This interesting blog post on School Spring describes a growing trend of student-led conferences.
“For years the process of parent-teacher conferences has been the same,” it writes. “The teacher hurriedly telling a parent about their child’s progress (mostly meaning their grades and participation in class) and not much time, if any, for discussion.”
It mentions an article from...
Professor Sugata Mitra’s famous Hole in the Wall experiment clearly shows the tremendous potential of motivation on the part of students.
Discussing the experiment in this video from a recent Ted talk, Mitra describes the series of experiments where he placed a kiosk inside a wall in a slum in India, provided some positive reinforcement, and then stepped back—returning (sometimes months later) to see that students had not only...
Editor’s note: Each Friday we feature guest bloggers that are involved in rethinking what is possible with schooling and the education system.
James Steckart, Director, Northwest Passage High School describes his school’s use of the Hope Survey for measuring how students are feeling motivated and inspired by the school. EducationInnovating had a post on the Survey a few weeks back.
Recently in the Wall Street Journal and Education Next there were accounts of the origins of chartering. We thought we might take the liberty of adding our version, since the first legislative implementation of the idea occurred in Minnesota and a number of those now in Education|Evolving...
Here is a captivating illustration created by the Royal Society of the encouragement of the Arts (RSA) of a TED lecture given by Sir. Ken Robinson, on the present model of education and where it needs to go.
In it he says:
Editor’s note: Each Friday we feature guest bloggers that are involved in rethinking what is possible with schooling and the education system.
Pathways Early College Innovation High School is one of the two Innovation Schools that opened this year under a new Massachusetts law allowing for the creation of district schools with exemption from many rules and regulations. In September Secretary of Education Paul Reville described the motivations behind the law in an EducationInnovating.org...
In this report to Minnesota’s Association of School Administrators, the organization’s executive director Charlie Kyte recalls an illustrative comment from a superintendents at a conference.
He said:
An article in the New York Times this past week pushed back against the caricature of AFT President Randi Weingarten by Waiting for Superman.
“Ms. Weingarten happens to be the most visible, powerful leader of unionized teachers,” the article notes, “and in that role she personifies what many reformers see as the chief obstacle to lifting dismal schools: unions that protect incompetent teachers.”
The article argues that she has led her (oft reluctant) members to compromises on issues of...
Editor’s note: Each Friday we feature guest bloggers that are involved in rethinking what is possible with schooling and the education system.
In this guest post Kari Thierer, National Director of School and Network Support for Big Picture Learning, describes how students in Big Picture students have the opportunity to learn through apprenticeship, and mentorship.
About one third of schools in the Big Picture network are created by charter, and the others as district schools....
In this case study of Avalon School and several other teacher-led schools in the upper Midwest, Claremont University researcher Charles Kerchner found some interesting things: The schools use resources differently than traditional district schools. The teachers, as managers of the school, have constructed a much different method of teaching. And, they slice up authority and responsibility differently–including assigning a good bit of...