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Because we use quarterly report cards, we must provide grades as evidence of student progress.

Guidelines:

1-2 grades per week

We teach for learning mastery, so require revisions and corrections to learn from mistakes and exhibit mastery. This also ensures students can earn back points, although that shouldn't be the focus.

assessments linked to standards/learning targets

no extra credit

late work deducted 10% a day in Canvas

make up work = follow agendas and submit 1 day after return

all assessments points-based, weighted based on value

grading scale

A 90-100

B 80-89

C 70-79

D 60-69

F 59 or below

no retakes, BUT students should make corrections and revise to LEARN (a requirement)

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Preparing university faculty, preservice teachers, and cooperating teachers for high quality PBL

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Set kids up to make mistakes

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"In school, the most important thing they can learn is how to learn."

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"In school, the most important thing they can learn is how to learn."

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We don't know how quickly machines will displace people's jobs, or how many they'll take, but we know it's happening - not just to factory workers but also to money managers, dermatologists and retail workers.

The logical response seems to be to educate people differently, so they're prepared to work alongside the robots or do the jobs that machines can't. But how to do that, and whether training can outpace automation, are open questions.

Pew Research Center and Elon University surveyed 1,408 people who work in technology and education to find out if they think new schooling will emerge in the next decade to successfully train workers for the future. Two-thirds said yes; the rest said no. Following are questions about what's next for workers, and answers based on the survey responses.
How do we educate people for an automated world?
People still need to learn skills, the respondents said, but they will do that continuously over their careers. In school, the most important thing they can learn is how to learn.

At universities, "people learn how to approach new things, ask questions and find answers, deal with new situations," wrote Uta Russmann, a professor of communications at the FHWien University of Applied Sciences in Vienna. "All this is needed to adjust to ongoing changes in work life. Special skills for a particular job will be learned on the job."

Schools will also need to teach traits that machines can't yet easily replicate, like creativity, critical thinking, emotional intelligence, adaptability and collaboration. The problem, many respondents said, is that these are not necessarily easy to teach.

"Many of the 'skills' that will be needed are more like personality characteristics, like curiosity, or social skills that require enculturation to take hold," wrote Stowe Boyd, managing director of Another Voice, which provides research on the new economy.
Can we change education fast enough to outpace the machines?
About two-thirds of the respondents thought it could be done in the next decade; the rest thought that education reform takes too much time, money and political will, and that automation is moving too quickly.

"I have complete faith in the ability to identify job gaps and develop educational tools to address those gaps," wrote Danah Boyd, a principal researcher at Microsoft Research and founder of Data and Society, a research institute. "I have zero confidence in us having the political will to address the socioeconomic factors that are underpinning skill training."

Andrew Walls, managing vice president at Gartner, wrote, "Barring a neuroscience advance that enables us to embed knowledge and skills directly into brain tissue and muscle formation, there will be no quantum leap in our ability to 'up-skill' people."
Will college degrees still be important?
College is more valuable than ever, research shows. The jobs that are still relatively safe from automation require higher education, as well as interpersonal skills fostered by living with other students.

"Human bodies in close proximity to other human bodies stimulate real compassion, empathy, vulnerability and social-emotional intelligence," said Frank Elavsky, data and policy analyst at Acumen, a policy research firm.

But many survey respondents said a degree was not enough - or not always the best choice, especially given its price tag. Many of them expect more emphasis on certificates or badges, earned from online courses or workshops, even for college graduates.

One potential future, said David Karger, a professor of computer science at M.I.T., would be for faculty at top universities to teach online and for mid-tier universities to "consist entirely of a cadre of teaching assistants who provide support for the students."

Employers will also place more value on on-the-job learning, many respondents said, such as apprenticeships or on-demand trainings at workplaces. Portfolios of work are becoming more important than résumés.

"Résumés simply are too two-dimensional to properly communicate someone's skill set," wrote Meryl Krieger, a career specialist at Indiana University. "Three-dimensional materials - in essence, job reels that demonstrate expertise - will be the ultimate demonstration of an individual worker's skills."
What can workers do now to prepare?
Consider it part of your job description to keep learning, many respondents said - learn new skills on the job, take classes, teach yourself new things.

Focus on learning how to do tasks that still need humans, said Judith Donath of Harvard's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society: teaching and caregiving; building and repairing; and researching and evaluating.

The problem is that not everyone is cut out for independent learning, which takes a lot of drive and discipline. People who are suited for it tend to come from privileged backgrounds, with a good education and supportive parents, said Beth Corzo-Duchardt, a media historian at Muhlenberg College. "The fact that a high degree of self-direction may be required in the new work force means that existing structures of inequality will be replicated in the future," she said.
Even if we do all these things, will there be enough jobs?
Jonathan Grudin, a principal researcher at Microsoft, said he was optimistic about the future of work as long as people learned technological skills: "People will create the jobs of the future, not simply train for them, and technology is already central."

But the third of respondents who were pessimistic about the future of education reform said it won't matter if there are no jobs to train for.

"The 'jobs of the future' are likely to be performed by robots," said Nathaniel Borenstein, chief scientist at Mimecast, an email company. "The question isn't how to train people for nonexistent jobs. It's how to share the wealth in a world where we don't need most people to work."

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We don't know how quickly machines will displace people's jobs, or how many they'll take, but we know it's happening - not just to factory workers but also to money managers, dermatologists and retail workers. The logical response seems to be to educate people differently, so they're prepared to work alongside the robots or do the jobs that machines can't.

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1. Create ongoing projects.

2. Integrate technology.

3. Replace homework with engaging in-class activities.

4. Eliminate rules and consequences.

5. Involve students in evaluation.

1. Create ongoing projects.

2. Integrate technology.

3. Replace homework with engaging in-class activities.

4. Eliminate rules and consequences.

5. Involve students in evaluation.

A student-centered classroom is built on autonomy and the elimination of traditional teaching practices. The student-centered classroom operates on collaboration, project-based learning, technology integration, and plenty of conversation between students and teachers about learning. Here are five steps to building a remarkable student-centered classroom.

1. Create ongoing projects.

The ongoing project plays an essential role in promoting mastery. The key to ongoing projects is to provide plenty of project choices that enable students to demonstrate what they are learning. Many objectives or standards can be met in one well-crafted project that allows students to decide what the final product looks like. The ongoing project stimulates the workshop environment that is the foundation upon which the student-centered classroom is built.

2. Integrate technology.

In today's digital world, it doesn't matter if your classroom is filled with computers; students have them in the palms of their hands. Mobile learning is no longer the wave of the future; it's the present. Learners will be more engaged in any activity or project if they can choose from the hundreds of amazing, free web tools that provide excellent platforms for presenting, curating, and sharing information. When students have an array of exciting web tools at their disposal, they become eager to participate in almost any class activity.

3. Replace homework with engaging in-class activities.

The research on the effectiveness of homework ends up on both the pro and con sides. Most studies that support assigning homework suggest that it increases grades in class or on tests. Whether this is true or not is irrelevant. Measuring achievement with grades and test scores is a false barometer of learning because all the control in these areas is in the hands of the teacher, and there is no place for control in a student-centered classroom. With engaging, ongoing projects that are driven by interactive web tools, students produce more in class, making homework obsolete. Best of all, when not faced with "do-this-and-do-it-my-way" assignments, students become eager to complete the projects that they have created and choose to do schoolwork outside of class. This autonomy breeds learning for the sake of learning-one of the best parts of the student-centered classroom.

4. Eliminate rules and consequences.

The workshop environment of a bustling student-centered classroom encourages a pursuit of learning that allows little time for disruption. Set the tone from the first day of the school year by eliminating all discussion of rules and consequences. Explain that your learning environment is built on mutual respect and a quest for knowledge, so there won't be time for any behavior issues. Keep activities engaging, and behavior will never be an issue.

5. Involve students in evaluation.

Numbers, percentages, and letters on activities, projects, and report cards say little about learning. A student-centered environment thrives through the use of narrative feedback that follows a specific formula and encourages students to resubmit assignments that do not demonstrate mastery. This approach relies on reciprocal feedback between the student and the teacher. Involving students in conversations about their learning not only builds trust, but also helps them become critics of their own work, which is a remarkable part of the amazing student-centered classroom.

If you teach in a student-centered classroom, how does it differ from traditional learning? If your classroom is a traditional one, what fears do you have about converting to a student-centered learning environment?

ASCD is dedicated to professional growth and well-being.

Let's put your vision into action.

ASCD empowers educators to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, and leading so that every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

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Five Steps to Create a Progressive, Student-Centered Classroom - ASCD

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1. Create ongoing projects. 2. Integrate technology. 3. Replace homework with engaging in-class activities. 4. Eliminate rules and consequences. 5. Involve students in evaluation. 1. Create ongoing projects. 2. Integrate technology. 3. Replace homework with engaging in-class activities. 4. Eliminate rules and consequences. 5. Involve students in evaluation.

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Every classroom has a culture. Some aspects of your classroom culture might have evolved organically, while others have been carefully planned and implemented. You may be pleased with some aspects of your classroom culture and not so pleased with others. As the teacher, you are the primary architect of your classroom culture. For that reason, it may be good to reflect a bit and see if what you have created is working in the ways that you had planned.

With that in mind, I offer these questions for reflection:

1. What are five adjectives that describe my classroom culture?

2. How do my students feel about school?

3. How do my students feel about each other? How well do they work together?

4. Do we "gel?" Do we feel like a cohesive group?

5. Is my class a safe place to take academic risks?

6. Are questions, creativity, originality, and new ideas welcome?

7. What values are important in my classroom - respect? tolerance? trustworthiness? self-control? kindness?

8. What behaviors are important in my classroom - trying your best? following directions? staying on task? helping others?

9. What motivates my students to do their work or behave appropriately?

10. How are discipline issues handled in my classroom? What is the result of this strategy?

11. What makes my classroom special and unique? What are students likely to remember 20 years from now?

12. Other than academics, what are three things I hope my students learn from being in my class?

Were any of these questions particularly helpful? Do you have more to add? Please share with a comment.

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Your Classroom Culture: 12 Question to Ask Yourself - Minds in Bloom

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Every classroom has a culture. Some aspects of your classroom culture might have evolved organically, while others have been carefully planned and implemented. You may be pleased with some aspects of your classroom culture and not so pleased with others. As the teacher, you are the primary architect of your classroom culture.

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ideas, examples, inspiration

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Some of the standards for middle schoolers are great, like finding textual evidence to support an analysis. Others, like knowing the difference between reflexive and intensive pronouns, not so much. Some of my most important goals for my students lie completely outside the standards, but I think they're essential to my kids' success. These six social and study skills for middle school students will stay with them long after they leave the classroom.

1. How to monotask.

Is monotask even a word? Unitask? Whatever terminology you prefer, I want my kids to know how to do one thing at a time, and it's not a skill they'll pick up on their own. Let's say I ask them to write a story for homework. They're not going to sit down, come up with an idea, and get lost in the flow of creating a narrative. The vast majority of them will be constantly interrupted by some device beeping, dinging. or otherwise reminding them of their need to be continually connected to everyone they know.

Sustained concentration is a gift, and it's generally lacking from my students' lives. I try to build in time for them to work on things in class because, for most of them, it's the only time they work interruption-free, which is essential to developing their creativity.

2. How they study best.

We tell kids to study all the time, but mine have no idea how to do so. And they don't realize that the process may look different for different people. Some people have to write things down to remember them. Others need to say them out loud. Personally, I remember things best if I walk around the room while I'm studying. But for my kids, "study" means "look at your notes for a predetermined period of time." No focus necessary.

When I need kids to study, we talk about ways to retain information, and kids come up with a plan for how they'll spend their study time. After they take an assessment, I ask them to reflect on the effectiveness of their study strategies.

3. How to use metacognition.

This goes with the previous learning goal. As an adult, I can read a paragraph, realize that I wasn't paying attention or didn't understand it, and then go back and read it again. My kids don't do that. They don't read for understanding; they read because someone told them to. If they have decoded all the words in a given text-whether those words make any sense or not-they're done.

I want them to learn how to check their understanding as they read and figure out the parts they don't get the first time. I try to model this in class, especially when we're reading nonfiction.

4. How to prioritize.

Whenever I have a job I don't want to do, I procrastinate by cleaning my house. That way I'm still doing something productive, so I don't feel bad about not tackling whatever I should've been working on. My kids do the exact same thing with projects. If I tell them to do a research presentation, they're going to have 17 really intricate slide transitions before they do a single bit of research. If I ask them to write a skit using their vocabulary words, they'll spend a whole period making fake boobs for a kid's costume and never actually come up with a script. Ask them, and they think they've spent their time productively working on their project.

I want them to learn how to focus on the difficult parts of a project first, then move on to the fun stuff. At the beginning of the year, I give them a list of steps that have to be completed in order for projects. By this point, I ask them to spend a few minutes at the beginning of the activity prioritizing what needs to get done first and how they're going to accomplish it.

5. How to play to their strengths.

I blame the school system for this one. We're very into a standardized process and a standardized product for every kid, which becomes less and less reasonable as the kids get older. My fifth period is doing book circles now, and they have a set number of pages to read every week and a group assignment to show me their comprehension. I met with a group a few days ago and found them reading out loud "popcorn" style, despite the fact that some members of the group are much more fluent readers than the others. They'd taken turns writing answers to the questions, too, so that some were totally illegible and others were works of art.

