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Are you ever stumped for ways to get students involved in learning? Try your course syllabus for a starter. Barbi Honeycutt, Ph. D., suggests that teachers add though-provoking questions to each objective in their syllabus.

Instead of waiting for assignments later in the term, begin with questions at the beginning - with the class syllabus. Use these to assess students' knowledge and behaviors. Questions may begin with, "What are . . . ?" To personalize foe behaviors use terms like, " How do you . . . ?"

Write discussion questions for each learning outcome and see if you can't get students involved from the get go.  

http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/instructional-design/a-syllabus-tip-embed-big-questions/?utm_source=cheetah&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2012.04.16%20-%20Faculty%20Focus%20Update

Courtesy of Google Images
The U.S. has been falling behind other nations in educational rankings. The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA),conducts a worldwide study of scholastic performance of 15-year-olds in mathematics, science, and reading. Testing began in 2000 and has been repeated every three years. The purpose is to improve educational policies and outcomes in member nations of OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.) 470,000 15-years-old students representing 65 nations and territories participated in PISA 2009. An additional 50,000 students representing 9 nations were tested in 2010. Testing has not yet occurred for 2012.


See this short article with a vivid chart: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading

Read the Wikipedia description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programme_for_International_Student_Assessment

Read the Educational Trust Analysis: http://www.edtrust.org/dc/press-room/press-release/ed-trust-analysis-of-2009-pisa-results-united-states-is-average-in-perfo

Do you agree that we are being shortsighted by not improving education for ALL our students?

Rachel Small, a New Hampshire teacher of fifth-graders, practices a time-honored way of delivering the best learning experience for her students. She uses her own creative abilities and circumvents state guidelines and team practices that deter students.

Small has great plans and dreams for her students and rather than get bogged down with minutiae she encourages reading and writing about their interests. They're only ten and eleven. There's plenty of time for "musts" and "have tos." Small's students are blogging about books and now they are participating in a virtual book club with other fifth graders in another community. Check out the happy faces of the readers and writers.

http://plpnetwork.com/2012/04/02/making-writing-about-fiction-authentic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+PowerfulLearningPracticeLLC+%28Powerful+Learning+Practice%29


Courtesy of Google Images

Do you ever find yourself looking for just the right book for a particular lesson or illustration? Last winter I read two picture book biographies to my eight year-old granddaughter. I wanted to view her reaction to each book and give her an opportunity to rate them and decide which she preferred (evaluation on Bloom's Taxonomy.) 

I chose Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin and My Brother Loved Snowflakes: The Story of Wilson A. Bentley, the Snowflake Man by Mary Bahr Fritts and Laura Jacobsen. Both stories tell about the life of Wilson Bentley, a Vermonter obsessed with snowflakes. Bentley photographed snowflakes for over 50 years, giving us our current understanding of the diversity of snowflakes. Although some of the information in the stories is the same, a different slant makes each book appealing in its own way. This is especially true of the illustrations which gave us much to talk about.

If you are looking for a resource for picture books for a project here is a great place to start:


As a profession, we teachers need to recover from our fear ofchange. We talk about preparing our students for the future, but if we willgive them tools and questions to investigate they are more likely to know howto do that than we are.  Social media and new technology have opened upavenues of learning that we never conceived. Teachers are paddlingupstream to figure out Wikis and MOOCs.
Students are using them for their own purposes.

In 1923, Khalil Gibran, a Lebanese-American whose volume, The Prophet, is the third best-sellingbook of poetry in the world wrote:     

Your children arenot your children.
They are the sonsand daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come throughyou but not from you,
And though they arewith you yet they belong not to you.

You may give themyour love but not your thoughts, 
For they have theirown thoughts.
You may house theirbodies but not their souls,
For their soulsdwell in the house of tomorrow, 
which you cannotvisit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to belike them, 
but seek not to makethem like you.
For life goes notbackward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bowsfrom which your children
as living arrows aresent forth.
The archer sees themark upon the path of the infinite, 
and He bends youwith His might 
that His arrows maygo swift and far.
Let your bending inthe archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He lovesthe arrow that flies, 
so He loves also thebow that is stable.

Thewords are true for today’s teachers and learners.




Refresh, restore, recuperate!