Every few years a new framework arrives that promises to fix lesson planning. SOLO taxonomy, Understanding by Design, project-based learning, the flipped classroom, then a more recent set of generative-AI-aware variations. Some of these are more useful than others. None of them are as durable as the underlying instructional structure they all draw from, which … Read more
The biggest learning news in our house last week came from our 13-year-old daughter Tess, whose experiences with high jump and a trip to Washington DC raised powerful questions about what we really mean by “learning” and how rarely “productive learning” happens in schools.
We’re wondering what a “Basketball Math” curriculum might look like for our son Tucker, combining his love of the sport and his interest in math, and we’re asking for ideas on how to build a K-? curriculum around basketball that could also tap into online social learning spaces.
Yesterday, Alec Couros went “Back to School” to meet his first grade daughter’s teacher, sparking a Twitter conversation that captured the frustration many teacher-parents feel at traditional classroom expectations. We reflect on similar experiences with our own kids and share the strategies we use to navigate the gap between the schooling they get and the learning we want for them.
Many of us are calling for big changes in schools—new literacies, connected classrooms, and modern learning—but the conversations on front porches and in small-town coffee shops rarely touch any of that. Leading in education today means doing the work almost no one is asking for yet, while still meeting traditional expectations, and helping communities see why both matter for our kids’ futures.
We explore Erica McWilliam’s vision of teaching as co-creating value in learning networks and Charles Leadbeater’s idea of “useful ignorance,” asking what it means for us, our students, and our children to unlearn traditional notions of teaching in a script-less, fluid world.
From the “Shameless Self-Promotion Dept” comes this new book 21st Century Skills: Rethinking How Students Learn, featuring our chapter “Navigating Social Networks as Learning Tools,” and some interesting thinking about how networked learning is reshaping literacies, pedagogy, and the future of classrooms.
Reflecting on the National Educational Technology Plan’s call for “connected teaching,” this post explores how technology can transform teaching into a team activity, reshape professional learning, and reposition teachers as learners within connected online communities.
As of today, 220 of you were kind enough to vote on what you thought were the 10 most important questions from the list that we generated at Educon. Here are the “winners” at the moment, along with a plan to collaboratively tackle each question and turn the results into something more actionable for schools.
In a couple of weeks, both Tess and Tucker will be starting their first day at brand new schools, and we’re hoping their stories about school will change—from grades and homework to creating, learning, and sharing every day.