictures together.
  • Put learners in groups and give each group a reasonable number of pictures.
  • Ask learners to look at all their pictures and think of a way to categorise them.
  • Learners should discuss what the categories should be as well as which pictures should belong to which category and why.
  • Once learners have finished doing the above, gather all learners around each table in turn and let the group whose table it is explain how they categorized their pictures. The other learners can make suggestions for how else the pictures could have been categorized.

 

5.  The Fifth Way

  • Give each learner a different picture. (Pictures should have people in them)
  • Put the learners in pairs
  • Each learner should take it in turns to tell their partner about their picture as though they are the person or one of the people in it. They will need to talk about what’s happening in the picture, why it was happening, why it was photographed/painted/drawn and why it’s special to them.
  • Do a mingle activity where learners start by telling their story (repeating roughly what they talked about in the above bullet point) and then have the opportunity to steal their partner’s story and tell that to somebody else. Each time they hear a story they prefer to the one they’ve been telling, they steal it and tell it.
  • When this has been done a handful of times, get learners to establish whose stories are still being told.
  • You could use this activity in conjunction with a lesson on storytelling (using structural language, evaluative language, responding appropriately etc)

Let me know how it goes if you use any of these activities, either by commenting on this post or letting me know if you’d like to do a guest post about it. If you have other ideas for using pictures or for adding to the above ideas, feel free to share them by commenting – the more the merrier!

Inquiry-Based Learning: From Teacher-Guided to Student-Driven

Educational systems

Ralston Elementary School is creating a culture of inquiry to nourish 21st-century learners.

 

Overview

Creating 21st-Century Learners

At Ralston Elementary School, teachers build toward student-driven inquiry throughout the course of the unit. Starting with teacher-guided inquiry, teachers model how to develop questions over a series of lessons, showing students that there are multiple ways to solve problems. This prepares students to lead their own inquiry by the end of the unit.

Ralston educators are building a culture of inquiry, empowering students to ask questions like:

  • How do I problem solve through this?
  • How do I persevere?
  • How do I understand the cause-and-effect relationships that occur in every field?

“We want kids to leave Ralston afforded every opportunity in the world, equipped to do whatever they want to do in their life,” says Anne DiCola, Ralston’s instructional coach. “When we open that opportunity at this early stage in their education, it empowers them to love learning, and to continue on in their K-20 education.”

How It’s Done

Begin With Guided Inquiry

Teacher-guided inquiry can build background knowledge of the topic before letting students take the reins in developing their own inquiry. With guided inquiry:

  • Teachers start with an overall guiding question.
  • Teachers know what they want their students to understand beforehand.
  • Students know what the outcome of the inquiry will be.

“Guided inquiry is like a typical science lesson,” explains Anne DiCola, Ralston Elementary’s instructional coach. “The teacher knows that they want kids to understand what happens when water boils. So they take them through an inquiry process; they make a hypothesis, what they think will happen. They talk about all of the materials they’re using. They’re going to have one or more guided questions. But the teacher knows in the end how the lab’s going to end. They know what they want the students to know or do by the end of the lab.”

Ralston teachers build toward student-driven inquiry throughout the course of the unit. Through teacher-guided inquiry over a series of lessons, teachers model how to develop questions, show their students that there are multiple ways to problem solve, and prepare them to lead their own inquiry by the end of the unit.

Teach Students How to Question

Explore and Model Different Types of Deeper-Level Questions

An important aspect of inquiry-based learning is teaching students how to ask deeper questions. When the teachers at Ralston had students begin creating their own inquiries, the questions were the type that could be answered with a Google search. Because they weren’t coming up with deeper-level questions, the teachers had to pause and reflect on how they were modeling questioning to their students. They asked themselves, “What’s an appropriate question? What kinds of questions work?”

According to Principal Dawn Odean, the following two tips helped Ralston teachers:

  • Across grade levels, reflect on how you model questioning from kindergarten and up.
  • Pose big questions that don’t necessarily have a single answer — or any answer.

“We’re really looking at students being creative problem solvers,” explains Odean. “For example, if students are reading a common text together, or posing questions about how they’re relating to the text, or how they think it might impact the world, there may not be one answer for that. As we start to pose those questions, we’re hoping that students start to pose those questions for themselves in a way that they can create an inquiry. Teachers are guiding with higher-level questions to really get students thinking and learning how to question themselves.”

Example Questions

D.J. Osmack, Ralston’s art teacher, integrated science and art together by having his students create their own paint. In his first art class, they followed a specific paint-making recipe. In the second class, they created a paint that fit their needs as artists. This is where the student-driven inquiry came in. What kind of paint did they want to create?

To guide his students in creating their own questions, Osmack asked:

  • How can you make this paint fit your needs as an artist?
  • As a scientist, how are you going to change or modify this paint so that it works?
  • What is your reaction to your paint?
  • Did your paint turn out the way you wanted it to?

