The Fresh Classroom by @PaulKelba

I spent a week with   @garystager  and a crew of passionate educators at  Constructing Modern Knowledge . Most takeaways were as expected: project collaboration, chats with high minded ed-reformers, scientists and intellectual giants, as well as witnessing the anti-disciplinary culture of the Media Lab  of the Massachusetts of Technology. However, the moment that made the week invaluable was when the educational workshop was interrupted by a jazz performance. At first it appeared Stager was imposing his obvious affinity of jazz music onto his participants for a welcome break to the project-based dialogue taking over the week. The couple hundred of us sat down for a few songs by jazz masters Jimmy Heath and Emmet Cohen and the tunes they played were just that, a pleasant escape from our work...but then everything reached a new level. You see, in conversation with the audience after the performance, Heath (86 years young) was asked by the crowd of technology ent...

Slideshare of the Paul Kelba session at the ISTE 2013 What's Your ECOpedagogy?-Paul Kelba from pekelba ..if this link does not embed it is also here

This is an updated version of an article of mine for parents during summer that originally appeared two years ago.  Wishing you a wonderful and safe yet adventurous summer 2014. Paul If summer memory loss exists, the students that I teach in a public school are more than capable of overcoming it. Students that return in September that demonstrate notable social and emotional growth are those best  equipped  to handle technical problem based learning in schools, not  necessarily  the students that master the latest math application, attend a typical summer school program or bring a textbook home for summer. As a teacher faced with questions from parents of: "How can my child avoid falling back during the summer break", many times have found myself steering students towards a summer of consumption. Last year I promoted terrific learning app's, and in previous years comprehensive websites, summer academic programs and such. It always seemed a regression ...

"Understanding basic ecological concepts (and their meaning in our daily lives) is too important to leave to a chance meeting or a talk."                                                                                                                     Steve Van Matre "If you didn't design it, you shouldn't assign it"                                                                                      Alfie Kohn Teaching any concept in this day and age educators find themselves pr...

"Nature is the perfect inspiration for truly disruptive innovation. It is where we can find examples of both exquisitely simple, and complex, designs anywhere we turn." Shawn Parr I can confidently proclaim as a educator leading field studies for the past two decades: solitude and joy in nature is by far the best way to deepen students feelings for the natural world. One would assume you should leave the distracting gadgets at school; but, like many things in life, it is imperative to go against convention and mix things up. After a pilot field trip a few years ago with tablets on a field study, I witnessed only positives in regards to student learning and genuine engagement. No matter what size of the journey, here are some ideas of using that tech so students can extend learning.      Enhancing Fieldwork To be able to enter real-time data in the field is key for researchers, a few organizations are making this a priority in schools.  Enhancing Fieldwo...

This years weekly 'outdoor labs' with the grade 9 science class has lead to countless unexpected discoveries and local connections. We spend between an hour and two hours walking from the school to a local park outside the classroom, once there I use every possible teachable moment to visit the core curriculum in science and math. Every year I see the same awful trend: if my activity I deliver is prescriptive, such as a lesson on environmental chemistry (for example, a textbook lab measuring PH of compounds with a variety of tools), the students demonstrate little to low retention of content. Students are inherently interested in the activity due to the introduction of a tool that directly connects with the curriculum but drop interest in minutes as they have little connection with the learning, extrinsic motivation. If the activity is non-prescriptive: take an assignment where students must design a brief survey for another grade 9 class on pollution in their community (...

As a reflection for Edcampyyc I wove the three conversations I attended with my enthusiasm for Project Based Learning (PBL in this post). Session 1 Moving Beyond Grades PBL is a key activity in respect to moving beyond grades or as  @joe_bower  puts it: "grades are an artificial inducement for teachers to get students to do what they want them to do."  Standardized test preparation does not need to appear to go "out the window." It can be formative assessment embedded effectively into the PBL itself. Use the stems to create your own and as Bower simply put it (quotes from my tweets): "Formative assessment tells us sts should not judge successes/fail BUT use it as information" @ joe_bower now lobbing grade grenades @ # edcampyyc Session 2 Open and Connected Learning @courosa  supplied the youtube eye candy, leading us to conclude open and connected learning can easily transcend a classroom to a level it can never return back to. This d...