Coursera to Offer Free Teacher Development Classes

Posted on May 22, 2013 by coreeducation

Coursera, one of the larger MOOC’s (massive open online courses), will begin offering free online teacher development courses this summer. And for a set of courses that are just beginning, a rather impressive list of traditional universities including the College of Education at University of Washington and John Hopkins University School of Education as well as non-traditional educational institutes such as the American Museum of History, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Exploratorium have all agreed to take part.

Here is a description of the new set of courses from edSurge:

[I]n addition to covering the 101 basics of teaching, classes will allow teachers to explore more niche topics like “Tinkering Fundamentals: Integrating Making Activities into Your STEM Classroom.”

The cost to run these PD MOOCs are expected to be lower than what Coursera’s “mainstream” college partners pay, which typically range from $10K-$50K for each 10-week course. One reason may be that the duration of these PD courses will likely be shorter, lasting only three to four weeks. The company also plans to issue statements of accomplishment for teachers who finish the classes.

“We are particularly excited about the opportunity to offer professional development for teachers that are more targeted and differentiated, based on their skills and experience,” says Julia Stiglitz, who oversees business development and partnerships at Coursera, and who was previously a teacher and Program Director at Teach for America.

This “first foray into early childhood and K-12-level education” raises an obvious question: will Coursera move deeper and, say, partner with prestigious high schools to offer MOOCs for K-12 students?

The company says there are currently no plans, but adds that it has already seen many high school students take MOOCs as part of their college prep work. Still, we wouldn’t be surprised if Coursera changes its mind somewhere down the line.

Following is a link to the list of professional development courses being offered:

https://www.coursera.org/courses?cats=teacherpd

Common Core Open Resources

Posted on May 15, 2013 by coreeducation

As the implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) moves ever closer, debate over them certainly has not slowed, yet that does not mean that the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and others, like the National Math and Science Initiative, aren’t doing their best to make resources available so that teachers will be prepared.

Here is their introduction to newly available resources:

The tools you need to prepare for the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the upcoming Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) assessments are now available to all educators.

These free resources help implement the CCSS in your state and provide you with specific information to prepare teachers to equip students with the tools they’ll need to be successful on the PARCC assessments.

To access these free resources, you will need to visit the website below, click on the “Get Free Resources” button, and create a free profile. You will have unlimited access to these resources and all new open resources developed for PARCC by NMSI.

Also, all the Common Core resources created for the PARCC Educator Leader Cadre are now available to all educators to ensure improved implementation of the Common Core.

Following is the link to the National Math and Science Initiative Common Core website: http://www.nms.org/commoncore

For the link to the webpage where you can register to gain access to the free resources, see: http://parcc.nms.org/

Ten Innovators at the 2013 Ed Tech Industry Summit

Posted on May 10, 2013 by coreeducation

The Education Division of the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) announces winners and finalists in its Innovation Incubator Program. The program was held during the annual flagship Ed Tech Industry Summit, May 5-7, at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco. Ten products and services were featured during the event, and awards were presented to the Most Innovative and Most Likely to Succeed based on votes of conference attendees. The Educator’s Choice Award was also be presented based on votes from educators and administrators from around the U.S.

The SIIA Innovation Incubator Program identifies and supports entrepreneurs in their development and distribution of innovative learning technologies. The program began in 2006 and has provided support for dozens of successful products and companies in their efforts to improve education through the use of software, digital content and related technologies. The program is open to applicants from academic and non-profit institutions, pre-revenue and early-stage companies, as well as established companies with newly developed technologies.

“This year’s Innovation Incubator participants stand out as incredibly original and exciting products,” said Karen Billings, vice president for the SIIA Education Division. “It’s a tremendous value for our members to have early access to these technologies.”

