Educational Mindshifts/Mindsets
Change the Paradigm: What Makes a Skilled Teacher?
I am a firm believer that teaching itself is a skill. Sure, being a content expert is important, but you have to be a kid expert, a human expert also. This is an entirely different set of skills than knowing your content. Don’t get me wrong, teachers must know the content they teach, but just as important is knowing how to make that content come alive for the students they teach.
Those of us in education, or even parents who have seen the magic of a great teacher, know that it is just that –magic. It is an art and a science all in one. For some people, it is natural, but for many it can be nurtured and taught through the process of education and skilled mentoring. Deborah Ball hits the nail on the head in this speech when she states that we in the field cannot state that…
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BYOD: An Implementation Timeline For School Districts
For the fourth and final installment of the BYOD series, we will take a look at a recommended one-year timeline for BYOD implementation from an administrative/district standpoint. But first, here is a quick rundown of what has already been discussed!
Part 1:Lessons learned from a BYOD pre-pilot
Part 2:Top 10 apps for BYOD
Part 3:A recommended teacher implementation timeline for BYOD
To provide some perspective, as mentioned prior, “This year, my district has begun the process of implementing BYOD in what is being called a pre-pilot, and my students and I were delighted when we got the call to be the first classroom in the entire district to have the honor.” The timeline below reflects the lessons that we have learned from the pre-pilot, and the district goal for next year is to involve teachers from grades 5 and up on a volunteer basis.
May of current…
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Educator as Model Learner
The educator’s role has or should change in this age of information abundance or Education 2.0-3.0. The educator’s role has always been to model and demonstrate effective learning, but somewhere along the line, the major role of the educator became that of content and knowledge disseminater. Now in this information age content is freely and abundantly available, it is more important than ever to assist learners in the process of how to learn.
The world is changing at a rapidly accelerating pace. What you learn today can quickly become outdated. HOW to learn, though, is a skill that lasts a lifetime. When you think about it–it makes sense for us to be taught how to learn before we are taught any specific subject matter. But rarely, if ever, does that happen (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gurbaksh-chahal/learning-how-to-learn-wha_b_4790668.html).
A major role of the educator is or should be to model or demonstrate…
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Mrs. Jennifer Cimini, M.Ed. 