"Let your good readers read," I told them. "Let your neat writers write, let your good artists draw the cartoon for your project, and let the leaders decide what pages you're reading for homework tonight. It's okay if not everybody does the exact same things."

6. How to read-and maybe even write-for pleasure.

Teaching this is my favorite part of my job. Lucky for me, it's also the most important. Kids who read independently for pleasure go on to have greater success academically, professionally, and personally according to several well-documented studies. Modeling a love of reading, making room for passion in writing, and pointing kids toward the right books are all hugely important components of teaching middle school that are ignored by the standards.

There are skills I want my kids to have, of course, and there are always the ever-present standards. But if my seventh graders leave me a little better at these six things than they were at the beginning of the year, I'll feel that I've done something to prepare them for the future, no matter what that future holds.

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6 "Soft" Skills Our Middle School Students Need - WeAreTeachers

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Some of the standards for middle schoolers are great, like finding textual evidence to support an analysis. Others, like knowing the difference between reflexive and intensive pronouns, not so much. Some of my most important goals for my students lie completely outside the standards, but I think they're essential to my kids' success.

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Great ways to assess!

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There is no shortage of strategies, techniques, and tools available to teachers (and students) who use formative instructional practice in their classrooms. We've compiled an extensive list of 65 digital tools, apps, and platforms that can help teachers use formative assessment to elicit evidence of student learning.

These tools and apps for formative assessment success give teachers (and students) many options and opportunities for classroom success. To get the most out of formative instructional strategies, check out our NWEA® formative practices workshops. You'll gain a better understanding of the role formative practice plays within your instruction and about the four foundational practices to use in the classroom.

And, share your tools, ideas, and thoughts with us, so we can keep this list growing and current! You can tweet me directly @kdyer13.

AnswerGarden - A tool for online brainstorming or polling, educators can use this real-time tool to see student feedback on questions.

Animoto - Gives students the ability to make a short, 30-second share video of what they learned in a given lesson.

Answer Pad - A graphical student response system with the ability to poll and leave feedback. The blank pad functions like an individual whiteboard for each student.

AudioNote - A combination of a voice recorder and notepad that captures both audio and notes for student collaboration.

Backchannel Chat - (Now MasteryConnect Student.) Like TodaysMeet, this site offers a teacher-moderated version of Twitter. An extension of the in-the-moment conversation might be to capture the chat, create a tag cloud, and see what surfaces as a focus of the conversation.

Biblionasium - This online, safe, and simple book network allows teachers to view books students have read (a digital reading log), create reading challenges for students, and track progress. Students also can review and recommend books to their peers on the site.

BookSnap - While currently this app is only available for iOS, it truly provides a digital way for learners to interact with text and with other learners.

Buncee - A creation and presentation tool that helps students and teachers visualize, communicate, and engage with classroom concepts and ideas.

Chatzy - Use Chatzy like you would use TodaysMeet to support backchannel conversations in a private setting. These live chats make great companions to classroom discussion, provide exit tickets, or keep a discussion going after the class is over.

ClassKick - This app allows teachers to post assignments for students, so both the teacher and peers can provide feedback on the assignment. Students can monitor their progress and work.

Coggle - A mind-mapping tool designed to understand student thinking.

Conceptboard - This software facilitates team collaboration in a visual format - similar to mind mapping, but using visual and textual inputs. Compatible on tablets and PCs, Conceptboard can work from multiple devices.

Dotstorming - A whiteboard app that allows digital sticky notes to be posted and voted on. This tool is best for generating class discussion and brainstorming on different topics and questions.

Educreations Interactive Whiteboard - A whiteboard app that provides students the tool to share understanding and comprehension.

Five Card Flickr - Designed to foster visual thinking, this tool uses the tag feature from photos in Flickr.

Flipgrid - This tool has been recently updated. Students can use 15-second to 5-minute videos to respond to prompts; teachers and peers can provide feedback.

ForAllRubrics- This software is free for all teachers and allows you to import, create, and score rubrics on your iPad, tablet, or smartphone. You can collect data offline with no internet access, compute scores automatically, and print or save the rubrics as a PDF or spreadsheet.

Formative - This online, all-student response system provides teachers the opportunity to assign activities to students, receive the results in real time, and then provide immediate feedback to students.

Formative Feedback for Learning - An iPad app that is designed to foster and encourage communication between students and teachers. Through a conference setting, it uses icons to prompt discussions.

Google Forms - A Google Drive app that allows you to create documents that students can collaborate on in real time using smartphones, tablets, and laptops.

GoSoapBox - Free for less than 30 students, this all-student response system works with the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) model, so no charge for a clicker. One of the most intriguing features for me is the Confusion Meter.

iBrainstorm - An iPad app that allows students to collaborate on projects using a stylus or their finger on screen.

Kahoot - A game-based classroom response system, where teachers can create quizzes using internet content.

Kaizena - An online tool for providing students with real-time feedback on their digitally-uploaded work. Teachers can highlight or speak to give verbal feedback and attach teacher-created, reusable resources to student work.

Lino - A virtual corkboard of sticky notes so students can provide questions or comments on their learning. These can be used like exit tickets or during the course of a lesson.

Mentimeter - Allows you to use mobile phones or tablets to vote on any question a teacher asks, increasing student engagement.

Naiku - Teachers can easily and quickly create quizzes that students can answer using their mobile devices. Great for checking for understanding before and after a lesson.

Nearpod - This tool is nice in that you can not only gather evidence of student learning, like an all-student response system, but you can also create differentiated lessons based on the data you collected. The basic version (30 students or less) is free.

Obsurvey - Create surveys, polls, and questionnaires quickly and easily.

Padlet - Provides an essentially blank canvas for students to create and design collaborative projects. Great for brainstorming.

Pear Deck - Plan and build interactive presentations that students can participate in via their smart device. Limited free usage, and it offers unique question types.

Peergrade - A platform that allows teachers to create assignments and upload rubrics. Students upload work and are anonymously assigned peer work to review according the rubric.

Piazza - A platform that allows teachers to upload lectures, assignments, and homework; pose and respond to student questions; and poll students about class content. This tool is better suited for older students as it mimics post-secondary class instructional formats.

Pick Me! - An easy to use app for an iPod, iPad, or iPhone that facilitates random student selection. Can be organized by class for convenience.

PlayPosit - An interactive video and assessment tool that allows teachers to add formative assessment features (pauses and questions) to survey what students know about the topic. Teachers choose from a library of video content from popular sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, and others.

Plickers - Allows teachers to collect real-time formative assessment data without the need for student devices. Perfect for the one-device classroom.

PollDaddy - Quick and easy way to create online polls, quizzes, and questions. Students can use smartphones, tablets, and computers to provide their answers, and information can be culled for reports.

Poll Everywhere - Teachers can create a feedback poll or ask questions. Students respond in various ways, and teachers see the results in real-time. With open-ended questions, you can capture data and spin up tag clouds to aggregate response. There is a limit to the number of users.

ProProfs - Build and test knowledge with quick quizzes, polls, and surveys.

RabbleBrowser - An iPad app that allows a leader to facilitate a collaborative browsing experience.

RealtimeBoard - Teachers can invite students and collaborate with the whole class in real-time.

Remind - A free tool that allows teachers to text students and stay in touch with parents. A great 'check for understanding' tool that's easy to use.

The Queue - Free educational chat tool that mirrors Twitter and allows teachers to post questions and students to respond via the thread. Students can respond via text or video, and the tool allows "journeys" in which teachers introduce a topic via video and connect students to participating resources. Great for gathering formative assessment data at the beginning, middle, or end of units.

Quia - Teachers can create games, quizzes, surveys, and more, and access a database of existing quizzes from other educators.

QuickVoice Recorder - Another free voice recording app for the iPhone or iPad that allows you to record classes, discussions, or other project audio files. You can sync your recordings to your computer easily for use in presentations.

Quizlet - Create flashcards, tests, quizzes, and study games that are engaging and accessible online and via a mobile device.

Random Name/Word Picker - This tool allows the teacher to input a class list and facilitates random name picking. You can also add a list of keywords and use the tool to have the class prompt a student to guess the word by providing definitions.

Seesaw - This tool helps teachers improve parent communication and makes formative assessment easy, while students can use the platform to document their learning.

ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard - Another whiteboard tool that students and teachers can use to check understanding.

SMART Response VE(for SMARTboards) - A cloud-based software that enables students to respond to planned and spontaneous questions and take quizzes using any of their favorite Internet-enabled devices, from anywhere.

Socrative - Exercises and games that engage students using smartphones, laptops, and tablets.

Tagul - This word cloud generator has an added feature that allows the user to make each word an active link to connect to a website you determine.

Tagxedo - A tag cloud generator that allows you to examine student consensus and facilitate dialogue.

TitanPad - This unique tool for collaborative work offers 8 colors to choose from so that each contributor may use a different color. You can easily imagine how group work, be it peer review or peer editing for starters, can be made interactive.

TodaysMeet - This online collaboration tool allows educators to create a "room" in which students can share ideas, answers, and thoughts to lectures and lessons. Educators can view student responses in real time for evidence of learning.

Triventy - A free quiz game platform that allows teachers to create quizzes students take in real-time. These live quizzes provide teachers with real-time data on student understanding of classroom concepts. Students need individual devices to respond to quiz questions (compatible with mobile devices and laptops).

Verso - Described as a feedback tool, this app allows teachers to set up learning using a URL. Space is provided for directions. Students download the app and input their responses to the assignment. They can then post their comments and respond to the comments of others. The teacher can group responses and check engagement levels.

VoiceThread - Allows you to create and share conversations on documents, diagrams, videos, pictures, or almost anything. This facilitates collaborative student discussion and work.

Vocaroo - A free service that allows users to create audio recordings without the need for software. You can easily embed the recording into slide shows, presentations, or websites. Great for collaborative group work and presentations.

Voxer - Consider using this voice recording tool as a way to let students listen and self assess their ideas and assignments. You can send recordings to parents so they can hear how their students are doing, let students chat about their work, or provide feedback to students.

Wordables - The Word Cloud Guessing Game. This app allows you to elicit evidence of learning or determine background knowledge about a topic. These word clouds are pictures composed of a cloud of smaller words that form a clue to the topic.

Wordle - Generates tag clouds from any entered text to help aggregate responses and facilitate discussion.

WordSalad - This app generates word clouds from the text you provide, and they can be exported and shared.

XMind - A mind-mapping software for use on computers and laptops.

Yacapaca! - Allows teachers to create and assign quizzes with ease.

There are many Twitter chats related to formative instructional practices that could be considered tools, as well. One that is exceptionally lively and focused is regularly hosted by David Kwan (@davidwkwan) and Rachelle Dene Poth (@Rdene915) Monday evenings at 4:30 p.m. PT at #formativechat. I often tweet about formative instructional practices and you can follow me @kdyer13.

Kathy Dyer is a Sr. Professional Development Specialist for NWEA, designing and developing learning opportunities for partners and internal staff. Formerly a Professional Development Consultant for NWEA, she coached teachers and school leadership and provided professional development focused on assessment, data, and leadership. In a career that includes 20 years in the education field, she has also served as a district achievement coordinator, principal, and classroom teacher. She received her Masters in Educational Leadership from the University of Colorado Denver. Follow her on Twitter at @kdyer13.

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The Ultimate List - 65 Digital Tools and Apps to Support Formative Assessment Practices

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There is no shortage of strategies, techniques, and tools available to teachers (and students) who use formative instructional practice in their classrooms. We've compiled an extensive list of 65 digital tools, apps, and platforms that can help teachers use formative assessment to elicit evidence of student learning.

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In an older version of our PBL 101 workshop, we showed a slide with the "Elephant in the Room" installation by the British street artist Banksy (shown below). We were referring to grading, a topic that is huge but often avoided when educators talk about instructional reform, because (a) it's personal to each individual teacher, (b) it's "the coin of the realm," especially in middle school and high school, so messing with the familiar grading system can cause a backlash among students and parents, and (c) it can be really tricky.

In our work with teachers, we hear questions such as:

Do I have to invent a whole new grading system when we do PBL units?

How can I assign individual grades if students work in teams in a project?

How do I assess individual student achievement/mastery of content and success skills in PBL?

This post is about grading within a traditional context. In a later post we can get into more advanced issues such as, "What would a whole new system of assessment and reporting on student achievement look like?" and, "Should the college admissions process put less emphasis on GPA and test scores, and instead look more at projects and portfolios?" and, "Should we even have grades at all?"... Stay tuned.

Suggestions for Grading in PBL

Here are some answers to the above FAQs and more:

You do not need to reinvent your entire grading system when you're new to PBL, but you'll need to make some adjustments.

For example, there will be fewer traditional homework assignments, and perhaps fewer graded assignments generally, so manage your students' (and their families) expectations accordingly. Instead, use checkpoints with a deliverable, which gets a "go/no-go" assessment, not grades or points, to tell students they're ready to move on in the project. Emphasize formative assessment and use it often - without grades, just feedback on how to improve. (Btw, as you gain experience with PBL, you'll see how the grading/assessment system needs to change in more profound ways, such as giving separate grades for content knowledge and success skills/work habits.)

Do not give one grade for the entire project.