Encouraged by these questions, his students began asking questions like:

  • What kind of artwork do I want to create?
  • Does my paint need to be thick, thin, consistent, or chunky to create the artistic effect that I’m looking for?
  • What ingredients would I need to add to create the type of paint that I want?

“You have to form your questions the right way so you’re not really taking over their creative process, but helping that creative process,” clarifies Osmack, who noted how these student-generated questions encouraged them to explore and experiment on their own.

Let Your Students Drive Their Own Inquiry

Student-Driven Inquiry Led by a Question

In the guided inquiry example of boiling water, the teacher knows that she wants students to understand what happens when water boils. She creates a question that will guide students to an outcome already known to them.

The student-driven inquiry is what happens after the guided inquiry. Now that students know what happens when water boils, what questions come up for them? Their inquiry questions might be:

  • How much time would it take to melt a few ice cubes in boiling water?
  • How much time would it take to boil twice the amount of water?

“Whatever it is that they’re wondering about, that’s the student-driven piece,” elaborates DiCola. “That may or may not be something that the teacher envisioned happening afterwards. So they’re having the opportunity to say, ‘This is what I’m wondering about now. Now I’m going to go through that same process. I’m going to create a guiding question. I’m going to make a hypothesis. I’m going to gather the materials that I need.’ It really flips the classroom in the sense that the student is then in the driver seat. And what’s really exciting is when they can pose a question that maybe the teacher doesn’t know the answer to, and they’re really saying, ‘Yeah, let’s learn this together.'”

Guide Your Students’ Inquiry With a Problem

Inquiry isn’t driven only by questioning, but also by introducing a problem.

“Being the second-grade math teacher,” explains Lindsay Ball, “I found that giving students an opportunity to really inquire and then solve their own problems in math has been a great opportunity. I can pose a problem for them and then let them find a different way to solve that information and to share what they’re thinking. We do a lot of collaborative conversations. The students are able to share what their thinking was, but then at the same time, listen to another child’s thinking, and recognize there can be different ways to get to the same conclusion or the same outcome — and [realize] that everybody thinks in a different way, and everybody’s thoughts are valuable.”

An Example Problem

Ball, who also teaches science, created a lesson that introduced eggs and seeds to her students and had them discover which material was which through this problem:

Two scientists have mixed up two materials. They know one is seeds and one is eggs, but they have no idea which is which. How can we help them solve that problem?

Explore Student-Driven, Problem-Led Inquiry

Ball’s seeds vs. eggs problem inspired student inquiry that led their process of discovery. They came up with six stations, and their experiments came from their own inquiry. “I like doing it this way because you get to touch what you’re actually doing instead of just looking at it,” explains Logan, a second-grade student.

1. The Planting Station

Some kids planted the seed and the egg, pulling from their prior knowledge that a seed would likely grow and nothing would happen to the egg.

2. The Dissecting Station

Other students broke the egg and seed open, thinking that they might find a yolk or animal inside of the egg.

3. The Heating Station

Others put their egg and seed under a heating lamp, knowing that a mother chicken will sit on her eggs to make them hatch.

4. The Water Station

Some students put their eggs in water, knowing that fish eggs hatch when in water. Other students thought about density. If one of the materials were to sink or float, it might help them determine which was an egg and which was a seed.

5. The Weighing Station

Others thought that eggs would be heavier than seeds and weighed both materials.

6. The Size Station

Some kids thought that the egg would be bigger than the seed, and they looked at both under a microscope to compare sizes. They also measured them with a measuring tape.

“We found that the students really are able to take a bigger and a deeper passion in what they’re learning because it’s really what they care about versus what they think their teacher cares about,” emphasizes Ball.

“We really don’t have a limit,” adds Kendall, a fourth-grade student. “We get to learn how to do this stuff with our own ideas.”

Amazing Video on Technology Integration in the Classroom

Educational systems

Amazing Video on Technology Integration in the Classroom

Integrating technology in the classroom is the best way to strength the engagement of the students by connecting them to the audience across the globe. See what education technology experts have to say about it. Thanks to this video by Edutopia.

Salman Khan founder of Khan Academy says, “People have been integrating technology in the classroom forever. What I think is really exciting about what we are seeing now is that technology is being used to fundamentally transform what you can do with the classroom.”

Adam Bellow Outstanding Young Educator of the Year ISTE 2011 says, “I think to define technology integration; it’s really using whatever resources you have to the best of your ability. Technology is a tool. It’s what you do with that tool, what you can make, what you allow the students to make. That’s really what technology is all about.”

He further says, “If you can do a lesson without technology, that’s great but knowing that you can do it better with technology, that’s why you use tools.
Students globally are creating using technology and teachers must meet them where they are. During the process they learn how to work in groups, collaborate work in team and develop 21st century skills.”

