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“In the pursuit of innovation, leaders are often faced with three critical decisions: what to follow versus what to ignore, what to leave in versus what to leave out, and what to do versus what not to do.
“Many of the most original innovators tend to focus far more on the second half of each choice. They adopt a “less is best” approach to innovation, removing just the right things in just the right way in order to achieve the maximum effect through minimum means and deliver what everyone wants: a memorable and meaningful experience.
“It’s the art of subtraction, defined simply as the process of removing anything excessive, confusing, wasteful, hazardous, or hard to use—and perhaps building the discipline to refrain from adding it in the first place. These six rules help guide that discipline.”
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Why Inquiry Learning is Worth the Trouble | MindShift
“Lehmann’s 90-minute question-and-answer session tackled coming to terms with the impact of a shift to inquiry-driven learning by defining three steps: the enigmatic meaning of inquiry-based learning; the visible changes that signal a shift to that approach; and the potential drawbacks that shift may surface.”
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Video: “The Future Will Not be Multiple Choice” | MindShift
“McGrath and Davies argue that school needs to keep up with the times by promoting creativity, entrepreneurship, design thinking and hands on skills. McGrath’s experience teaching design problems has convinced him that the approach includes all learning styles, brings the best of project-based learning, encourages cooperation and integrates subject matter horizontally. But mostly, McGrath and Davies are impressed at the cool stuff kids design.”
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solving mysteries « orgtheory.net
Is school reform about solving a puzzle or a mystery?
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Is “Complicated” To “Complex” As “Puzzle” Is To “Mystery”? | Larry Ferlazzo’s Websites of the Day…
Is school reform a puzzle or a mystery?
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gladwell dot com – open secrets
Is school reform a puzzle or a mystery?
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The distinction is not trivial. If you consider the motivation and methods behind the attacks of September 11th to be mainly a puzzle, for instance, then the logical response is to increase the collection of intelligence, recruit more spies, add to the volume of information we have about Al Qaeda. If you consider September 11th a mystery, though, you’d have to wonder whether adding to the volume of information will only make things worse. You’d want to improve the analysis within the intelligence community; you’d want more thoughtful and skeptical people with the skills to look more closely at what we already know about Al Qaeda. You’d want to send the counterterrorism team from the C.I.A. on a golfing trip twice a month with the counterterrorism teams from the F.B.I. and the N.S.A. and the Defense Department, so they could get to know one another and compare notes.
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Puzzles are “transmitter-dependent”; they turn on what we are told. Mysteries are “receiver dependent”; they turn on the skills of the listener
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principal elements of the puzzle—all require the application of energy and persistence, which are the virtues of youth. Mysteries demand experience and insight.
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In the case of puzzles, we put the offending target, the C.E.O., in jail for twenty-four years and assume that our work is done. Mysteries require that we revisit our list of culprits and be willing to spread the blame a little more broadly. Because if you can’t find the truth in a —even a mystery shrouded in propaganda—it’s not just the fault of the propagandist. It’s your fault as well.
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Researchers Recommend Core Changes in Education | DML Hub
“Close the gap between the no-frills learning that too often happens in-school and the interactive, hands-on learning that usually takes place out of school. Take advantage of the Internet’s ability to help youth develop knowledge, expertise, skills and important new literacies. Use digital technology to combat the increasing reality of the haves and have-nots in education.
“Those are among a series of recommendations outlined in a new report released today by the Connected Learning Research Network, an interdisciplinary research network dedicated to reimagining learning for the 21st century.”
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A Bill of Rights and Principles for Learning in the Digital Age | EdSurge News
From EdSurge newsletter 23 Jan 2013: “About a month ago, a group of educators, entrepreneurs and a couple of us from the fourth estate gathered in a room to discuss how digital technologies are reshaping learning–both now and in the years to come. None of us have crystal balls. But it didn’t take long for the conversation to begin to focus squarely on students. We wound up writing what we called a “Bill of Rights & Principles for Learning in the Digital Age” and here it is.”
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The Philosophy of Data – NYTimes.com
“Over the next year, I’m hoping to get a better grip on some of the questions raised by the data revolution: In what situations should we rely on intuitive pattern recognition and in which situations should we ignore intuition and follow the data?”
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1 | Infographic: The Intricate Anatomy Of UX Design | Co.Design: business + innovation + design
How might we improve the UX of school? I find it so helpful to think of school as a UX for students, teachers, parents, community, etc. Innovation, then, is primarily about enhancing the UX of school.
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A Revolution Begins in Teacher Prep | Stanford Social Innovation Review
“But will this new generation of programs actually bring transformational change to the field? As chancellor of the 23-campus California State University, Barry Munitz oversaw a system that prepares about 60 percent of the teachers in the state and 12 percent of the teachers in the country. (I took teacher prep courses at California State University, Los Angeles on his watch.) Munitz is optimistic about the potential of these new teacher prep organizations to spark change—but argues the training itself is only part of what we need to get right. Like many of the startup revolutionaries, Munitz says improved training must be part of an overall move to bring a new professionalism to teaching—starting with recruiting outstanding candidates. In addition, he argues that teacher salaries must reflect the real value of teaching to society, in an age when well-educated, ambitious young women—once forced into low-paying teaching jobs by limited career opportunities—now have a world of choices. “We have to make the teaching profession an attractive, prestigious, and therefore well-paid position,” he says. Innovative teacher prep faces a substantial list of problems, Munitz says, that must be solved “on an emergency basis.””
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Teaching, she remarks, is the only profession where a first-time practitioner is expected “to have the same skill set as a 10-year veteran.”
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The new generation of teacher prep programs offer new solutions to an old problem and are committed not to fixing schools of ed, but to reinventing them. Most emerge not from universities, but from autonomous, typically nonprofit organizations. They move the locus of much of their training to the school building, aiming to be more practical and clinical in approach than their traditional forebears.
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new generation of teacher preparation programs as a welcome force on the horizon. He says they bring two crucial innovations: The programs take an urgent interest in teachers’ impact on student learning, and they offer a hands-on, clinical approach to developing teachers’ skills.
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The emphasis is on practice | Much of the learning takes place in real schools.
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Accomplished teachers serve as models, coaches, and mentors
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Progress and success in the program are dependent on performance in the classroom
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Rigor matters
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Teachers, arguably, have the most important job in the United States, yet we do a lousy job of helping them learn to teach. We can do better.
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UbD and serendipity: why planning helps rather than hinders creativity « Granted, but…
“I find it odd that so many teachers think that merely liberating students from constraints is the key to creative expression and true learning. Dewey lamented this endlessly, because many of the proponents of progressive education fell into this mistake and hurt the cause. On the contrary, creativity requires working with and through constraints: think of haiku and architecture – not to mention genuinely creative experimental science. Perhaps teachers who talk this way are simply compensating for the micro-management kids often face today at home and in school. But quality work rarely comes from just being given free time and no guidance or standards.”
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7 Essential Principles of Innovative Learning | MindShift
“Researchers at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) launched the Innovative Learning Environments project to turn an academic lens on the project of identifying concrete traits that mark innovative learning environments. They sifted through and categorized the research on learning science, documented case studies, and compiled policy recommendations they hope will transform the current system.”
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Seth’s Blog: Paracosms, loyalty and reality in the pursuit of creative problem solving
Using paracosm of school so that we can build its future. It’s not disloyal to “school” to imagine a world without it. Such imagining helps us ensure relevance for learners!