Doing so would give too much weight to one grade, and also mask a student's strengths and weaknesses in particular areas. Assign a grade or score separately to each major summative assessment or product.

Give far greater weight to individual work, not group work.

This will help prevent concerns about unfair grades, especially from high-achieving students (and their parents); also see item #2 above and #4 below. Don't simply "jig-saw" the work in a project; if students only do one part of a product or presentation, they're not likely to learn all that you intend. Make sure students have to truly collaborate on all parts of a project.

It's OK to (occasionally) use traditional measures like quizzes and tests.

These tools can be part of your mix, along with written assignments, as they are especially useful for assessing individual student content knowledge in a project.

Use rubrics to make quality criteria clear, and use them for formative as well as summative assessment.

Rubrics help making grading criteria explicit and clear, even while acknowledging the truth that assessment involves subjective human judgment. We recommend separate rubrics-or at least separate sections of a rubric-for content knowledge/understanding and for success skills. Early on in a project, make sure students understand the rubric's language, and have them practice using it on exemplars, and for formative self-assessment at checkpoints during a project. Having students co-create a rubric builds ownership and understanding.

Consider NOT grading the final product or presentation. The process is as (or more) important than the final product in PBL.

You might be thinking, but grades motivate students! If I don't grade the final product, what's their incentive to do it well? Based on what we've seen and heard from teachers, a good project is plenty motivating to students. They want to do well because they care about the authentic problem or driving question. If students know they will be sharing their work with experts or making a presentation to a public audience, they don't want to look bad. And finally, working in a team, IF the collaborative culture in a classroom is healthy, creates motivation to do good work; students won't want to let their teammates down.

Thoughts from PBLWorks National Faculty

Finally, here are some wise tips offered by our National Faculty members, gleaned from classroom experience, when I asked them for their thoughts about grading in PBL. Some of these might push your thinking:

Erin Gannon:
"Involve students as much as possible! Create a rubric early on with students for important work so that the expectations are crystal clear, and be sure to refer back to it during work time. There should be no surprises at the end because students have a solid understanding of how they can show mastery/ability/understanding."
Heather Wolpert-Gawron:

"In the spirit of being the coach, make sure that grades are used for feedback. If they are simply summative indicators of how close they got to some concept of perfect, that doesn't tell a student what elements are lacking.

Mix it up. Use rubrics for one assignment, screencast feedback for another, peer-scored for another, "outsider-scored" for another, credit/no-credit for some, stars vs. letter grades for another, etc.

Release their grade to them only if they prove they've groked the feedback. So many times the student cuts to the grade at the end of the artifact and never reads the "why." Only release that Holy Grail to them when they're comprehended the journey.

Not everything needs to be graded! In PBL, it's the process, not the product. What would it look like if the final product never saw a grade? It should instead be the result of a series of feedback opportunities earned throughout the unit."

Randi Downs:
"If a final product is known, like a TED talk, letter to editor, podcast, etc. a powerful approach is to have the students participate in an "immersion" into that product. Students immerse themselves into bunches of TED talks, for example, and jot down what they notice works, one item per sticky note. Then, in groups, they categorize the sticky notes, label their categories, and share out. From this, we create our final product rubric. I learned this from Katie Wood Ray and her book, Study Driven. It's pretty much how I had my students create their rubrics for every project."

Ian Stevenson:
"A powerful process for reflection is to have students score themselves on the rubric whenever the teacher is going to use a rubric (as frequently as possible). This gives a good starting point for conversation with the student. I always asked students for specific evidence if their self-score was higher than mine (and was willing to change my assessment if they pointed out something that I had missed, or explained their perspective more clearly). It also forced me to have specific evidence in order to explain any differences I had that the student wanted to know. This reinforced their confidence with oral communication, especially with the more introverted students, as well as ability to defend their argument! Once I knew students were honest and reflective, I could stop grading so much and use their self-scores on more of the formative checkpoints.

"I love Randi's process of the product immersion so students can co-create the rubric. This is crucial for those projects where students are given significant choice in the products of the project. If students can self-assess on the physical aspects of the product, then the teacher can focus more on the content and visible thinking."

Here are some more readings about grading in PBL:
Project Based Grading, by Mike McFadden

How Do We Assess (And Possibly, Grade) Project Based Learning? by Ross Cooper

Evaluation Within Project Based Learning, by Michael Hernandez

PBL Pilot: Matching PBL With Traditional Grading
and
Standards-Based Assessment in PBL, by Matt Meyers

Developing Confidence Through Delayed Grading (video), Edutopia

How Do We Grade? - Grading and Reporting in a PBL/PrBL Math Class, by Jeff Devarona, New Tech Network

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The Elephant in the Room: Grading in Project Based Learning

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Editor in Chief John Larmer, with contributions from the PBLWorks National Faculty, offers tips for teachers to answer FAQs about grading issues in PBL.

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read this article!

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Most of us would agree that creating opportunities for students to use higher-order thinking is a worthy goal for teachers in K-12 and college-level classrooms, but when it comes to how we design our daily lessons, these opportunities are often left largely to chance. Even though we may take the time to generate strong questions that are aimed at pushing students to a point of strong analysis and reflection, we often do little to make sure students are held accountable to actually process those same questions we worked so hard to create.

When we start our line of questioning with phrases like "Who can tell me...?" we risk minimizing the learning for too many of our students. The phrase, "Who can tell me," often gives us just that-the student who can tell us. It may just be that the student who can tell us is the only student who can tell us. Picture a teacher holding a beach ball. She/he can only throw it to one student at a time. A traditional Q & A is like the tossing of a metaphorical beach ball. Where higher-order questioning is concerned, tossing beach balls presents quality learning options for volunteers, but offers no guarantees that any of the other students are involved, learning, or even interested.

Though the beach ball Q & A is far too common a problem, it is not a difficult problem to solve. If we're going to provide practical solutions to the disengagement and missed learning opportunities that are often credited with being a major contributor to the achievement gap, we'll need to first get rid of the traditional Q & A, particularly in the case of higher-order questions. We propose that higher-order prompts be processed using a structure that we call The Ripple. Using a ripple analogy, every higher-order prompt is processed in this way:

1. Every individual student responds to the prompt using what we've coined as the Total Participation Technique. (This step can be visualized as the center of the ripple.)

2. Next, each student has an opportunity to share in pairs or small groups (the first ripple).

3. Finally, volunteers or selected students share in a whole group format (the outer ripple).

Using this 3-part ripple analogy, calling on someone is left for the final step. In other words, calling on someone is the last thing we do. Not every question deserves the attention that a ripple would provide, but students will often benefit from this type of attention placed on higher-order questions.

Total Participation Techniques (TPTs), or teaching techniques that allow teachers to get evidence of active participation and cognitive engagement from all students at the same time, are practical remedies for the traditional Q & A. An example of a Total Participation Technique is what we call the Chalkboard Splash. In a Chalkboard Splash, students respond to a higher-order prompt in their notebooks, or on designated slips of paper, and then trim their responses to 15 words or less. They then grab a piece of chalk (or whiteboard marker, or chart paper marker) and record their abbreviated responses on any open spot on the chalkboard (or whiteboard, or chart paper). The Chalkboard Splash allows teachers to get a quick read on their students' thinking and allows for students to review their peers' responses, looking for tendencies, or surprises, or analyzing for big-picture themes.

When it comes to asking higher-order questions, it is not enough that we create higher-order questions. We also need to follow through by making sure all of our students actually take the time to answer them. For that, we need to embed opportunities within classroom structures that allow for all students to respond. In other words, when it comes to engaging students in higher-order Q & A, calling on someone is fine, but sequentially, it should be the last thing that you do.

If you'd like to hear more about Total Participation Techniques , come join us at ASCD Empower 2018. We'll be presenting a concurrent session during the regular conference schedule , and we'll also be presenting a two-day pre-conference institute for individuals, as well as for school teams, that would like to go more in depth on the topic of cognitively engaging all students at the same time, and creating an engaged school culture. We'd love to see you there.

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Why Calling on a Student Should be the Last Thing You Do

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Most of us would agree that creating opportunities for students to use higher-order thinking is a worthy goal for teachers in K-12 and college-level classrooms, but when it comes to how we design our daily lessons, these opportunities are often left largely to chance.

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When Educators Make Space For Play and Passion, Students Develop Purpose

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These teachers made room for playful exploration and student passions in the classroom, helping their students to develop the purpose that drives them.

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By Jim Frye

It's time to sound our barbaric yawps over the rooftops again!

The incomparable Robin Williams inspired a generation to live passionately and stand on their desks in the Touchstone Pictures classic Dead Poets Society-and 30 years later, that inspiration is as strong as ever. Nominated for four Academy Awards® and winning Best Original Screenplay for the script by Tom Schulman-who, coincidentally, was also a writer of Disney's Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, out that same year- Dead Poets Society features Disney Legend Williams as Mr. Keating, a spirited English teacher who breaks the mold at a strict New England boarding school to inspire his students to live bold, passionate lives. And he does it all by using literature.

Here, we've collected seven of our favorite lessons learned from Mr. Keating. Grab your literature book and read along with us!

1. "No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world."
Mr. Keating loves literature and poetry, and he tries to pass this love on to his students. But instead of just spouting tired, worn-out lessons, Mr. Keating sweeps his students up in his enthusiasm in true Robin Williams fashion, and he impresses on them that their ideas and words are important. They can change the world!

2. "There is a time for daring, and there is a time for caution. And a wise man understands which is called for."
The kids quickly warm to Mr. Keating's unorthodox style and take his lessons to heart, but one student pushes a bit too hard against the rules of the school, landing himself on the painful side of a paddle (the disciplinary method practiced by the film's mid-50s boarding school). Mr. Keating steps in and encourages the students to use wisdom in their decision-making process-and avoid that paddle!

3. "We must constantly look at things in a different way."
One day, Mr. Keating jumps up on his desk and extols the virtues of seeing things from a different perspective. He teaches the students that an open mind, one that is eager to understand different perspectives, is vital. He then instructs each of his students to take their turn atop his desk, looking around and seeing things from a new perspective. Silly? Maybe. Effective? Definitely.

4. "Poetry, beauty, romance, love... these are what we stay alive for."
It's not all about going to work, earning money, and buying shiny things. Keating pushes his students-and us-to seek out the important things in life-beauty, romance, love-and to celebrate the passions that drive us in our lives.

5. "You must strive to find your own voice."
It's too easy to become part of the herd, to believe and say what everyone is saying even if we don't believe it. It's more difficult, though, to stand firm to our beliefs and recognize our own voice. Mr. Keating stressed the importance of finding your voice and doing it early! Because the more we follow the crowd, the harder it becomes to break free.

6. "What will your verse be?"
In one of the most beautiful yet haunting moments in the film, Mr. Keating discusses the lives of those who have gone before us. They've each left their mark and contributed a verse to "the powerful play" that is our collective existence. We're all part of the history that is being created around us. What will our contribution-our verse-be?

7. "Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary."
It's impossible to think of this film without also saying aloud, "Carpe Diem!" It means "seize the day," and it's the most famous Mr. Keating quote from the film, the one that inspires the students-and all of us!-to live lives passionately, with purpose and verve.

Dead Poets Society will forever immortalize Robin Williams-and Mr. Keating-for the joy, passion, and excitement he shared with his students, and with us! For this, Mr. Keating, "O Captain, my Captain," we will always be grateful! Seize the day!

Inspired to watch Mr. Keating's lessons for yourself? You can purchase a copy of Dead Poets Society on Movies Anywhere.

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7 Truths We Learned from Dead Poet's Society - D23

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By Jim Frye It's time to sound our barbaric yawps over the rooftops again! The incomparable Robin Williams inspired a generation to live passionately and stand on their desks in the Touchstone Pictures classic Dead Poets Society-and 30 years later, that inspiration is as strong as ever.

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Sir Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms

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In this talk from RSA Animate, Sir Ken Robinson lays out the link between 3 troubling trends: rising drop-out rates, schools' dwindling stake in the arts, and ADHD. An important, timely talk for parents and teachers.

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what it does for learning

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The following excerpt is from "Authentic Learning in the Digital Age: Engaging Students Through Inquiry," by Larissa Pahomov. This excerpt is from the chapter entitled "Making Reflection Relevant." Characteristics of Meaningful Reflection
For student reflection to be meaningful, it must be metacognitive, applicable, and shared with others. Let's look at each of these characteristics in turn.
Metacognitive
Although it's something of a buzz word, "metacognition" is a state of mind that can be useful for all the core values presented in this book. If students are metacognitive about inquiry, then they're thinking about exactly how they are going to phrase that question; if they're metacognitive about collaboration, then they're considering how their introvert or extrovert personality will affect the group. Metacognition is essentially reflection on the micro level, an awareness of our own thought processes as we complete them. So what does metacognitive reflection look like?

By sharing their reflections on their academic work, students can both advise and seek help from their peers. Sharing their achievements helps those who struggled with that particular task, and sharing their weak spots helps them troubleshoot as they work through a problem set or have a peer edit a rough draft.