What he emphasizes on is the fact that “People always say that the kids respond better when they’re able to share their work, of course because they have valid audience and it does not go onto the pile on teachers’ desk. Well that is true, kids today can create and share their work with the world, they have the authentic audience who will not only read it but also care about it.”

Integrating technology with face-to-face teacher time generally produces better academic outcomes than employing either technique alone.

Adam Bellow further added , “With the integration of technology in the classroom, the role of teacher has also shifted. I am seeing a world where the person who’s in the role of teacher is really a facilitator. And if you can facilitate your students to create great work, and work alongside with them to do that, that’s amazing to me.”

 

 

About the Author
Author: Editorial Team Website: http://edtechreview.in

Ten Perspectives on International-mindedness

Educational systems

circular-mask   

 Dr Saud Al Ammari, Legal Counsel and Member of the Board of Trustees, King Fahad Academy, London, England—”International-mindedness is the key to having a better understanding and appreciation of one another. In fact, in today’s troubled world, international-mindedness is perhaps the way for a brighter and more peaceful future. Our young men and                                                      women   are the hope for a better world, and I am pleased to see the IB championing this                                                          trustworthy cause to enable them to achieve such a noble objective.”


Kevin

 

Kevin Kahiro Maina, IB student, The Aga Khan Academy, Nairobi—“International-mindedness is best defined as a ‘frame of mind.’ Perhaps though, a ‘philosophy for living’ would be more appropriate for it enables and empowers individuals with the ability to perceive the world in a manner that disregards the ‘self’ and its prejudices while embracing a greater sense of the                                              ‘other’.”


Liina

 

 Liina Baardsen, IB Alumnus, Diploma Programme Curriculum Manager—“International-mindedness means the ability to see an opportunity in every encounter to both share fe with a unique individual and a fellow human being. The greater our individual differences, the more difficult such encounters are likely to be. But they can also be some of the most rewarding                                                       experiences we have. When differences on an individual level seem big, our greatest aide is a                                                   search for what we share as human beings, which I believe is always more than what separates us.”


Mike

 

Mike Bostwick, Executive Director of Katoh Gakuen Bilingual School, Japan—“At the heart of international-mindedness is a frame of mind; a curiosity about the world, an openness towards things ‘other’, and a profound appreciation of the complexity of our world and our relationships to each other. You don’t have to be in an international context to develop this kind of mindset.


Kris

   

Kris Kosaka, CAS Coordinator and teacher at Tamagawa Academy, Machida, Japan—”Students truly take ownership of a concept only by doing and experiencing it in practical terms. I believe international-mindedness is best taught by connecting with others around the globe or in the many different worlds to be found by stepping outside of accepted comfort zones                                             in one’s back yard.”


Qhalisa

 

Qhalisa Khan, IB student, The Aga Khan Academy, Nairobi, Kenya—“International-mindedness is the ability to be receptive to a multitude of ideas and cognisant of various experiences worldwide. This includes being part of an international community which is both pluralistic and meritocratic. Multi-nationalism and respect for cultural diversity are also key                                                    components of global harmony. The development of human ingenuity to incorporate broader                                                  aspects of our global network is also an integral part of this.”


Simon

 

Simon Walker, Head of Berlin British School, Germany— “International-mindedness is a way of thinking; perhaps even a philosophy that has the possibility of leading us to a deeper and broader understanding of our complex world and our role within it. It can and should be made visible through the questions students ask and actions associated with global citizenship.”


Anthony

 

Anthony Tilke, Librarian, United World College, Singapore—”International-mindedness is at the heart of an IB library. IB students, with their rich and diverse backgrounds and experiences, rightly make demands for multi-viewpoint and balanced resources to support inquiry, information, language and literacy needs.”


Dara

 

Dr. Darla Deardorff, Executive Director, AIEA, Duke University, USA—“Higher education institutions have increasingly found inter-cultural competence and international-mindedness to be core student outcomes of internationalization efforts. IB plays a key role in helping to prepare students not only for their future college careers in this regard but also for the diverse world in                                                which they will live and work.


Stuart

 

Stuart Pollard, International Community School, London—“It is my belief that through engagement and action, linguistic competency and awareness, and an understanding of both national and international cultures, IB students are prepared to be successful global citizens of the future. International-mindedness is the foundation and the driver for this preparation.”


International-mindedness is central to the IB mission and a foundational principle to its educational philosophy; it is at the heart of the continuum of international education.

An IB education creates learning communities in which students can increase their understanding of language and culture, developing as successful communicators with the skills needed for intercultural dialogue and global engagement.

Students, teachers, and leaders in the IB school communities have a range of perspectives, values, and traditions. The concept of international-mindedness builds on these diverse perspectives to generate a sense of common humanity and shared guardianship of the planet.