Innovation Incubator Program participants were selected from the applicant pool based on key selection criteria, including:

The extent to which their innovation represents a “sea change” in thinking
Potential to positively impact education by way of enhanced student achievement, teacher effectiveness, cost reduction and efficiency
Education focus and end-user impact/market need for the innovation
Representation of K-12/postsecondary market levels
Level of originality and innovation

Innovation Incubator Program winners and finalists are as follows:

Citelighter, Citelighter Inc (voted Educator’s Choice and Most Innovative Runner Up)

Citelighter is an academic research platform that allows students to save, organize, and automatically cite content. Once completed they can open Citelighter in a Google doc to have their research next to their writing. As students undergo a critical thinking process (research, organizing, writing) we capture their behaviors and present it back to their teachers so they can see how and where their students need help. This appear like strands of DNA, but they are strands of thought.

simCEO, Jetlag Learning (voted Most Innovative)

Shmoop create online learning simulations where students compete and interact with one another – instead of a program – to make the environment and the learning more dynamic. Students apply skills in a real-world environments without right/wrong answers. Our first solution, simCEO targets entrepreneurship and financial literacy where students create their own company then buy/sell shares in each other’s companies. Teachers keep the simulation dynamic through news articles.

See.Touch.Learn., Brain Parade, LLC (voted Most Likely to Succeed)

See.Touch.Learn., an iPad visual learning & assessment system, improves the social interaction & communication skills of special needs students. Parents & teachers are turning away from traditional, static picture cards towards See.Touch.Learn.’s easy-to-use & effective personalized picture card learning tool. With stunning images, a community of content created by thousands of users, plus their own personal content, teachers & parents can deliver highly personalized instruction & assessments.

scrible, scrible (voted Most Likely to Succeed Runner Up)

scrible makes online reading and research apps for students/instructors and publishers. Our Web app lets you annotate webpages in your browser and then save, share and manage them in the cloud. Our Student Edition adds academic features (citations, reports, etc.). Instructors use scrible for collaborative e-reading exercises. Our Classroom Edition will empower them to teach critical reading skills using online reading/research assignments. Our annotation tools help publishers make content interactive.

Globaloria, World Wide Workshop (Finalist)

Globaloria is a project-based learning platform for teaching any subject through webgame design. A turn-key instructional solution, it integrates an academic curriculum, programming tutorials, and virtual support with professional development tools and a social learning network, making prior programming skills unnecessary. As students research educational game topics and learn content knowledge, they develop digital literacies and STEM & Computing skills by programming their original webgames.

mAuthor, Learnetic S.A. (Finalist)

Learnetic has pioneered an authoring system for creating INTERACTIVE mobile content ideal for publishers and developers and, in its next iteration for teachers. Content displays and functions on any device with any OS/screen size so is ideal for the diverse installed base of mobile devices in schools. Created content can easily be integrated with any website or learning platform. The Cloud based development approach provides maintenance free control of publishing process, content and technology.

Naiku, Naiku, Inc. (Finalist)

Naiku accelerates learning by providing next generation assessment solutions on any web enabled device. With automated scoring and built-in standards-aligned reports, teachers instantly know what each and every student knows. Additionally Naiku’s unique “better assessment” methodology engages students through research backed practices such as confidence based assessment, journaling, and reflection to provide teachers with a more complete picture of student performance than currently possible.

ParentSquare, ParentSquare (Finalist)

ParentSquare is an online platform for schools that makes parent involvement easy. Studies confirm what logic tells us to be true: parent involvement is the key to student success. School-home communication and parent participation are key components of parent involvement and ParentSquare exceptionally simplifies both. Teachers and parents have called it “an effective communication tool,” “an efficient way to recruit volunteers,” “great tool for individual class reminders,” “irreplaceable!”

Shmoop, Shmoop University, Inc. (Finalist)

Shmoop is a digital education resources company that innovates education by making learning accessible through understandable language and online materials. Shmoop uses colloquial language & pop culture to make learning fun and easy for students. Also, Shmoop serves as a one-stop education stop from high school to the real world, “specializing” in a gamut of resources, including literature & history guides, online classrooms, teacher resources, online textbooks, test prep, and career resources.

zondle, zondle (Finalist)

zondle is a unique web and mobile platform that enables teachers and students to create, play and share games to support learning. Teachers choose or create questions to match exactly their teaching aims (multiple formats, any subject, any level, any language). Students play and practice those questions (or questions they’ve created) in any of zondle’s casual games (any topic in any game, to consolidate classroom learning, for assessment, or to prepare for high-stakes tests).