When children are first learning to reflect on their work, their educators use simple prompts to get them thinking: Do you like what you made? Did you do a good job? Eventually, they are also asked to consider the process: What did you learn from this task? Usually these questions are posed by an outsider-a parent or a preschool teacher, for example-who asks the learner for a simple assessment of the outcome. Metacognitive reflection, however, takes this process to the next level because it is concerned not with assessment, but with self-improvement: Could this be better? How? What steps should you take? As a result, metacognitive reflection can be used to develop resilience in the face of a challenge. Many young children (and some adults) will throw down their work when they become frustrated with it, unable to transcend the struggle. By contrast, a student who has learned the value of metacognitive reflection will recognize frustration as a signal to pause and think through the situation instead of plowing ahead with the same approach or giving up entirely.

Of course, there's a danger of this metacognition turning into a kind of feedback loop: Am I reflecting adequately on my reflection? The better question to keep in mind is, How is this reflection going to help me in the future? In many cases, "the future" is just a few minutes away, but this mindset can also apply to cumulative reflection over a unit, a school year, or a lifetime.

➤ The digital connection. Students who are not naturally inclined to stop and think need explicit practices to nudge themselves toward quality reflection-and digital tools to make it easier. Keeping a log of tasks and habits, for example, gives students a rich source of data to mine when reflecting on their progress, and there are many apps that will collect and aggregate this information in accessible and attractive ways. The myriad of daily journals, goal-setting programs, and "productivity" apps help to create a regular time and place for reflection, which students can use toward academic or personal projects. Even using a simple timer can help students chunk out their work so they take a reflective break, and some programs have breaks built into the timer cycle, so that a pause from the work is guaranteed.
Applicable
The reflective question in the SLA admissions interview is a great tool for getting to know the student, but it doesn't do much to actually serve their learning process. It's completely divorced from the setting where the student actually did the work, and besides, the student already completed the project.

This kind of isolated, after-the-fact reflection dominates our understanding of the process. When asked to imagine a person reflecting, you probably conjure up an image of an individual alone, in a comfortable place, staring off into the distance, plaintively contemplating some earlier life event. This scene is likely set at the end of a calendar year, or at the end of a lifetime-or, if you imagined a professional setting, at a retirement party. These kinds of personal reflections contribute to the richness of life, because through them we are able to appreciate how our path has shaped our existence. But what about the life that is still to be lived and the work that is still to be done? Unfortunately, this sentimental notion of reflection for reflection's sake keeps the practice from being used for active improvement in the here and now. Academic reflections, for example, often take place at the very end of the course, when both the professor and the student will be moving on to other courses and teaching loads. Students are not typically asked to consider how their performance evolves over the years either. Even though teachers often have a very clear notion of how the curriculum builds on itself and how students must develop their skills in a particular sequence, they often keep this structure hidden from their students. Occupied with the daily grind of delivering curriculum, it often doesn't occur to them that their students might benefit from seeing the big picture.

If this structure is revealed to students, though, then they suddenly have a framework for assessing how their past performance will influence their future work. By being transparent about future tasks and assignments, teachers remind students that they're going to have to use at least some of these skills again, so there's no sense in making the same mistakes. Reflection suddenly has a real and immediate purpose: You know where this course is going, so how are you going to improve the quality of your own journey?

➤ The digital connection. If students are going to really benefit from their reflections and apply them to future work, those thoughts have to get out of their heads and into some form of documentation. Proximity here is key; reviewing a previous reflection can be most instructive when students are working on the next task, so their reflection should be stored wherever that work is happening. Paper portfolios can approximate this, although that method forces students to carry a year's worth of work and reflection with them at all times (which is why most teachers choose to keep portfolios in the classroom-logical, but limiting). By contrast, online homes for student reflection are universally accessible and can be organized to accompany student work, so that the past reflection is right in front of students as they start a new task. Digital tools also provide different mediums for students to capture their thoughts-they can type or tag, or talk into the microphone or camera.

Electronic tools of analysis can also play a big role here. Just as athletes track their physical performance using a specific set of metrics, students may benefit from reviewing their academic achievements in different areas, like the categories of a rubric or a list of discrete skills. When used by outside forces as the exclusive criteria for judging a school, this kind of "data-driven" approach can be myopic, but when used by students as one of several tools for measuring success, the process can be empowering. The standards-based grading movement has a multitude of resources available online, including free online grade books for teachers. By tying a numerical score to specific skills, students are naturally encouraged to reflect on their past performance so that they can improve the work, not just the grade.
Shared
Let's go back to that image of the lone person lost in reflection. Once they are done collecting their thoughts, who are they going to share them with? Most likely a trusted confidant or private journal-a safe place with no chance of betrayal. This tendency toward secrecy is natural. In the interest of keeping up appearances, we don't really like to share our weaknesses and past failures (although we do love gawking at the problems and misfortunes of others). But if we are really seeking to take action based on our reflections, then we will likely need some help, and that means we have to own up about what needs work. To make students comfortable with this practice, the classroom has to become a place where each student is recognized as being on an individual path of improvement-and, an important point, no student has reached the end of the path, because there is no end. And if there is no finish line, it becomes more difficult for students to compare their relative positions on the journey.

Once that culture has been established, the classroom can become a place of collective support instead of individual competition. By sharing their reflections on their academic work, students can both advise and seek help from their peers. Sharing their achievements helps those who struggled with that particular task, and sharing their weak spots helps them troubleshoot as they work through a problem set or have a peer edit a rough draft.

➤ The digital connection. Just as electronic tools make reflections easy to access for an individual, so, too, do they make it easy to share. Sharing becomes instantaneous when material is available online; the collection of commentary from an entire class can also be indexed, searched, and organized by theme-a feature that may be of great use for the teacher, who will want to look at both individual goals and the class's experience as a whole. If students are sensitive about sharing their reflections, the work can also be posted anonymously. Like writing in to an advice column with a pseudonym, the practice allows them to receive guidance and support without embarrassing themselves.
Larissa Pahomov teaches students English and Journalism at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia, an inquiry-driven, project-based, 1:1 laptop school.

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What Meaningful Reflection On Student Work Can Do for Learning

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The following excerpt is from "Authentic Learning in the Digital Age: Engaging Students Through Inquiry," by Larissa Pahomov. This excerpt is from the chapter entitled "Making Reflection Relevant." Characteristics of Meaningful Reflection For student reflection to be meaningful, it must be metacognitive, applicable, and shared with others.

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journal entries

doodling/note-taking

end-of-unit summaries

end-of-quarter reflections

cross-curricular connections

self-grading via rubrics

voice overs

portfolio self-evaluations

test corrections

exit slips

blogs

weekly wonderings

self-assessments

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They give thoughtful consideration to their own learning and experience. They are able to assess and understand their strengths and limitations in order to support their learning and personal development.

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Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind: 16 Essential Characteristics for Success

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In Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind, noted educators Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick present a comprehensive guide to shaping schools around Habits of Mind. The habits are a repertoire of beh

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visible thinking via note-taking

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"I sat through two 45-minute lectures in high school social studies and not only was I super focused because I was doodling, I could also basically give the lecture afterwards," said Paul, who is director of learning design at Woodward Academy. "And if I look at the doodle again today for three to four minutes, I can basically remember it all again."

These experiences convinced Paul and Gough that something powerful happens when auditory learning is transposed into images. It didn't take much to excite students about the idea.

"It really is amazing how much, with just a tiny bit of introduction, most kids will take to it," Paul said.

Teachers were more skeptical at first, but the approach and its results slowly won many of them over. A fifth-grade science teacher at Trinity was convinced when a student left his understanding of how magnets work on her desk -- a sheet of paper covered in drawings.

"What they can produce is beautiful and it makes them better listeners," Gough said.

The practice also makes student learning visible and provides a valuable formative assessment tool. If a student sketches an interesting side note in the lesson, but misses the big themes, that will show up in her drawing. And when students share their drawings with one another, they have the chance to fill in the gaps in their knowledge, and drawings, while discussing the key ideas. Going over the drawings also solidifies the information for students.

"We're using the collective brain to deepen all of our learning," Paul said.
BASED IN NEUROSCIENCE
While doodling has often been seen as frivolous at best and distracting at worst, the idea of sketchnoting has grounding in neuroscience research about how to improve memory. When ideas and related concepts can be encapsulated in an image, the brain remembers the information associated with that image. William Klemm, a professor of neuroscience at Texas A&M University, says the process is akin to a zip file.

"This is a way to get your working memory to carry more," Klemm said at a Learning and the Brain conference in San Francisco.

Klemm advocates thinking in images and stringing them together into what he calls "story chains," to vastly improve how much students can remember. Sketching notes makes these story chains visible and tangible.

"Teachers were amazed at the depth and diversity of what the kids produce, even the first time we tried this," Paul said.

Gough and Paul were originally inspired by Sunni Brown's TED Talk, in which she tries to convince listeners that drawing plays a central role in learning. Later the two educators took Brown's webinar, which helped give them useful tricks and, most importantly, the license to mess up, share their failures and keep practicing.

[ted id=1230]

And, while students take copious notes, they may not be retaining much of what they write down. When a student doodles, on the other hand, he is synthesizing the information, making choices about what's important and encoding the memory in a new way.

"If we draw or sketch, that's activating the visual pathway, so we're using our audio senses to take in information. But our output is visual, so there isn't that traffic jam," Gough said.

It can be hard to sketchnote in real time and keep up with the flow of a lectures. But even that isn't all bad. "Even the things you cut get attached to the things you did choose because you can take yourself back to that choice," Paul said. The two educators have also experimented with using little sketches as ways to take notes in the margins of books.
DOODLING IN THE DIGITAL AGE
It may seem like doodling will become a thing of the past as schools increasingly move towards digital textbooks and notetaking. But Gough and Paul say there are always ways to adapt the practice and new affordances that technology can offer. Since many public school students can't write in their paper textbooks anyway, perhaps they can sketch when they take notes virtually. Sketching with a stylus on a tablet, for example, could also offer some interesting new avenues for color and design that pen and paper don't.

More than anything, Paul and Gough want to offer multiple entry points for students to access learning. While doodling works for some kids, it might not for others and that's fine. What's most important is that teachers allow for variation in learning styles, even when it is unfamiliar to them.

"If we are going to model lifelong learning for and with children and our colleagues, sometimes we have to be uncomfortable and try it," Gough said.

Sketchnoting has become an important learning tool for these two educators, but they say it was just as important to practice public risk-taking.

Both women tweeted out their sketches from the very beginning -- a scary thing to do when the first pictures were mostly stick figures running off the page, but one that immediately helped generate support from other doodlers. Now Paul and Gough regularly share both their own drawings and their students' work and growth.

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Making Learning Visible: Doodling Helps Memories Stick

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"I sat through two 45-minute lectures in high school social studies and not only was I super focused because I was doodling, I could also basically give the lecture afterwards," said Paul, who is director of learning design at Woodward Academy.

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a part of the learning process

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Exceptional learning can't happen if we play it safe all the time, so as educators we must create environments that encourage and support risk taking while embracing the potential for mistakes.

By the time students become teenagers, they don't want to look stupid in front of their friends; they even fear being wrong because of the negative consequences that may have befallen them in the past.

In order to rebrand learning, we must help all students understand that progress can only happen by taking risks and with that comes potential error and maybe even failure. But this doesn't have to be a bad thing, mistakes are actually important steps to figuring out better solutions.

So what happens when we're incorrect?

Nothing really, we create new opportunities to try out other problem solving techniques and generate other solutions. Without those mistakes or failures the better answers may never come.

I read somewhere not too long ago that when a room is quiet because no one wants to take a risk, why not try asking kids to share their best wrong answers. We can de-stigmatize the idea of being wrong by making it a part of how we become right.

So how do we create spaces that embrace these kinds of risks?
Try this:

Don't be afraid to make mistakes to model what happens after you do. Students need to see what happens and not be afraid.

Admit when you don't know something and turn it into a classroom activity to figure it out together. Kids also need to see that it's okay to not know and even more importantly, they need to know how to find answers when they don't have them. This is a much more valuable skill than merely knowing.

Applaud attempts at learning that are unsuccessful and continue to encourage students to take risks.

Make student questioning a big part of the environment, letting their curiosity lead the learning regardless of not knowing where the line of questioning may end up.

If possible, create a system for calling on students that doesn't include hand raising all of the time, so that only a few people volunteer.

Use Twitter as a backchannel so that all students can participate, even if they are reticent.

Implement a fair amount of wait time to include as many students as possible.

Give students extra time to write down answers first before participating in a discussion. Consider even a pair share where partners share out the information after the discussion.

Have a "parking lot" or questions box that anonymously allows students to drop questions or concerns off at the end of class to be addressed later.

Make it clear that no one is so to snicker or make fun of students who make mistakes, but rather have a protocol for adding onto another person's ideas.

Don't attach grades to learning. This can shut a student down quickly.

These ideas are just some starters. Kids need to understand that innovation can only happen when we move away from what has already been learned and done and with some creativity and courage, we make really make meaningful change together.
How do you help students take risks in your spaces? Please share

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Exceptional learning can't happen if we play it safe all the time, so as educators we must create environments that encourage and support risk taking while embracing the potential for mistakes. By the time students become teenagers, they don't want to look stupid in front of their friends; they even fear being wrong because of the negative consequences that may have befallen them in the past.

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Do you assess for learning?  If you assess for learning, you...

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Do you assess for learning?  If you assess for learning, you...

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Provide effective targeted, penalty free practice for students.

Enable students to take responsibility for their own learning.

Improve student motivation to learn.

Improve student achievement.

