An EYE for Design: How Schools Challenge Students

I recently read an article in the Fast Company March 2011 issue. A Teen Eye for Design accounts how teachers, students, post-secondary design schools and design firms can connect together to provide an authentic learning and creative experience for students.

There are a number of similar projects such as:

• Rediscovering Creativity by Building It where Nueva School students collaborate with designers and educators at Stanford’s Hasso Plattner Institute of Design.
• Project Interaction is a 10 week after school program for high school students that guides students in changing their communities through design. A brief intro video is found on their fundraising site.
• Sweat Equity Enterprises (SEE) takes place in a real professional environment where teenagers participate year-round for all four years of high school in the US. As SEE expands nationwide this year, it plans to reach thousands of youth, teachers, and professionals. Check out the intro video of SEE with founder Marc Ecko.

• Tools for Schools is fully integrated into the School at Columbia’s yearlong curriculum.

So really, what’s so important about having design enter into middle years and high school classrooms?

Whatever way teachers and students have the opportunity to be creative, to engage in authentic learning experiences, collaborate with each other and the community and build relationships in the process is a GREAT thing! In a province that continues to ‘shout out’ that we have an exceptional educational system, we really should look at bolstering up these opportunities as recorded above so that our students can regain their creative nature and our teachers can guide them through critical challenges (not filling in scantron sheets). I wonder how many middle years schools and high schools are able to connect this work and fold it into all aspects of the curriculum? This reminds me of the work that Chris Lehmann’s Science Leadership Academy and San Diego’s High Tech High groups are doing.

Anyone interested in sharing their experiences and/or ideas?

NOTE: The Fast Company magazine is filled with various articles relating to technology, design, ethonomics and leadership. (Ethonomics or ethical economics refers to businesses that are good for the world as well as the bottom line. They are practicing social change through urban revitalization, sustainable agriculture, green IT, alternative energy and online community-powered investing.) It may be one magazine that you’ll want to add to your RSS feed aggregator page!

photo © 2005 Cyprien Lomas | more info (via: Wylio)

 

How to Guide Professional Learning

I am always ready to receive, search or obtain professional learning materials/resources. One such resource that I have been receiving for almost a decade now has been the ASCD Educational Leadership publication. Originally only found through print via mail; over the past many years, ASCD has complimented the publication with online features for members. The articles presented are always engaging and easily discussed with teacher colleagues. Today, I find myself reading an ASCD SmartBrief email (must be an ASCD member) and at the very bottom of the scrolled page I see:

 

“Continue your professional development with the Educational Leadership study guide
Did you know that each issue of Educational Leadership is complemented by a free study guide? Delve into and discuss topics from this month’s issue on what students need to learn — from addressing common core standards to how to best teach reading — with the March study guide. Access the guide.”

What? I can have MORE of ASCD? I can GUIDE the conversations more effectively? WOW, what else can I say? I know that the EL Study Guide has been around for many years because I just checked the archives!

 

This gets me excited about using the EL Study Guide in:

1)     Continuing the discussion of a particular article with a PLC group.

2)     Sharing an article with administrators and creating a discussion question where they can either share their thoughts in a F2F environment or even an online forum.

3)     Inviting students and parents to share their thoughts on a specific topic published in EL with directed questions.

4)     Engaging subject-specific teachers in workshops to think deeper about an article.

 

What am I doing with this newfound professional learning? I will be taking time to either leaf through my EL print copies or online versions to see where I can further my understanding and direction on articles that I have ‘favorited’ over the past year (or more).

 

What are you doing in using the ASCD articles and/or the EL Study Guide? I would enjoy hearing from you about your experiences.

 

 

Enter the Webinar World!

photo © 2010 Ben Lucier | more info (via: Wylio)

C’mon, don’t be shy…you have that laptop all up and running smoothly, you’d like to find some good professional development online, but where to start? Let me ask you to consider WEBINARS as a way to get in some great PD!

A webinar is an online presentation where a presenter shows slides, websites and online resources through a web-based application like Elluminate, GoToMeeting, Bridgit, etc. Participants can interact with the presenter and with each other through chat, microphone, telephone and even video depending on the webinar set-up.

Webinars are a great way for teachers to attend to specific PD opportunities or even specific student learning needs. You can attend webinars live and in archived fashion. I find that not only is the webinar a great learning experience but the chat area is always chalked full of participant ideas, resources and experiences.

There are many educational organizations that offer webinars. I am focusing on TWO today:

1) ERLC

In Alberta, there are seven educational consortiums that work with school divisions to facilitate F2F, online VC and webinar PD sessions. Edmonton Regional Learning Consortium is one such organization that I am very thankful to associate with.

They host a variety of assessment to technology integration webinars throughout the year. Many of these webinars are archived – see HERE.

One such set of webinars that I am really excited about are the Making a Difference series. The Making a Difference: Meeting Diverse Learning Needs with Differentiated Instruction is an Alberta Education publication that works through an intro to DI to developing learning profiles to assessment and even leveraging technology in the classroom. It’s a comprehensive guide for administrators and teachers trying to understand how to effectively implement Differentiated Instruction in the classroom. From this publication, ERLC hosted several webinars and from these webinars, Conversation Guides were created. Check out the great resources for Making a Difference HERE. (I am excited to say that I was part of the trio that designed these guides.)

Within the archived webinars area, you will also see on the left hand side a “filter by focus” section. Please use this to further target a specific area of interest. Archived webinars are free and live webinars are reasonably priced.

 

 

2) SCHOOLS MOVING UP

In my role as Educational Technology Facilitator, I associate with a variety of educational organizations. I receive offers, RSS feeds, emails from a number of organizations on a daily basis. One such organization that I am impressed with is the SchoolsMoving Up group. They also offer a variety of webinars, resources and links.

SchoolsMovingUp offers live and archived webinars on key curricular concepts, RTI, Differentiated Instruction, etc. Check out their upcoming and archived webinars HERE. Whether it’s a live or archived webinar, the cost is free. They even offer Tips for Viewing Archived Webinars.

Overall, webinars offer another PD opportunity to enhance, engage and empower administrators and teachers in the important work with students. Whether you participate in LIVE webinars or in your PJ’s with ARCHIVED webinars, being able to effectively target your own PD needs using a webinar format is a good thing!

If you have any other educational organizations in mind that offer exciting webinars, please add them to the comment area below!