For more information about the Ed Tech Industry Summit, visit siia.net/etis/2013/incubator.asp or contact Liderby Portorreal at Education@siia.net.

TNTP Launches Blog

Posted on May 9, 2013 by coreeducation

Over the last 15 years, TNTP, a national nonprofit committed to ending the injustice of educational inequality, has shared what they have learned about education policy and effective teaching mainly through publications like “The Irreplaceables.” Recently, they have launched a TNTP blog. TNTP hopes to use the blog to offer a different perspective on the issues and share more of their learning process. TNTP is inspired by the power of great teaching to change lives. This blog shares ideas, research and opinion about how to grow great teachers and build systems that prioritize effective teaching in every classroom.

Some of the topics of the first blogs include:

For more information, please visit: http://tntp.org/blog

Making the Case for College and Career Readiness

Posted on April 30, 2013 by coreeducation

A newly updated and released website, The Future Ready Project, provides college and career readiness advocates with the information, strategies, messages and tools they need to effectively make the case for the college- and career- ready agenda in their states and communities. With customizable resources and fact sheets, stakeholders may take the materials available on the site and tailor them to best fit their constituent audiences.

Looking for data and talking points to support your advocacy? Check out Make the Case: Facts & Research, which has key fact sheets on major college- and career-ready policies and reforms, relevant research to inform your case-making, public opinion data organized by audience, great sources of local and state data and pages designed to help you jump right in and tackle common communications challenges.

Putting together a communications strategy or plan and need some help? Plan Your Strategy: Tools & Messages offers tools for planning a communications strategy including a modifiable plan template, messaging tools for communicating about college and career readiness, resources targeted at engaging business leaders, videos of current students and recent graduates talking about college and career readiness, flexible fact sheets designed to help you bust common myths about the college- and career-ready agenda and communications tools from other national and state organizations.

Want to see what materials are already out there? Find Relevant Resources is a brand new searchable database of advocacy and communications resources, tools, campaigns and materials, developed by national organizations and state and local organizations. With a growing collection of over 150 resources currently available for parents, educators, businesses and a variety of other audiences, this database has appropriate materials for any and all college- and career-ready case-making.

For more information, please visit: http://www.futurereadyproject.org/

MOOC for Educators: “Digital Learning Transition”

Posted on April 15, 2013 by coreeducation

The Alliance for Excellent Education and the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation are offering a first-of-its-kind online course for school district leaders.

Last month, the Alliance for Excellent Education and Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at North Carolina State University opened enrollment for a first-of-its-kind Massive Online Open Course for Educators (MOOC-Ed). Titled “Digital Learning Transition,” the free course will examine how the effective use of digital learning can help school districts meet educational challenges, including implementing college- and career-ready standards for all students and preparing teachers to make effective use of technology to enhance teaching and learning.

The course—a component of the Alliance’s “Project 24” initiative and the first of a series of MOOC-Eds planned by the Friday Institute—will help school district leaders develop a set of digital learning goals to address their students’ specific needs. Participating educators will learn how technology and the global information age impact both what students need to know and how and when student learning can take place. They will study the elements necessary for a successful digital learning transition, develop a set of goals for digital learning aligned to desired student outcomes, and create an action plan to meet these goals.

“By participating in this ground-breaking effort, educators can experience first-hand how digital learning can change teaching and improve learning,” said Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education and former governor of West Virginia. “At the same time, they will develop a valuable plan for how to take their school or district through a digital learning transition.”

Throughout the course, participants will have access to digital learning experts who have successfully implemented digital learning efforts that are supporting teachers and positively impacting student learning. And by conducting the course on such a massive scale—literally thousands of district leaders can participate—participants will also benefit from “crowdsourcing,” a collaborative professional learning experience that uses the “wisdom of the crowd” to discuss ideas, share strategies and resources, and exchange constructive feedback with other participants in similar roles and schools.

“The Digital Learning Transition MOOC-Ed enables educators to experience using innovative technologies as learners and collaborators, which will help them gain insights into what these technologies can mean for students,” said Glenn Kleiman, executive director of the Friday Institute. “We look forward to having many innovative educators join us in exploring this new form of large-scale, flexible, multimedia, and collaborative professional development.”