Create a learning culture rather than an over-the-top grading culture.

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Grant Wiggins shares a protocol for aligning resources, time, and activities to deliver desired outcomes using a "backwards" design process. - created using PowToon - http://www.powtoon.com/

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Students must be aware of the
learning targets for your class, for each unit, for each lesson…otherwise, how do they know what to aim for?

When you give feedback, how do students learn from it?  Do they correct mistakes?

Students deserve feedback on all assessments

Must be specific to make a difference  (not just a "75%" or "good job" or "try again")

Assessment can be motivational, evaluative and/or descriptive – the best is a combination of all 3

The use of agendas provides students the goals, and how to get there.  Agenda should be used actively.

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Project-based learning (PBL) is a hot topic right now. It feels like the education pendulum is swinging back (finally!) from the extreme test prep brought on by No Child Left Behind. From the skills-based Next Generation Science Standards to the popularization of makerspaces, there are more and more initiatives that focus on students and learning. But is PBL just the latest education fad? Is it the next flavor of the month for professional development? I don't think so.

PBL is not a new idea. John Dewey laid out the foundational ideas of PBL over one hundred years ago when he reported on the benefits of hands-on, experiential learning. Student-centered learning through PBL has been happening in pockets for decades. It is now finally getting mainstream attention. Here are seven reasons why high-quality PBL is not a fad, but a lasting framework that your school should adopt.

The traditional style of lecturing, student note-taking, and regurgitating those notes on a test-rinse and repeat-is BORING. continue to show that many students are not engaged in school, with engagement decreasing as they get older. The also shows that engaged students are the most successful ones. In PBL, students explore authentic problems in real contexts. The focus of the class shifts from the teacher being front and center to students actively learning together in groups. Active research and academic conversations, instead of passive listening, drive classroom time. Students explore relevant, personalized learning rather than an abstract, sterilized curriculum.

We know the skills that students need to be successful in their careers and personal lives go beyond the curriculum. There is constant feedback from employers that students need more success skills, which include leadership, communication, collaboration, and time-management skills. In PBL, students are taught and assessed on these skills constantly. The skills are built into the project process. They are emphasized because the project work requires them. Students learn how to negotiate problems in their groups and communicate their solutions to a public audience. They gain confidence in themselves by developing these important life skills.

While learning success skills is vital for students' futures, we still have an obligation to teach them our required curriculum. A myth about project based learning is that it is light on content. Done correctly, PBL dives deeply into content through student inquiry. It connects standards to current issues in the community, making required content relevant. PBL challenges students to synthesize and apply their content knowledge to new situations. This leads to a depth of understanding that won't be forgotten a week after the test.

It is no longer enough that a student makes strong academic progress in school. Educators have a duty to grow children holistically, and there has been an increased focus on mental health. Social-emotional learning (SEL) is a framework for meeting all of a students' needs. SEL is a natural connection to PBL's previously mentioned success skills. It allows educators to develop these skills in students in a way that is naturally part of the classroom routine. A key emphasis of a project-based-learning classroom is student voice and choice. PBL encourages students to become self-managers who are responsible and respectful of others in their groups. Learning to collaborate and work with others is a key aspect of social-emotional learning.

We all want our students to grow up to be contributing members of the community. PBL is the perfect vehicle for a service-learning project, allowing students to make a difference. Students of all ages can work on a local issue, such as homelessness, clean water, or recycling. Too often we treat students like we are preparing them to do important work "someday." Instead students should be doing meaningful work right now! And this does not just need to be in a service-learning class. Any PBL classroom can tie service learning into the content work.

A high-quality project based learning project requires a public product from students. Students create something throughout the course of the project to use or display publicly. This provides a great opportunity to strengthen ties between schools, parents, and the community at large by publicly showing important work that students are doing.

For example, students from Schoolcraft Elementary School helped a major farming operation choose the right potato to plant for the best yields. The students researched and studied the data to make their determination. In the end, they presented at a board meeting of farmers from across the Midwest and the East Coast, and the students' recommendation was unanimously approved! Schoolcraft's principal said that PBL projects are building up the school district's reputation in the community. This, of course, leads to the support every school needs.

What do you remember about school? Chances are it is one or two teachers who really connected with you and some kind of meaningful project that you participated in. I can guarantee it wasn't a worksheet or test-prep activity. PBL gives students the opportunity to complete meaningful work that they can be proud of for the rest of their lives. Students remember their favorite projects and are proud of them. Project based learning lets kids make a difference while learning the content and practicing success skills. PBL is not a fad. It's a great framework where all kids will learn!
Join the great conversations going on about school leadership in our Facebook groups at Plus, check out this article about giving teachers voice and choice. and High School Principal Life .

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7 Reasons Why Project Based Learning is NOT a Fad

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Project-based learning (PBL) is a hot topic right now. It feels like the education pendulum is swinging back (finally!) from the extreme test prep brought on by No Child Left Behind. From the skills-based Next Generation Science Standards to the popularization of makerspaces, there are more and more initiatives that focus on students and learning.

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"People don't like change, especially in times of great uncertainty," she said. "People naturally go conservative and buckle down and don't want to try something new. There are schools that are trying to do things differently, and although on the one hand they're heralded as having terrific vision, they're still seen as experimental."

"I'm astounded at the glacial pace of change in education."

During this time of economic uncertainty, especially, Levine said parents want to make sure their kids won't fall into the ranks of the unemployed and disenfranchised young people who return home because they're unable to find jobs. "There's so much anxiety around the economy, they're thinking, What can I do to make sure that my kid isn't one of the unemployed"? she said.

Yet therein lies the paradox. It's exactly during these uncertain times when people must be willing to try new things, to be more open, curious and experimental, she said. In education, although there are great new models of learning and schooling, they are the exceptions, and the progressive movement has not gained much momentum.

"I'm astounded at the glacial pace of change in education," she said. "Like many academic areas, there's a huge disconnect between what's known and what's in practice. It's very slow moving."

Levine, who was a teacher herself for many years, said she has tremendous respect for educators and believes they need full support from parents and administrators. But until the directive comes from those in power -- national and state policymakers, superintendents, principals -- what can teachers do individually to make learning relevant for their students?

"One thing we know for sure is that kids learn better when teachers are invested and paying attention and showing they care," she said. "The biggest impact you'll have as a teachers is the relationship you establish with your student."

Try to integrate what students are interested in within what's happening in class, get to know each student, and have high expectations. Taking seriously the range of interests kids have, she said.

In addition to individual attention, Levine believes a child's time in school should look much like what kindergarten did.

"There's probably no better example of the throttling of creativity than the difference between what we observe in a kindergarten classroom and what we observe in a high school classroom," she writes in Teach Your Children Well. "Take a room full of five-year-olds and you will see creativity in all its forms positively flowing around the room. A decade later you will see these same children passively sitting at their desks, half asleep or trying to decipher what will be on the next test."

In an ideal world, the school day would reflect kids' changing needs and rhythms. There would be time for free play; school would start later to allow time for students' much-needed rest; the transition time between classes would be longer, allowing time for kids to walk down the hall and say hi to their friends and plan their next moves; kids would have the opportunity to step away from school "work" in order to regroup and process what they've absorbed. "The actual encoding of information doesn't take place when you're hunched over a desk," she said.

And just as importantly, the arts would be integrated into a curriculum, not as an ancillary addition, but as a primary part of learning. "For developing creativity and flexible and divergent thinking, we need to bring back the arts," she said. "It's a travesty that kids don't have arts anymore."
FIVE AREAS FOR CHANGE

"We're operating on a 200- year-old paradigm in a world that needs an entirely different skill set," she said. "When we talk to business owners, we hear this large and increasing drumbeat that the jobs are there, but kids applying for jobs don't have the kinds of skills they need."

Levine spends a lot of her time at Challenge Success, a school training program at Stanford that's been incorporated into about 100 schools across the country. The five criteria that Challenge Success brings to schools attempts to modernize the obsolete system in place today: scheduling, project based learning, alternative assessment, climate of care, and parent education.

PROJECT BASED LEARNING. Project-based learning has shown to be a much more effective way to think about learning, "particularly when you live in a world that's incredibly unclear on what content is going to be relevant in not just 10 or 20 years, but in three years," she said. "Over and over business leaders say kids need to be collaborative, work across time zones and cultures because problems are so complex."

ALTERNATIVE ASSESSMENT. "You don't have the opportunity to show what you know in a regular school because standardized tests that are mandated only show what some kids know, but leave out a whole bunch of kids who aren't able to show what they know in different ways," she said. We should have alternative criteria for gauging students' knowledge and ability to show what they know.

SCHEDULING. Neuroscience research on sleep is becoming more compelling by the day, particularly around depression, Levine said. "We'd always thought fatigue is symptom of depression, but now it's looking more like lack of sleep causes depression, and that's something looked at seriously." Kids needs nine hours of sleep, and if schools were in synch developmentally with teenagers, should would start at 10 a.m., especially when kids enter adolescence. Teachers should also coordinate their exams with each other to ensure that students are not taking multiple tests on the same day.

CLIMATE OF CARE. Research shows that kids do better in classes where teachers know their names and say hello to them, and when they have their own advocates or advisers at school. "Almost every private school has advisory, a person for each kid to go to," Levine said. "But in public schools, there are just a few counselors for a thousand kids or more. By the time you're hitting high school, you need someone apart from parents to test ideas with, to kick around problems, a go-to person who a kid feels knows them."

PARENT EDUCATION. Well-meaning parents are confounded with how to approach managing their kids' times. Kids needs playtime, downtime, and family time, Levine said. "We've robbed kids at each stage of childhood and adolescence of tasks that belong in that particular stage," she said. "You can't push kids outside their developmental zone and expect them to learn. You want to push them towards the edge of it, but not over."

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The current structure of the school day is obsolete, most would agree. Created during the Industrial Age, the assembly line system we have in place now has little relevance to what we know kids actually need to thrive.

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Humankind is facing unprecedented revolutions, all our old stories are crumbling, and no new story has so far emerged to replace them. How can we prepare ourselves and our children for a world of such unprecedented transformations and radical uncertainties? A baby born today will be thirtysomething in 2050. If all goes well, that baby will still be around in 2100 and might even be an active citizen of the 22nd century. What should we teach that baby that will help them survive and flourish in the world of 2050 or the 22nd century? What kind of skills will they need in order to get a job, understand what is happening around them, and navigate the maze of life?

Unfortunately, since nobody knows what the world will look like in 2050 - not to mention 2100 - we don't know the answer to these questions. Of course, humans have never been able to predict the future with accuracy. But today it is more difficult than ever before because once technology enables us to engineer bodies, brains, and minds, we will no longer be able to be certain about anything - including things that previously seemed fixed and eternal.

A thousand years ago, in 1018, there were many things people didn't know about the future, but they were nevertheless convinced that the basic features of human society were not going to change. If you lived in China in 1018, you knew that by 1050 the Song Empire might collapse, the Khitans might invade from the north, and plagues might kill millions. However, it was clear to you that even in 1050 most people would still work as farmers and weavers, rulers would still rely on humans to staff their armies and bureaucracies, men would still dominate women, life expectancy would still be about 40, and the human body would remain exactly the same. For that reason, in 1018 poor Chinese parents taught their children how to plant rice or weave silk; wealthier parents taught their boys how to read the Confucian classics, write calligraphy, or fight on horseback, and they taught their girls to be modest and obedient housewives. It was obvious that these skills would still be needed in 1050.

To keep up with the world of 2050, you will need to do more than merely invent new ideas and products, but above all, reinvent yourself again and again.

In contrast, today we have no idea how China or the rest of the world will look in 2050. We don't know what people will do for a living, we don't know how armies or bureaucracies will function, and we don't know what gender relations will be like. Some people will probably live much longer than today, and the human body itself might undergo an unprecedented revolution, thanks to bioengineering and direct brain-to-computer interfaces. Much of what kids learn today will likely be irrelevant by 2050.

At present, too many schools focus on cramming information into kids' brains. In the past, this made sense, because information was scarce and even the slow trickle of existing information was repeatedly blocked by censorship. If you lived, say, in a small provincial town in Mexico in 1800, it was difficult for you to know much about the wider world. There was no radio, television, daily newspaper, or public library. Even if you were literate and had access to a private library, there was not much to read other than novels and religious tracts. The Spanish empire heavily censored all texts printed locally and allowed only a dribble of vetted publications to be imported from the outside. Much the same was true if you lived in some provincial town in Russia, India, Turkey, or China. When modern schools came along, teaching every child to read and write and imparting the basic facts of geography, history, and biology, they represented an immense improvement.

In contrast, in the 21st century, we are flooded with enormous amounts of information, and the censors don't even try to block it. Instead, they are busy spreading misinformation or distracting us with irrelevancies. If you live in some provincial Mexican town and have a smartphone, you can spend many lifetimes just reading Wikipedia, watching TED Talks, and taking free online courses. No government can hope to conceal all the information it doesn't like. On the other hand, it is alarmingly easy to inundate the public with conflicting reports and red herrings. People all over the world are but a click away from the latest accounts of the bombardment of Aleppo or melting ice caps in the Arctic, but there are so many contradictory accounts that it is hard to know what to believe. Besides, countless other things are just a click away as well, making it difficult to focus, and when politics or science look too complicated, it is tempting to switch to some funny cat videos, celebrity gossip, or porn.

