A few weeks ago I posted the blog “Students Take Charge of Learning in the New Classroom” where I asked which way you would rather learn how to change a tire. I gave two options.
Option 1: You attend a lecture on how to change a tire and then have to change your first tire in a real-life scenario.
Option 2: You take a hands-on class where you learn about changing the tire by actually changing a tire. Then, you’re confronted with a real-life scenario.
The average employee admits to spending two hours a day doing non-work related tasks, according to the New York Times article “Overwhelmed, And Prone to Procrastinate.” What are they doing? They’re watching YouTube, checking Facebook, Tweeting, Pinning, Stumbling, and doing anything else they can find that will keep them away from finishing that dreaded email, phone call, or next phase of their project.
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Student achievement is high on the priority list, but as more educators focus on helping underachieving students progress, overachieving students are being forgotten.
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Of the following two options, which would be your preferred way of learning how to change a tire? Â Option 1: You attend a lecture on how to change a tire and then have to change your first tire in a real-life scenario. Option 2: You take a hands-on class where you learn about changing the tire by actually changing a tire. Then, you’re confronted with a real-life scenario. Which option do you think would have better prepared you for the real-life scenario when you need to change your own tire? New research would say option 2.
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What does it look like when students are learning? Are they sitting quietly at their desks, listening to the teacher lecture, and scribbling notes? According to a recent article in the Washington Post, those are three of seven misconceptions people have about how students learn.
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America’s unemployed youth each take $40,000 a year from the economy and cost the government $14,000 in taxes, according to the article “What Does One Jobless Youth Cost Taxpayers? $14,000 a Year.” The “lost generation” is projected to cost taxpayers $437 billion over the next five years, and possibly $1.15 trillion in their lifetime.
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In recent years, closing the achievement gap has been high on the priority list. Among many signs, the achievement gap is evident in things like poor test scores and grades, higher dropout rates, and limited class participation. As legislation, educators, and parents look for ways to close the gap, improving literacy has proven to be a popular choice to tackle these problems.
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With technology, students don’t need to leave the classroom in order to take a trip around the world. In November 2011, Edmodo, a social networking site, teamed up with Polar Bears International to send five people to the Tundra to film polar bears and stream webcasts straight to 1,700 classrooms around the world. Websites like Khan Academy, YouTube, and Stanford’s free online classes, have become highly accessible databases of knowledge available to people around the world. Social networking is being used in and outside of the classroom to extend the learning community for students after they leave school and for educators to connect with other teachers around the nation and world.
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As more classrooms integrate technology into the curriculum, the flipped classroom model continues to become more popular among educators, students, and parents. In the flipped classroom, students watch lessons, traditionally taught in the classroom, on YouTube or their school website and then do work, traditionally done at home, in the classroom. This learning method allows for students to learn in a self-paced environment and bring their questions to their peers and instructors where there is more time for one-on-one instruction.
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It is estimated that 160,000 children miss school every day due to fear of attack or intimidation by other students.
1 in 7 students in grades K-12 is either a bully or a victim of bullying.
71% of students report incidents of bullying as a problem at their school.
www.makebeatsnotbeatdowns.org/
Bullying and cyberbullying have been high profile stories in recent years. There isn’t evidence that points to bullying being on the rise, but rather that awareness is on the rise due to a combination of variants like bullying getting more dangerous, new forms of digital bullying emerging, and too much/lack of parental vision, according to education.com.