Active learning starts with finding questions, not answers; that concept was miles ahead of the bleeding edge three decades ago but now seems to have gained acceptance. In preparing two workshop facilitations for the fall, I sat down yesterday to generate some question lists to help prime the pumps, and it sort of got away [...]
Over the weekend, Libya held the first quasi-democratic elections in 50 years with a relatively low level of violence. Non-Islamist parties appear to have at least somewhat of an attraction to voters. In Tunisia and Egypt, similar election cycles have been held within 18 months of revolutions that started with popular uprisings in the streets. [...]
I am creating an active learning workshop for educational business leaders in the fall and found myself falling into a common trap that can kill innovative practices before they have a chance to sprout: creating before destroying. That sounds harsh, but wait a moment. How often have you and your colleagues said something like “we [...]
Dive in. It’s the 5th of July, tipping point of the summer for many U.S. schools, starting that long slide towards the start of the new school year just 6-7 weeks away. Schools live in this strange quantum of 10-12 month cycles; if we don’t plan and do something one school year it almost always [...]
Innovation is a word that we all now use: “schools must innovate in order to meet the demands of a rapidly changing world”. But before we start something, we should know WHY. Jeffery Phillips, writing on the Innovation Excellence blog site notes five key factors that are driving that need to innovate; my commentary is [...]
What does a future of flipped classrooms and blended learning look like? I don’t know, but that is the point: we have to adapt to a world of more continuous evolution where success is not guaranteed. This struck home two days ago following a Twitter conversation; thanks to Josie Holford, Head of School at Poughkeepsie [...]
On the plane ride across country yesterday I closed my eyes and let the song list play. Bob Dylan is, of course, the iconic songwriter of our generation, and Joan Baez’ angelic voice is one I imagine listening to on the way into a peaceful afterlife. I guess I was in the spirit to listen [...]
Through the miracles of technology and the great work of The Martin Institute, we were all able to share in both the content and video of some of their wildly successful Summer Conference over the last two days. As I watched the video of the panel of four outstanding educators, John Hunter, Sandy Dawes, Bo [...]
Yesterday, through the miracle of technology, I was able to share in some of the joy and wonder of 500 educators watching John Hunter and his World Peace Game from the Martin Institute summer conference in Memphis. Much of the rapid and full Twitter stream as John gave the keynote had to do with the [...]
Yesterday Melissa Smith, a Tech Coach for K-8 in Memphis, TN, asked if I would comment on the use of blended learning in the K-8 environment. Sure! I have the exact same feeling about blended learning as I do with unblended learning: good learning takes place when an inspired teacher helps a student to discover [...]