In such a world, the last thing a teacher needs to give her pupils is more information. They already have far too much of it. Instead, people need the ability to make sense of information, to tell the difference between what is important and what is unimportant, and, above all, to combine many bits of information into a broad picture of the world.

In truth, this has been the ideal of Western liberal education for centuries, but up until, now even many Western schools have been rather slack in fulfilling it. Teachers allowed themselves to focus on imparting data while encouraging students "to think for themselves." Due to their fear of authoritarianism, liberal schools have had a particular horror of grand narratives. They've assumed that as long as we give students lots of data and a modicum of freedom, the students will create their own picture of the world, and even if this generation fails to synthesize all the data into a coherent and meaningful story about the world, there will be plenty of time to construct a better synthesis in the future.

We have now run out of time. The decisions we will make in the next few decades will shape the future of life itself, and we can make these decisions based only on our present worldview. If this generation lacks a comprehensive view of the cosmos, the future of life will be decided at random.

The Heat Is On

Besides information, most schools also focus too much on providing students with a set of predetermined skills, such as solving differential equations, writing computer code in C++, identifying chemicals in a test tube, or conversing in Chinese. Yet since we have no idea what the world and the job market will look like in 2050, we don't really know what particular skills people will need. We might invest a lot of effort teaching kids how to write in C++ or speak Chinese, only to discover that by 2050, artificial intelligence can code software far better than humans and a new Google Translate app will enable you to conduct a conversation in almost flawless Mandarin, Cantonese, or Hakka, even though you only know how to say " Ni hao."

So, what should we be teaching? Many pedagogical experts argue that schools should switch to teaching "the four Cs" - critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and creativity. More broadly, they believe, schools should downplay technical skills and emphasize general-purpose life skills. Most important of all will be the ability to deal with change, learn new things, and preserve your mental balance in unfamiliar situations. To keep up with the world of 2050, you will need to do more than merely invent new ideas and products, but above all, reinvent yourself again and again.

If somebody describes the world of the mid-21st century to you and it doesn't sound like science fiction, it is certainly false.

For as the pace of change increases, not just the economy, but the very meaning of "being human" is likely to mutate. Already in 1848, the Communist Manifesto declared that "all that is solid melts into air." Marx and Engels, however, were thinking mainly about social and economic structures. By 2048, physical and cognitive structures will also melt into air, or into a cloud of data bits.

In 1848, millions of people were losing their jobs on village farms and going to the big cities to work in factories. But upon reaching the big city, they were unlikely to change their gender or add a sixth sense. And if they found a job in some textile factory, they could expect to remain in that profession for the rest of their working lives.

By 2048, people might have to cope with migrations to cyberspace, fluid gender identities, and new sensory experiences generated by computer implants. If they find both work and meaning in designing up-to-the-minute fashions for a 3D virtual reality game, within a decade, not just this particular profession, but all jobs demanding this level of artistic creation might be taken over by A.I. So, at age 25, you might introduce yourself on a dating site as "a 25-year-old heterosexual woman who lives in London and works in a fashion shop." At 35, you might say you are "a gender-nonspecific person undergoing age adjustment, whose neocortical activity takes place mainly in the NewCosmos virtual world, and whose life mission is to go where no fashion designer has gone before." At 45, both dating and self-definitions are passé. You just wait for an algorithm to find (or create) the perfect match for you. As for drawing meaning from the art of fashion design, you are so irrevocably outclassed by the algorithms that looking at your crowning achievements from the previous decade fills you with embarrassment rather than pride. And you still have many decades of radical change ahead of you.

Please don't take this scenario literally. Nobody can predict the specific changes we will witness in the future. Any particular scenario is likely to be far from the truth. If somebody describes the world of the mid-21st century to you and it sounds like science fiction, it is probably false. But then again, if somebody describes the world of the mid-21st century to you and it doesn't sound like science fiction, it is certainly false. We cannot be sure of the specifics; change itself is the only certainty.

Such profound change may well transform the basic structure of life, making discontinuity its most salient feature. From time immemorial, life was divided into two complementary parts: a period of learning followed by a period of working. In the first part of life, you accumulated information, developed skills, constructed a worldview, and built a stable identity. Even if at 15 you spent most of your day working in your family's rice field (rather than in a formal school), the most important thing you were doing was learning: how to cultivate rice, how to conduct negotiations with the greedy rice merchants from the big city, and how to resolve conflicts over land and water with the other villagers. In the second part of life, you relied on your accumulated skills to navigate the world, earn a living, and contribute to society. Of course, even at 50, you continued to learn new things about rice, merchants, and conflicts, but these were just small tweaks to your well-honed abilities.

By the middle of the 21st century, accelerating change plus longer lifespans will make this traditional model obsolete. Life will come apart at the seams, and there will be less and less continuity between different periods of life. "Who am I?" will be a more urgent and complicated question than ever before.

This is likely to involve immense levels of stress. Change is almost always stressful, and after a certain age most people just don't like to do it. When you are 15, your entire life is change. Your body is growing, your mind is developing, your relationships are deepening. Everything is in flux, and everything is new. You are busy inventing yourself. Most teenagers find it frightening, but at the same time, it is also exciting. New vistas are opening before you, and you have an entire world to conquer.

By the time you are 50, you don't want change, and most people have given up on conquering the world. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt. You prefer stability. You have invested so much in your skills, your career, your identity, and your worldview that you don't want to start all over again. The harder you've worked on building something, the more difficult it is to let go of it and make room for something new. You might still cherish new experiences and minor adjustments, but most people in their 50s aren't ready to overhaul the deep structures of their identity and personality.

There are neurological reasons for this. Though the adult brain is more flexible and volatile than was once thought, it is still less malleable than the teenage brain. Reconnecting neurons and rewiring synapses is hard work. But in the 21st century, you can't afford stability. If you try to hold on to some stable identity, job, or worldview, you risk being left behind as the world flies by you with a whoosh. Given that life expectancy is likely to increase, you might subsequently have to spend many decades as a clueless fossil. To stay relevant - not just economically but above all socially - you will need the ability to constantly learn and to reinvent yourself, certainly at a young age like 50.

The best advice I can give a 15-year-old is: don't rely on the adults too much. Most of them mean well, but they just don't understand the world.

As strangeness becomes the new normal, your past experiences, as well as the past experiences of the whole of humanity, will become less reliable guides. Humans as individuals and humankind as a whole will increasingly have to deal with things nobody ever encountered before, such as super-intelligent machines, engineered bodies, algorithms that can manipulate emotions with uncanny precision, rapid man-made climate cataclysms, and the need to change your profession every decade. What is the right thing to do when confronting a completely unprecedented situation? How should you act when you are flooded by enormous amounts of information and there is absolutely no way you can absorb and analyze it all? How do you live in a world where profound uncertainty is not a bug but a feature?

To survive and flourish in such a world, you will need a lot of mental flexibility and great reserves of emotional balance. You will have to repeatedly let go of some of what you know best, and learn to feel at home with the unknown. Unfortunately, teaching kids to embrace the unknown while maintaining their mental balance is far more difficult than teaching them an equation in physics or the causes of the First World War. You cannot learn resilience by reading a book or listening to a lecture. Teachers themselves usually lack the mental flexibility that the 21st century demands since they themselves are the product of the old educational system.

The Industrial Revolution has bequeathed us the production-line theory of education. In the middle of town, there is a large concrete building divided into many identical rooms, each room equipped with rows of desks and chairs. At the sound of a bell, you go to one of these rooms together with 30 other kids who were all born the same year as you. Every hour a different grown-up walks in and starts talking. The grown-ups are all paid to do so by the government. One of them tells you about the shape of the earth, another tells you about the human past, and a third tells you about the human body. It is easy to laugh at this model, and almost everybody agrees that no matter its past achievements, it is now bankrupt. But so far we haven't created a viable alternative. Certainly not a scalable alternative that can be implemented in rural Mexico rather than just in wealthy California suburbs.

Hacking Humans

So the best advice I can give a 15-year-old stuck in an outdated school somewhere in Mexico, India, or Alabama is: don't rely on the adults too much. Most of them mean well, but they just don't understand the world. In the past, it was a relatively safe bet to follow the adults, because they knew the world quite well, and the world changed slowly. But the 21st century is going to be different. Because of the increasing pace of change, you can never be certain whether what the adults are telling you is timeless wisdom or outdated bias.

So on what can you rely instead? Perhaps on technology? That's an even riskier gamble. Technology can help you a lot, but if technology gains too much power over your life, you might become a hostage to its agenda. Thousands of years ago humans invented agriculture, but this technology enriched just a tiny elite while enslaving the majority of humans. Most people found themselves working from sunrise till sunset plucking weeds, carrying water buckets, and harvesting corn under a blazing sun. It could happen to you too.

Technology isn't bad. If you know what you want in life, technology can help you get it. But if you don't know what you want in life, it will be all too easy for technology to shape your aims for you and take control of your life. Especially as technology gets better at understanding humans, you might increasingly find yourself serving it, instead of it serving you. Have you seen those zombies who roam the streets with their faces glued to their smartphones? Do you think they control the technology, or does the technology control them?

Should you rely on yourself, then? That sounds great on Sesame Street or in an old-fashioned Disney film, but in real life, it doesn't work so well. Even Disney is coming to realize it. Just like Riley Andersen, most people barely know themselves, and when they try to "listen to themselves" they easily become prey to external manipulations. The voice we hear inside our heads is never trustworthy because it always reflects state propaganda, ideological brainwashing, and commercial advertisements, not to mention biochemical bugs.

As biotechnology and machine learning improve, it will become easier to manipulate people's deepest emotions and desires, and it will become more dangerous than ever to just follow your heart. When Coca-Cola, Amazon, Baidu, or the government knows how to pull the strings of your heart and press the buttons of your brain, will you still be able to tell the difference between your self and their marketing experts?

If you don't know what you want in life, it will be all too easy for technology to shape your aims for you and take control of your life.

To succeed at such a daunting task, you will need to work very hard at getting to know your operating system better - to know what you are and what you want from life. This is, of course, the oldest advice in the book: know thyself. For thousands of years, philosophers and prophets have urged people to know themselves. But this advice was never more urgent than in the 21st century, because unlike in the days of Laozi or Socrates, now you have serious competition. Coca-Cola, Amazon, Baidu, and the government are all racing to hack you. Not your smartphone, not your computer, and not your bank account; they are in a race to hack you and your organic operating system. You might have heard that we are living in the era of hacking computers, but that's not even half the truth. In fact, we are living in the era of hacking humans.

The algorithms are watching you right now. They are watching where you go, what you buy, who you meet. Soon they will monitor all your steps, all your breaths, all your heartbeats. They are relying on Big Data and machine learning to get to know you better and better. And once these algorithms know you better than you know yourself, they can control and manipulate you, and you won't be able to do much about it. You will live in the matrix, or in The Truman Show. In the end, it's a simple empirical matter: if the algorithms indeed understand what's happening within you better than you understand it yourself, authority will shift to them.

Of course, you might be perfectly happy ceding all authority to the algorithms and trusting them to decide things for you and for the rest of the world. If so, just relax and enjoy the ride. You don't need to do anything about it. The algorithms will take care of everything. If, however, you want to retain some control over your personal existence and the future of life, you have to run faster than the algorithms, faster than Amazon and the government, and get to know yourself before they do. To run fast, don't take much baggage with you. Leave all your illusions behind. They are very heavy.

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What Kids Need to Learn to Succeed in 2050 - Youth, Now - Medium

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Humankind is facing unprecedented revolutions, all our old stories are crumbling, and no new story has so far emerged to replace them. How can we prepare ourselves and our children for a world of such unprecedented transformations and radical uncertainties? A baby born today will be thirtysomething in 2050.

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As both a father and a building principal, education is a personal endeavor as well as a professional one. My two children have always attended the school in which I have served as a leader. So for me to recommend anything to teachers and leaders, it has to pass muster as a dad as well as an educator.

One of the few technology initiatives I do promote is digital student portfolios. They are defined as online collections of learning artifacts intentionally curated to showcase a student's accomplishments and growth over time. With the availability and ease of use of digital tools today, there is little reason why students should not be able to experience this authentic process of assessment. Here are ten reasons why every student should have a digital portfolio.

1. Celebrate all students as learners.

By opening up the possibilities for how success in schools is documented, all students can be celebrated for their efforts. Standardized tests are not the answer; they are designed to ensure that some students are not deemed proficient. As educators, we have to find more (and better) ways to assess learning in a way that makes students want to learn more. Digital portfolios capture each student as an individual, embracing their personalities and uniqueness that scores and grades cannot.

2. Improve home-school communication.

Families are busy. They don't always have time to get into the school to observe their children's learning. By integrating digital portfolios into the classroom, teachers provide a window into a student's world with regard to their best work and growth over time. In my last school that had a higher level of poverty, we witnessed several families become engaged in the school experience through their child's digital portfolio. Using FreshGrade ( www.freshgrade.com), students and teachers posted video, audio, images, and text that showed up on a parent's smartphone or tablet through an app. This assessment work paved the way toward better relationships with parents who might not typically show up for a special event at school.