Each of the course’s seven sessions will include core resources and supplemental materials around a specific topic, while allowing for a great deal of personalization and flexibility. Participants are expected to navigate their own paths, consistent with their own goals and the needs of their school or district, while being supported and guided by the facilitators, resources, and fellow participants.

Running through May 24, the seven-week course is designed for school and district leaders, including superintendents, principals, curriculum directors, technology directors, financial officers, instructional coaches, lead teachers, and others involved in planning and implementing K–12 digital learning initiatives. Participants should expect to commit between two and four hours each week, but there will be opportunities for those who wish to invest more time and explore issues more deeply.

Interested individuals can obtain more information and register for the course at dlt.mooc-ed.org. After registering, they are strongly encouraged to take Project 24’s free online self assessment to help frame a vision for digital learning and specify how technology can help align efforts to achieve college- and career-ready standards. Upon completion of the self assessment, participants will receive a personalized report analyzing their district’s progress in integrating technology into instruction.

The MOOC-Ed is part of “Project 24,” a ground-breaking new initiative led by the Alliance to help school districts plan for and effectively use technology and digital learning. Project 24 is an urgent call to action on the need for systemic planning around the effective use of technology and digital learning to achieve the goal of career and college readiness for all students. Project 24 participants benefit from free comprehensive district-level planning tools, expert advice, creative ideas, and tangible suggestions from experienced education experts and nonprofit education membership organizations. Already, more than 1,000 school leaders from nearly 500 school districts—representing 6.5 million students—have signed up to participate.

The Digital Learning Transition MOOC-Ed is provided by the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation as part of ongoing work to support the effective use of technologies and innovative teaching and learning practices in K–12 education.

“Make no mistake; digital learning holds the key to preparing millions of additional students for college and a productive career, but district leaders need to approach this opportunity with sound planning to leverage the potential and achieve the best results,” said Wise. “Going forward, our goal is to get every district to sign up and start planning.”

For more information, please visit the following:

http://dlt.mooc-ed.org/preview

New Resources for 21st Century Learning Design

Posted on February 15, 2013 by coreeducation

In 2012, Microsoft announced a new professional development program called 21st Century Learning Design (21CLD), formerly known as “LEAP21”, that helps teachers build innovative pedagogical practices and develop resources for designing learning activities that foster higher order skills. It includes:

practice-based professional development, so new ideas are used immediately in the classroom
collaboration among teachers to share risk as well as motivation
flexible content that can be adapted to meet teachers’ own unique situations
ongoing, structured work that doesn’t end after a workshop
meaningful recognition of progress in teaching and a way to measure its impact on learning

21CDL also includes resources for educators, in the form of rubrics that help them analyze and redesign their own lessons to develop students’ higher order skills. Problem-solving, collaboration, knowledge construction, and communication skills are all needed by students as they prepare for a globalized knowledge-based economy.

Now these rubrics are available under a Creative Commons license globally, so that they can be freely used, republished, and re-mixed to adapt them to local contexts, curricula and pedagogical cultures. The new rubrics include both Learning Activity and Student Work rubrics for:

Collaboration
Knowledge Construction
Self-Regulation
Use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for Learning
Skilled Communication
Real World Problem Solving and Innovation

You can find and use the new 21CLD Rubrics that are the foundation of the 21CLD workshops here or at the following URL: http://www.itlresearch.com/itl-leap21

New Spotlights from Education Week

Posted on October 16, 2012 by coreeducation

Education Week Spotlights contain essential news and commentary on the big issues. These Spotlights provide the information you need to understand the most talked-about topics. Each spotlight contains seven articles.

Download the Latest Spotlights for Free!

