Newspaper coverage of our Dropout Prevention Grant

http://timeswv.wv.ussrv07v.newsmemory.com/default.php?pSetup=timeswv

http://energizestudents.org/Article-View.aspx?story_id=168266601

Disruptive Innovation

Here is a 21 minute video about Disruptive Innovation, which is really important for those of us on the school reform frontier.  Scott McLeod blogs at dangerouslyirrelevant.org.

Avoiding the blame game when meeting with parents

Check out the article!

Scientific Research Shows Lecturing Doesn't Work

In this article, the author describes the scientific research that physics professors from the University of Maryland, Harvard, and Arizona State conducting, indicating that lecturing only helps about 10% of the students learn physics--and those 10% might get the material even without the professor.  Interestingly, the physicists say that if all we are going to do is lecture, students could get that information just as easily from a computer and we can fire all the teachers!   One teaching method they've begun to use is called "peer instruction" in which students in groups discuss the answer to a question and then eventually discuss with the entire class. It's described better in the article, and is just one way to take teachers from being a "sage on the stage" to being a "guide on the side".  

Debriefing and looking forward

Yesterday Mary Anne and I met with Matt to debrief about our Ancient Greek PBL. We'd already had a great reflection/debriefing session with our students the day before Christmas break. They were so proud of themselves, but were also able to offer ideas about what they would do differently if they had it to do all over again.
The concept that consistently comes up in our debriefing is the idea that we need to do better at what Matt calls "chunking." We need to further divide up the project into smaller "chunks" with deadlines every few days or so. This way, students complete one piece of the project at a time, receive feedback, make appropriate changes, and continue working toward the finished product. As we begin our Rome PBL planning, we need to have these smaller deadlines, or chunks, in mind.