3. Facilitate better feedback.

When student work is housed in an online space for others to see, the importance for the learning naturally increases. Parents, peers, and even the world can be a potential audience. And when there is an authentic audience, there is the opportunity for feedback. For example, Margaret Simon, a gifted and talented teacher in Louisiana, works in several buildings in her district. She has each of her students regularly post their learning using Kidblog ( www.kidblog.org). This tool allows peers to comment on each other's work in safe space. For Margaret, she can now recruit many individuals to be critical friends for her students, instead of facilitating feedback all by herself.

4. Highlight the process of learning.

Excellent work does not come out of thin air. In writing my book on digital portfolios, I had to go through many drafts and revisions before it was ready to publish. Students can better understand this process by publishing not only their best work but also their prior attempts and efforts. For instance, an English teacher can expect their students to keep a digital portfolio of their writing using Google Sites ( http://sites.google.com). Instead of only publishing the end product, such as a piece of original fiction they wrote, they can ask students to include initial drafts and revisions in their portfolio entry.

5. Demonstrate progress over time.

To continue the previous example, the entire English department could decide to have students maintain a digital portfolio for their literacy work throughout their school career. That is what Chris Haeger and Josh Beck are doing at Cudahy High School in Cudahy, Wisconsin. Also using Google Sites, students are expected to collect and publish their reading and writing work on a regular basis. To increase the purpose and the audience, sophomores and seniors present their body of work to a community-based panel. This experience serves as a summative evaluation of their time at Cudahy and prepares them for the real world not that far away.

6. Guide students to become self-directed learners.

Teachers can and should treat digital portfolios as a student-driven assessment experience. They don't have to own it. In fact, by giving students the autonomy and responsibility to develop their own digital portfolios, kids are likely to own the results of their learning, and subsequently the learning itself. As an example, Lisa Snider is a journalism teacher in Oklahoma. For her high school course, students are expected to keep their own online space for their writing using WordPress. They also produce the school newspaper and yearbook. To pay for technology resources for the course, they have to sell advertising on their publications to purchase the computers, software, paper, and ink. That means their writing has to be worth reading.

7. Maximize formative assessment.

Most teachers know that formative assessment, or assessment for learning, is a highly effective strategy for improving student learning. But how can they efficiently collect classroom results to guide students in their work? Digital portfolios can also serve as a tool for capturing the day-to-day student actions that serve as evidence of learning. Karen Fadum, a former primary school teacher, used FreshGrade to document her reading conferences with her students. She would video record her conversations, upload them to their portfolios, and then play them back at a later time. Not only could students and families see and hear this assessment and reflect on their progress, Karen could review the video to self-assess her instruction. In this example, everyone is a learner.

8. Honor the many ways of being smart.

If all students have to represent their accomplishments in school are test scores and grades, we are excluding students who may not be successful in these types of assessments. For example, teachers can have students video recording a performance task, such as a speech or demonstration, and then upload this file to a digital portfolio for families to see. This documentation of student learning adds rich context to the typical grade or score.

9. Advocate for every student.

Dan Eldon stated, "The journey is the destination." All students, and especially students on both ends of the achievement spectrum, need to see themselves as capable. Schools are tasked with ensuring that students become smarter as well as foster a desire to learn for a lifetime. With digital portfolios, students can see how they have grown over time. There is less competition and more reflection. Teachers can evaluate this growth using other students as points of reference without having to visibly compare kids with each other. Process becomes the true product of their education.

10. Work smarter as a teacher.

If the last nine reasons did not motivate you to start implementing digital portfolios tomorrow, consider the benefits for yourself. You have a large repository of artifacts that can be used for your own evaluation portfolios. You have a consistent, positive message to parents about what is happening in each child's learning life. You make visible all the good you do in the classroom, too often questioned by pundits who usually have little interest in making education better for all.

Ready to start with digital student portfolios, but not sure how? Consider the follow tools as recommended technologies to capture, curate, and publish student learning. By understanding the advantages for learning first before integrating digital portfolios, the choice in technology becomes a student-centered decision.
Blogs (digital place for students to post their thinking) Dedicated Portfolio Applications (software designed for digital portfolios in schools)
Websites (online spaces for students to upload permanent artifacts)
Matt Renwick is an elementary principal in Mineral Point, Wisconsin. Prior to this position, Matt was a teacher and school administrator in Wisconsin Rapids. He is the author of Digital Portfolios in the Classroom: Showcasing and Assessing Student Work (2017) and the ASCD Arias book 5 Myths About Classroom Technology: How do we integrate digital tools to truly enhance learning? (2016).

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10 Reasons Why You Should Implement Digital Student Portfolios - ASCD Inservice

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As both a father and a building principal, education is a personal endeavor as well as a professional one. My two children have always attended the school in which I have served as a leader. So for me to recommend anything to teachers and leaders, it has to pass muster as a dad as well [...]

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Here’s How Schools Can Soften The Blow Of 6th Grade

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Middle school is an awkward time — there’s no getting around that. But there are ways we can make it better, hormones and all.

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"Maslow before Bloom"-we hear it all the time. The idea that educators should meet students' basic needs for safety and belonging before turning to challenging academic tasks is one that guides the work of many schools.

In this era of high-stakes testing and inflexible curricula, that's not as easy to do as it sounds. The need to do 45 minutes of preplanned reading instruction, followed in lockstep by 45 minutes of math, leads many teachers, especially newer ones, to conclude that they simply don't have the time to plan for brain breaks, or to check in with students regularly to make sure they're feeling OK.

Research indicates that's a mistake, though. Child psychiatrist Pamela Cantor told Edutopia in 2019 that "when we're able to combine social, emotional, affective, and cognitive development together, we are creating many, many more interconnections in the developing brain that enable children to accelerate learning and development." Making time to integrate social and emotional learning into academics, in other words, is a better way for schools to achieve their goals than a focus on academics alone.

This year, that will take some extra preparation and thinking. Prioritizing personal connections and students' ability to manage their emotions was hard enough in physical classrooms, but it will be harder during distance and hybrid learning. Most of the strategies here-a toolkit drawn from high-quality research and from the experience of successful teachers-can be integrated into both physical and virtual classrooms throughout the day.

Welcoming Students

It starts before students enter the room: Taking a few minutes to personally greet every student at the beginning of the day, or the beginning of each class in middle and high school, can bolster students' feeling that they belong to a community of learners. A 2018 study showed that positive greetings at the door increased academic engagement by 20 percentage points, and decreased disruptive behavior by 9 percentage points-adding as much as "an additional hour of engagement over the course of a five-hour instructional day," the researchers said.

When students are working at home, there's no door to stand in, of course, but you can create a short daily video to say hello, or use a tool like Zoom-which has a virtual waiting room feature-to queue kids up and then welcome them to class one by one. Alternately, you can adapt the 5x5 strategy -in which a teacher spends 25 minutes talking to five students for five minutes each-using the phone or video meetings via Zoom or Google Meet.

Once students are in your classroom, taking a few more minutes for non-academic chat involving all students can build a vibrant community, while giving you a window into whether each student is emotionally prepared for academic work. Students might discuss things like a question of the day-What's your favorite pizza? or If you could have a superpower, what would you pick?-before describing how they feel by naming their personal roses and thorns, or by dropping a simple thumbs up, sideways thumb, or thumbs down into your chat feature.

Your Social and Emotional Toolkit-Use It All Day

Getting off to a good start primes students for learning, but the need to regulate emotions, find inner calm, and be socially connected will crop up throughout the day-just as it does for adults. Your toolkit of social and emotional strategies enables you to check in with students and help them self-regulate, recharge, and reconnect throughout the day.

If anyone tries to tell you that giving students a short break is wasting time, you can share the research supporting breaks: Students lose focus over periods of direct instruction-for elementary students this starts after about 10 minutes-so shorter lessons with brain breaks in between boost a student's ability to stay on task and allow for better consolidation of recently learned material.

To shake students out of a rut, longtime Edutopia contributor Lori Desautels uses brain breaks that get them out of their seats, like giving them each two small Dixie cups and some water, and having them pour it back and forth from cup to cup a few times-then having them close their eyes and keep going for 30 seconds to see who has the most water left at the end. There's, um, some cleanup required.

If kids have been focused for a long time, try a more involved, more intensely kinetic break that works at home or in the classroom: A H.Y.P.E the Breaks video from Hip-Hop Public Health can help students learn a little dance choreography and get in lots of movement. You can take advantage of the power of dual encoding by sneaking some content into your dance routine-Code.org has a dance party coding tutorial that links dance steps to coding algorithms, for example. Alternately, you can just give kids time to sit, relax, and chat happily with their friends.

Part of building your social-emotional and well-being toolkit is having a tool for all occasions. When kids are feeling antsy, Desautels recommends using focused attention practices to help them regain their calm. Try different ways of focusing on breathing, such as inhaling for four beats, holding for four, and then exhaling for four, or visualizing colors as students inhale and exhale-if a student is upset, for example, they might exhale red.

There is some lingering controversy around mindfulness, but the research is increasingly clear: According to Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, California's surgeon general, mindfulness helps to regulate the parts of the brain associated with the stress response, and is "associated with reduced levels of cortisol and other stress hormones" while positively influencing "the physiological indicators of an active stress response, like blood pressure and heart rate." Burke Harris uses mindfulness with kids as young as 3 years old.

At Codman Academy in Boston, second grade teacher Lindsey Minder leads her students in a guided mindfulness activity after lunch: "The impact of the mindfulness practice is really this general sense of them being more comfortable and confident with themselves and their varying needs," Minder says, "and decreases in anxiety around academic work."

In high school, teacher Aukeem Ballard incorporates a mindfulness activity in his classes once a week for four to seven minutes-a guided focus on breathing followed by a brief reflection with a partner. You can instead opt for a shorter activity used more frequently: Middle school administrator Michael Ray recommends that students regularly relax by kneading play dough or oobleck, both of which can be made cheaply at home.

Periodically, your toolkit will get a real test when a student becomes frustrated and lashes out. Resist the temptation to jump to a punishment, if possible. Instead, try to seek out the underlying causes and teach the child how to return to calmness. Sometimes, just asking a student if they want to step out and get some water may be enough to de-escalate. A more proactive strategy is to set up a peace corner in the classroom-a non-judgmental, dedicated spot in the room where students can go to spend a few minutes either calming themselves down or naming and describing their feelings on a prepared form.

Never Give Up on Recess

It feels like recess is constantly under siege from the pressures of overscheduling, but play is a powerful, natural opportunity to de-stress, connect socially, and give the brain vital time to process and consolidate learned information.

The pediatric occupational therapist Angela Hanscom says that recess should be scheduled for 45 minutes to an hour every day, rather than the more common 20 minutes. That's not always possible, of course, but it does reinforce the importance of giving kids free rein to play. And the American Academy of Pediatrics reminds us that unstructured play is essential to kids' well-being.

School systems tend to give up on recess by high school, but the way our brains process information-and the need for deep social connections-doesn't change. While brain breaks and movement breaks may look different at different age levels, they're still needed. That's why Montpelier High School in Vermont initiated MHS Unplugged-as in, unplugging from the curriculum, and from screens. In this 15-minute break, kids can practice an instrument, play outside, do a little art, play cards. It's a brief chance for them to have some say about what they do.

You may face pressure to focus on academics, but putting Maslow before Bloom isn't antithetical to learning-research demonstrates that it's a way to support better learning. Build a toolkit and use it judiciously throughout the day, in accordance with your read of your students. Using Maslow regularly will help them to Bloom.

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How to Maslow Before Bloom, All Day Long

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"Maslow before Bloom"-we hear it all the time. The idea that educators should meet students' basic needs for safety and belonging before turning to challenging academic tasks is one that guides the work of many schools. In this era of high-stakes testing and inflexible curricula, that's not as easy to do as it sounds.

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One of the BEST Motivational Videos I've ever seen!

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contributed by Nicholas Martino & TeachThought Staff

We are living in a digital age where students shuffle between learning apps and social and communication platforms constantly.

We can now communicate with anyone, anywhere, anytime through the simple click of a button, and it is our job as educators to leverage these collaborative tools in the classroom. Many schools are finding creative ways to incorporate blended learning in their curriculums, and THINK Global School, where I teach, is no different.

Due to our focus on blended learning and travel, it is imperative that we remain as paperless as possible. Technology can often make or break our experiences as we study in different countries around the world, so we must hit the ground running during our seven-week intensive country visits. And depending on how they are integrated into our teaching toolkits, the tools used for our blended learning units can either help or hinder our student learning experiences.

Like you, we've tested our fair share of tools in trying to make the digital collaboration process with our students as seamless as possible. Some have worked incredibly while others not so much. But there are five that we've ended up going back to time after time-tools that just make student collaboration online (and thus blended learning) that much easier.
Student-To-Student & School-To-School Digital Collaboration: 30 Of The Best Digital Collaboration Tools For Students 1. Dig social bookmarks? You'll love Diigo
Remember the old days when a librarian came carting books into your classroom for an upcoming report?

Imagine Diigo as a digital version of that librarian and the entire internet as her cart. Items in this cart, however, can be retained for as long as you like without the fear of overdue book fees. Diigo, which stands for 'Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other stuff,' is a great social-bookmarking tool that helps students or classes capture relevant research articles on a given topic.

By offering mobile versions via Android and iOS and add-ons downloadable for Firefox and Chrome, Diigo can be accessed anywhere, anytime-perfect for lessons in the classroom and those that extend out into the field.