Deeper Learning:

Applying brain studies to teaching students with disabilities
Dual-language classes offering instruction in English and a second language
Developing and measuring student creativity in schools
Using brain biology to dispel common myths around learning behaviors
Efforts to make learning more about mastery and less about seat-time

Parent Empowerment and Choice:

Special education vouchers paving the way for broader school choice initiatives
‘Parent trigger’ laws allowing parents to restructure struggling schools
Rethinking magnet schools to improve school quality
Taking a ‘hybrid’ approach to home schooling, offering private and public options
Understanding the impact of state voucher laws

School and District Leadership:

Rebuilding a school district from the ground up
Preparing and training school principals for the CCSS
Shifting control of office responsibilities to principals in magnet, charter, and neighborhood schools
Reshaping the work hours and job duties of superintendents in light of budget constraints
Developing leadership and training programs for charter schools

To access these free resources, please visit http://www.edweek.org/ew/marketplace/products/edweek_spotlights.html

What Works Clearinghouse: School Turnarounds

Posted on October 10, 2012 by coreeducation

A recent report from the U.S. Department of Education’s What Works Clearinghouse identifies practices that can improve the performance of chronically low-performing schools — a process commonly referred to as “turnaround.”

The report, Turning Around Chronically Low-Performing Schools, makes four recommendations based on current research into school turnaround efforts:

Schools signal the need for dramatic change with strong leadership. Schools should make a clear commitment to changes from the status quo, and leaders should signal the magnitude and urgency of that change. A low-performing school that fails to make adequate yearly progress must improve student achievement within a short timeframe—it can’t take years to implement incremental reforms.
Chronically low-performing schools should maintain a sharp focus on improving instruction. To improve instruction, schools should use data to set goals for instructional improvement, make changes to immediately and directly affect instruction, and continually reassess student learning and instructional practices to refocus goals.
Schools should make visible improvements early in the school turnaround process. These “quick wins” can rally staff and overcome resistance and inertia.
School leaders must build a committed staff. All staff members must be dedicated to the school’s improvement goals and qualified to carry out school improvement. This may require changes in staff: releasing, replacing, or redeploying staff not fully committed to turning around student performance, and bringing in new staff who are committed.

Though there is admittedly “minimal” evidence to support these recommendations, the practices suggested appear to make sense when trying to turn around a struggling school.

To read the full report, please visit http://ies.ed.gov/ncee/wwc/PracticeGuide.aspx?sid=7

Unlocking Student Effort

Posted on October 3, 2012 by coreeducation

TNTP, a national nonprofit organization working to ensure that all students get excellent teachers, recently released a first-of-its-kind resource on effective teaching written by and for practicing teachers.

The resource, Unlocking Student Effort , is a paper that includes five essays written by the winners of TNTP’s 2012 Fishman Prize for Superlative Classroom Practice, a prestigious $25,000 award intended to spotlight excellence in teaching and the practices of the nation’s most effective educators.

Unlocking Student Effort focuses on a common challenge many teachers face: How to engage reluctant students in rigorous academic content. In their essays, the 2012 Fishman Prize winners explain how they overcome this challenge in their classrooms.

Individually, the essays provide a glimpse into five remarkable classrooms where students are achieving at high levels. Collectively, they offer a range of strategies from teachers who are having breakthrough success in some of the nation’s most challenging school settings.

Shira Fishman, a 9th-11th grade Math teacher in Washington, DC, and the teacher for whom the Fishman Prize was named, describes how she builds a sense of urgency and community in her classroom during the first five minutes of each class period.

Whitney Henderson, a 7th grade Writing teacher in New Orleans, LA, writes about showing students how the seemingly irrelevant academic content they study applies to the futures they dream of.

Jamie Irish, an 8th grade Math teacher in New Orleans, LA, vividly illustrates how he rallies students around the challenge of outperforming their peers at a more affluent, selective enrollment school just two miles away.

Katie Lyons, a 6th-8th grade Literacy/Social Studies teacher in Chicago, IL, describes how she engages her students in rigorous historical material by connecting it to their own lives and the diverse neighborhood around them.

Leslie Ross, a 9th grade Biology teacher in Greensboro, NC, shows how she leads her students to success in her highly rigorous biology course by gaining their trust and building a powerful sense of team spirit.

The paper is intended to be the first of an annual series from TNTP, written each year by a new cohort of Fishman Prize winners on a new topic related to best classroom practices.

The application period for the 2013 Fishman Prize will open early November 2012.

To learn more and download the full paper or request a print copy, visit tntp.org/fishmanprize.

The "Core" of Education

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