Katherine Haber from SmartBlog on Education recently asked readers and educators to express what the major trends will be in education for 2013; according to Education News, a majority reported that they felt that increasing technology use in classrooms will be a major focus. While a large portion of the teachers that responded said that they use technology fairly regularly during instruction, only a small percentage have “strong” connections between classroom learning and …
Professional Development: Whose Job Is It?
This blog was originally published on Finding Common Ground at Education Week by Peter DeWitt on February 14th, 2013 6:08 AM.
Professional Development is not defined by what someone else provides for us.
Twitter is creating a natural shift in professional thinking for connected educators and administrators. They are finding their own professional development (PD) through their Professional Learning Networks (PLN). There are other educators who don't use Twitter but th…
School District to Copyright Student and Teacher Work
Located in Upper Marlboro, Maryland, the Prince George’s County School District has named many of their schools after important innovative leaders, such as Barack Obama, Cesar Chavez, Martin Luther King Jr. and Frederick Douglass, among others. The district’s mission statement reads, “The Prince George’s County Board of Education will advance the achievement of its diverse student body through community engagement, sound policy governance, accountability and fiscal responsibility.”
While the district prides itself on the celebration of diversity and student achievement, its ability to practice “sound policy governance” has come under intense scrutiny by a n…
Coding the Future: CodeHS and the Importance of Computer Science in High School
Today’s high school students hardly remember the days before Twitter and Google entered our vocabulary, and they’re preparing to enter a job market where technological skill is a basic requirement for a rapidly increasing number of jobs. So why do only a fraction of American high schools offer computer science courses?
While the necessity for high school STEM education has steadily gained attention in recent years, the field of computer science is relatively neglected. Perhaps the most obvious reason for the lack of high school computer science programs is the challenge of attracting and retaining teachers who are qualified to teach computer science. In a
Changing Classrooms with Flipped Learning
All students are familiar with homework, but not all students approach it as a fun or particularly engaging part of their education. Oftentimes, the end of class coincides with a mad dash to answer homework questions before the bell rings as struggling students slip through the cracks and pass their incomplete homework forward. But now a new model of teaching called flipped learning is beginning to take hold in schools across America and change classroom instruction, according to a recent article by Christina Hoag in the Associated Press. Flipped l…
School Athletics to Become More Inclusive of Students with Disabilities
On the official blog of the U.S. Department of Education, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently emphasized the need for sports and extracurricular activities to be more inclusive of students with disabilitie\, as “participation in extracurricular athletic activities promotes socialization, the development of leadership skills, focus and, of course, physical fitness.” Reflecting on his own history of playing basketball and the lessons that he gained from those experiences, he reminds students and coaches that students with disabilities are “no different” than any other student, and all athletes should be chosen based on their abilities rather than individual differences.
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