See also 12 Of The Best Bookmarking Tools For Teachers
How We Use Diigo
This tool has become a crucial part of our school's approach to managing project-based learning resources. Since we are constantly on-the-move, a few books, let alone entire physical libraries, are impossible for us to reasonably transport. Diigo eliminates that concern, and helps our students curate and build an ever-growing library of bookmarks for our modules year after year.

Countries and specific place- and project-based modules have their own groups for students to contribute to and annotate resources. When a guest speaker visits, we can quickly create a research group to curate a list of resources so that our entire student body is informed and attentive before the speaker arrives.
2. Tap into your students' love of video with Flipgrid
FlipGrid is a video tool that is meant to encourage discussion and engagement. These short video-logs allow students to share ideas and opinions in a fun and hands-on way, as video submissions are often more enticing to students than a written response (this is especially true for teachers of ESL learners, who sometimes get anxiety about their written work.)

FlipGrid provides another approach for long-distance collaboration: The time limits are an added challenge to students who sometimes struggle with brevity. It's important to note that the free version offers limited features, while the paid version features offer full student collaboration and video conversation.
How We Use FlipGrid
In our Economics and eCommerce module, students use FlipGrid to summarize, discuss and review two different resources for the project-based learning module. In the module, students learn social entrepreneurship and e-commerce by developing a web store to support rural artisans.

Before their arrival in India, students researched the stories behind successful brands and shared them in a 'grid.' In the 'grid,' students use rhetorical devices to compete with their classmates to pitch the story of the brand they selected. This early application of rhetoric devices develops throughout the module before students present a business pitch to a panel of potential investors.
3. Collectively annotate YouTube videos with VideoAnt
As a former history and anthropology teacher, I was thrilled to stumble across VideoAnt. In the past, my students would laugh at the number of times I would pause a video to ask a question or interject a counterpoint. Now, instead of just showing a YouTube video, you can annotate YouTube videos to maximize efficiency and learning.

Students and teachers can add comments to video 'Ants,' adding all sorts of untapped academic potential. Students can point out bias, critique video style, and ask probing and clarifying questions, just to name a few uses.

Also, if any coaches are reading this, this makes for an excellent review tool when analyzing practice drills, pre-game scouting, and game film breakdowns.
How We Use VideoAnt
In our Zero to Infinity module, students carved up an hour-long documentary about mathematics titled "The Story of One." Educators annotate certain times with questions for reflection and short answers, while students annotate with different follow-up questions, and clarifying comments.

Due to our students' geographic diversity, there can be large gaps in their understanding of mathematics. This tool helps educators gain more insight into the student math experience before starting the module.
4. Create & Collaborate Anywhere in the World with Padlet
Padlet allows for creative collaboration using a range of different mixed media sources.

In real-time or across time zones, students can contribute videos, images, comments on a virtual corkboard. Each student can comment or reply to the work of another student or add a new strand on the topic that is introduced.
How We Use Padlet
During our ongoing "Water and Sustainability" module, students are using Padlet to document their experiences with data collection and the use of statistics in their daily life. They are sharing passions, applications, and websites to help each other realize the everyday benefits of understandings statistics. These include a range of topics such as distance running, gardening, vegetarian nutrition, and sleep maintenance.

By learning about each other, they are in turn gaining a deeper understanding of the wide range of applications of statistics.
25 More Of The Best Digital Collaboration Tools For Students
5. Skype: Video chat, text chat, etc.

6. Zoom: Live stream video and video chat

7. Google Drive: Collaborate on multimedia projects, share files, collaborate on documents, etc.

8. WeTransfer: Transfer files of almost any size with WeTransfer. Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive (9) are decent alternatives.

10. Scribblar: Online collaborative whiteboarding. Also consider 'Explain Everything.'

11. Microsoft Translator: Translate languages via text, voice, or photograph to more easily communicate in other languages. Also, consider Google Translate (12)

12. Twitch: Stream games for game-based learning. Channels, chat, and more.

13. Pear Deck: According to the developer, Pear Desk is a tool for Google Slide presentations and templates that allows you to transform "presentations into classroom conversations with an array of interactive and formative assessment questions."

14. Kahoot: Game-based learning and content reinforcement through competition and collaboration

15. Drawp: According to the developer, Drawp is "a K-12 platform for creation, collaboration, content, and workflow management" Also consider (16) learning journal.

17. Minecraft for Education: Students can work together to explore ecosystems, solve problems through design, architecture, etc. See also teaching with Strategies To Teach Like Minecraft.

18. Voicethread: Content-based conversations about selected media through 'threads'

See also 10 tips for using Voicethread in your classroom.

19. Explain Everything: Similar in function to Voicethread but focused on students visually demonstrating knowledge rather than through voice.

See also Free Explain Everything lesson ideas.

20. GooseChaseEdu: Online scavenger hunts. for team-building and content reinforcement.

21. Microsoft Teams: A digital hub likely best-suited for project-based learning support. Also consider Slack (22) Redbooth (23) or Trello (24).

25. Spiral: A formative assessment tool with video, group and quiz exercises, completed in class or at home, collaborative review, etc.

26. Piazza: A free, K-12+ Q&A platform

Also consider Quora (27) or reddit (28).

29. Peergrade: According to the developer, Peergrade is a "free online platform to facilitate peer feedback sessions with students."

30. Playposit: According to the developer, Playposit is "an online learning environment to create and share interactive video lessons. Teachers begin with any online video (screencasts, Khan Academy, TED, etc.) and transform what is traditionally passive content into an active experience for students, with time-embedded activities."

Tip: Most tools are either for 'school' or 'not school.' That means tools like Seesaw and Explain Everything are made for school and tools like Quora and reddit aren't. Obviously, school-friendly tools have many benefits (e.g., data privacy) but drawbacks as well (e.g., lack of authentic content). When using 'not made expressly for school' tools, try to leverage its strengths while minimizing its pitfalls.

See Also A Guide To Finding Digital Books: 20+ Free Online Libraries
Conclusion
While the TGS Changemaker Curriculum is unique in its approach to blended and field learning, any institution can adapt these tools for their personal teaching methods. Portable, user-friendly and effective, these tools can and will help anyone, anywhere, as they make content more fun for students to digest.

Absences are a daily occurrence at any school, but these tools can ease the burden on both the teacher and the student by keeping them informed and engaged regarding the day's lesson plan. Teachers who flip their classrooms (here are 54 tools for a flipped classroom) can also use these tools to ensure students collaborate productively from home.

With the application of any new tech in the classroom, it is important to remember that web tools do not replace sound pedagogy. When adding these to your toolkit, treat them as learning supplements, not as a magic wand for better teaching.
Follow @maats_defenders for more on education 30 Of The Best Digital Collaboration Tools For Students

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30 Of The Best Digital Collaboration Tools For Students

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What are the best online student collaboration tools? That depends on the nature of the digital collaboration.

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In the past decade, neuroscientists have been able to identify what makes the adolescent brain so geared for the kind of inquiry that can pay dividends in the classroom. As children enter adolescence, some developing neural systems have already stabilized, Dahl said. But puberty creates a whole new set of elastic neural systems that, when interacting with the already stabilized systems, offers unique windows of opportunity for engagement and experiencing the world around them in multiple ways.

"Adolescence is a perfect storm of opportunities to align these changes in positive ways," Dahl said. "Learning, exploration, acquiring skills and habits, intrinsic motivations, attitudes, setting goals and priorities: There's compelling need for transdisciplinary research to understand unique opportunities for social and emotional learning. But few people do it in fear of these challenges."

These new scientific insights have large implications for how schools teach adolescents, which have traditionally viewed this age group as troublesome.

'One way to think about puberty is to think of it as a learning spurt for heartfelt goals.It's a particularly opportune time to fall in love with learning itself.'

The feelings of acceptance, rejection, admiration, among others, are all the story of adolescence. Children in this age group also seek physical sensations and thrills. There's heightened awareness of social status, especially as they realize that acts of courage can earn them higher social status among peers. Their wildly swinging neurological systems also mean that adolescents can readjust quickly - making those years critical for educators to engage students in "the right ways," when the brain is learning to calibrate complex social and emotional value systems that use feelings as fast signals, Dahl said.

Contrary to common belief, children in this age range don't actually have "broken brains." Rather, these children are undergoing a profound update to how they process the world around them. Adolescents are often considered bad decision-makers who are thrill-seekers. These myths, however, stem from young people's desire to display courage, which is valued across cultures - and adolescents constantly seek the emotional satisfaction of being admired. In fact, Dahl said that adolescents take risks to overcome their fears, not seek them out.

"[Adolescents] are learning about the complex social world they must navigate, including the hierarchies, social rules for gaining acceptance and status, and the mystifying discovery of a sexual self," Dahl said. "This is a flexible period for goal engagement, and the main part of what's underneath what we think about setting goals in conscious ways - the bottom-up-based pull to feel motivated toward things."

Adding to the confusion over how best to respond to adolescents is a wave of research showing children around the world are entering puberty at younger ages. One report found that in the 1860s, puberty for girls began at age 16. In the 1950s, it occurred at 13. Today it's closer to eight years old. The transition for boys is similar, according to the report. The earlier onset of these pronounced biological changes puts pressure on educators and parents to update their expectations for what it means to be young, and how youth plays into adulthood.

"This is an interesting potential opportunity, with the longer time to learn activated motivational systems, longer time to increase skills and develop patterns of developing knowledge," Dahl said. "If kids grow up in opportune settings, they can take advantage of the scaffolding and freedom to go on to take adult roles. But the risks are probably more amplified than opportunities for kids in disadvantaged settings."

It's still unclear how the earlier development happening in children might create other sets of challenges, Dahl noted, but it's evident that it's a key development window of motivational learning, a time when the brain more intensely senses motivational feelings, strengthening the patterns of connections to heartfelt goals, and creates potential for deep, sustained learning.

This period of learning is exemplified by even the forbidden love of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The young couple is brought together by a single brief encounter, after which all mental processes of planning, goals, motivations, longing, and desire are transformed. They begin to obsess over reuniting, and would sacrifice anything - including comfort, safety, family, and friends - to be together again.

Without the context that adolescents' motives can explode entirely by the spark of a single passion, Romeo and Juliet's story would be one of utter insanity, Dahl said. But adolescents' abilities to rapidly reshape motivations and goals both supports their emotional volatility as well as presents a key period to find love - not necessarily romantically for others, but for academic activities and goals.

"With the feelings that pull you to persevere, maybe [adolescence is] a particularly opportune time to fall in love with learning itself, to love that feeling of exploring," Dahl said. "There's a new window to create that 'Yes!' feeling."

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Why Identity and Emotion are Central To Motivating the Teen Brain | KQED

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In the past decade, neuroscientists have been able to identify what makes the adolescent brain so geared for the kind of inquiry that can pay dividends in the classroom. As children enter adolescence, some developing neural systems have already stabilized, Dahl said.

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Write your draft with your heart; revise and edit with your head. Just get your ideas out and let your voice be heard. Then, spend time on the process of writing. Never settle for just "good enough." Keep revising, keep refining, make it powerful and professional.

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Rubrics are written criteria by which an assessment is judged. Quality rubrics have defined levels using descriptors.

TO DO:

Consider using general rubrics that can be applied to more than one assessment

Align rubrics within your department for standard focus

Ensure rubrics have both listed criteria and gradations of quality

Students may need instruction on how to use rubrics

Always present rubrics to students with the assignment

Show quality work examples and non-examples, including your own sample

While completing the assignment, and before submitting it, students self-evaluate using the rubric

Create your course rubrics while road mapping. It's suggested that you utilize the same basic template for all of your rubrics so they are user-friendly.

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https://www.ccresa.org/Files/Uploads/252/The_Case_Against_Zero.pdf

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Socrative

Exit cards (Quest for Veritas)

Lakers, Look journals

Discussion forums

Qwizdom

Portfolios

Dry erase boards

Quizzes, tests

Labs

Projects

Presentations

Performances

Artwork

Movies

Multi-media products

Portfolios

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Data-Based:

Nearpod - Presentation tool that incorporates different interactive components

Poll Daddy – Create and embed electronic polls and quizzes

Survey Monkey – Create surveys, tabulate data

Zoomerang – Create surveys, tabulate data

Socrative – Build quizzes and surveys, works on any device

Class Dojo – Class Management

Discussion:

Google Docs – Use forms to collect student responses

Titan Pad – Students collaborate on a single document

Padlet – Online “poster board”

Lino – Similar to Wallwisher, more options, works on any device

Product:

Popplet – Graphic organizers/Mind Map

Glogster EDU – Interactive Posters

Voki – Talking avatars

Tagxedo – Word cloud images

Wordle – Word cloud images

Blabberize – talking pictures

Virtual Museums – Create interactive displays (PowerPoint template)

GoAnimate – Video cartoon

ToonDoo - Comic Creator

ShowMe - Whiteboard Tutorial

TagCloud iPad App - Word cloud images

Cloudart iPad App - Word cloud images

Wordsalad iPad App - Word cloud images

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What are the “big things” students will learn in your course?

Every course must have a road map/snapshot that encapsulates:

Course mission

Learning targets or standards

Unit essential questions

Student products

Words to watch

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We insist that our students not settle for less than their best, so we must do the same.  99% isn’t “good enough!”  The art of revision is truly an art.  Preach it, practice it, require it.