Middle School Hunger Game: Check It Out
August 27, 2012My Prius has not even left the driveway on this fall’s Journey of Learning, yet the lessons and links are already stacking up. After posting in the last week about a new, creative approach to systems thinking at Townview Magnet in Dallas, and some extraordinary institutional steps to promote innovation at a major east coast…
This Is What School Innovation Looks Like
August 25, 2012Do you want to know the sounds and sights of real 21C innovation? How does a school with a long tradition of success begin to shift focus in recognition that the world we have prepared our students for in the past is rapidly fading away? Here are some snippets, thanks to a conversation I had…
What Creativity Looks Like
August 23, 2012Many of us are talking about the need to shift learning in the direction of creation, rather than consumption, of knowledge. Students and teachers have the capability to create and share in ways that they never have before in human history. I have proposed that the cognitasphere includes both the body of knowledge as it…
Student Co-Ownership: Do It This Fall!
August 21, 2012Yesterday Craig Dwyer @dwyerteacher reflected on Inquire Within about setting up a marvelous unit for his class, including a myriad of opportunities for collaboration, use of technology, reflection time, reaching out to students around the world and more. Yet at the end, here is his takeaway: “But, it was my inquiry. I planned it all out. I chose…
Fulfilling the Core Goal of Education; Transformation is Inevitable
August 19, 2012The core goal of education is to prepare students for their future. This means that a radical transformation of education is inevitable and irreversible; it is only a matter of how efficiently we get there. Education can no longer give students the knowledge they need for the “present known”, or even for the “near-future known”.…
Groundbreaking New Pilot At Dallas Townview Magnet School
August 17, 2012Classic Skunk Works are hidden from curious eyes and ears; not so in our new world of connected educators! I had a great discussion with a young teacher, Aaron Baldridge at the Townview Magnet Center High School in Dallas, a unique setting where six public magnet schools are housed at one location. Aaron is a…
Try This Approach For Your Next Class Project
August 16, 2012A year ago I trialed a method of project-based learning that incorporates a number of skills that we associate with critical collaboration, networking, and group communication skills. It strengthens student ownership of the process and the product and ensures that the students are working on problems that are meaningful to them, not just to the…
A Day With a Master Teacher: John Hunter
August 15, 2012Who in the educational community would prompt you to jump on an airplane, and spend the time and money just for the chance to hang out for a day of learning? Maybe I am selfish, but the answer for me is “I love you all, but not many”. When I knew John Hunter would be…
Is Self-Evolving Learning Our Holy Grail?
August 11, 2012Every time I think I have abstracted up to the highest level, I find I have not; one would think I would learn. So here is my new highest-level understanding of the critical link between the future of education and how we get there: The model of proscriptive education is busted. The world is changing…
Choosing Tools for a Journey
August 8, 2012Just over a month from now I will hit the road for more than 12 weeks to visit with educational leaders at some 60+ schools around the country. Over the next 30 days I will post a few thoughts about preparation for such a journey, some practical, some thoughtful, some metaphorical for the journey that…
The Precursors of Messy Assessment
August 7, 2012In his post “The Immeasurable, Pt. 2” Will Richardson posted this great graphic to articulate the problem with assessment: He states, correctly, of course, that we spend most of our time in the bottom left quadrant, and little in the upper right quadrant. I think this is an issue that goes well beyond assessment, or…
Horizon 3: Building the Future
August 7, 2012This is the third of three posts about the Three Horizon framework of innovation. If this third horizon sounds tough, or something we should not worry about, or a problem for those in a distant future, think about the folks that just landed a rover on Mars. We revel in their success! We get goose…
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