• The Gift of Storytelling | DesigningForChange

  A beautiful and provocative reflection and lesson on “The Gift of Storytelling” http://wp.me/p6Kre4-z via @alex12emm #MVIFI #DEEPdt

  tags: storytelling #MustRead

• Partnerships in Marion, Ohio, preparing students for job market | Expect Success

  tags: real-world realworldlearning problem_based_learning #MustRead idiploma

• An Open Letter to Educators From TrueSchool Studio — The Teachers Guild — Medium

  HT @TeachersGuild

  tags: schooldesign School Change teachers_guild TrueSchool #MustRead educators teachers innovation schoolreform

  • No policymaker or president is as powerful as a teacher when it comes to shaping the student experience.
  • No policymaker or president is as powerful as a teacher when it comes to shaping the student experience.
  • With your unique knowledge of student needs and school challenges, you have the potential to create powerful new solutions and lead change.
  • We support educators in this process to go from idea to impact, but we do not prescribe the solution — you are the source of ideas and leadership for transformative solutions.
  • We believe the best ideas for the present and future of education will come from educators

• Stressed, Tired, Rushed: A Portrait of the Modern Family – The New York Times

  tags: essentialism healthyliving #MustRead family

• The Evolution of Simplicity – The New York Times

  HT Allison Toller

  tags: simplicity essentialism #MustRead assessment

  • Of course there’s a struggle to regain control of your own attention, to set priorities about what you will think about, to see fewer things but to see them more deeply.
  • an exercise in identity discovery, an exercise in realizing and then prioritizing your current tastes and beliefs. People who do that may instinctively be seeking higher forms of pruning: being impeccable with your words, parsimonious but strong with your commitments, disciplined about your time, selective about your friendships, moving generally from fragmentation toward unity of purpose. There’s an enviable emotional tranquillity at the end of that road.

• The Art of Getting Opponents to “We” – The New York Times

  The group that brought the education leaders together is Convergence: Center for Policy Resolution. Since its founding in 2009, it has been quietly connecting people with different priorities, beliefs and political leanings to build trust and foster relationships, so they can find pathways for cooperative action.

  tags: collaboration schoolreform #MustRead

  • Significantly, participants all came to align behind a single vision statement — and now they are actively communicating and advancing that vision nationwide through their organizations and networks. They host meetings with educational networks, superintendents, principals, teachers and philanthropists, reach out to libraries, museums and after-school programs, and identify and connect pioneers in learner-centered education.
  • Convergence staff and facilitators work to create a “safe space,” maintaining a strict neutrality and ensuring that everyone feels heard, says Fersh. It’s important that participants “feel they’re not in a place that’s already cooked or leaning toward any solutions.”
  • Convergence staff members look continually for opportunities to forge connections among participants. They begin meetings with “connecting” questions — for example: “When did you know that education was of great importance to you?” — that are designed to reveal people’s values and experiences, rather than highlight their disagreements. The objective is not to sweep differences under the rug, but to build rapport that a group needs to grapple effectively with its differences.
  • Another key is to identify a frame that energizes everybody, but is not so broad that it is meaningless. “For us the gold standard is that the dialogue has to lead to action,” said Fersh. To do that, he said, there are intermediate goals: “Can you get people to the table and sustain their presence? Can you find agreements that are worth fighting for? And can you keep people together to keep working over time to make sure something happens?”
  • In the end, she said, people converged on the notion that they had to do far more than tinker around the edges of a broken system held over from a bygone industrial age. “There was a lot of conversation that the current system is ill designed to create 21^st century outcomes for students,” said Young. “But there wasn’t alignment around what a new system could look like. People really wanted to be part of that conversation.”

• Does It Matter? – Traverse ’16:  June 6-8 in boulder, co

  HT @gregbamford and #TVRSE16
  @cjacksonj13 @PLACE_PDX @ChristianLong @boadams1 @cmtmalvern Great new #TVRSE16 blog post about embracing ambiguity: https://t.co/tRAOEDe81O

  tags: TVRSE16 work that matters #MustRead

• Purpose Based Learning (a #FailUp moment) | Planting T’s

  The fact is that innovative products are sexy. Thinking made tangible is worth a 1000 words. Products demonstrate results, and, through making, the product lets you know if you got it right. Purposeful products – ones that are human centered and make an impact – are an awfully convincing demonstration that you got the process right.

  tags: PURPOSEbasedlearning PBL Failup MVIFI #MustRead

  • So what is the big #failup moment? Well…perhaps product is more important than teachers tend to let on?
  • Reflecting back, I am more and more convinced that product and process are equally important. p[-[ I don’t mean to devalue the process by any means. That is where the learning happens. But the product – the thing – the solution – is why the learning happens
  • Last semester I had quite a different “engagement curve” with my T.E.D. class major project. In meeting Alex and 3D printing a prosthetic hand, my class and I made noticeable shift from working on a project to working for a purpose

• Not All at Once | The Life of Pinya

  tags: real-world School Change school3.0 #MustRead innovation

• Digital badges hit the big time in higher ed | University Business Magazine

  HT @WillRich45

  tags: badges badging microcredentialing openbadges higher ed #MustRead

  • digital badges may sound like overshared gimmicks from the latest trendy game or social network, they have become serious commodities in the world of college credentials
  • “The vision is to create a structure of alternative credentials that students could acquire relatively quickly and inexpensively that will also be immediately useful from an employment perspective.”
  • Badges link to information that can provide employers with more details about the specific skills a student has acquired. A traditional college transcript may list only the credits earned, says Daniel Hickey, an Indiana University learning sciences professor who studies badges.

• New Digital Education Network Spotifies School – Next City

  HT @WillRich45

  tags: Badges badging microcredentialing #MustRead

  • There will be a “discovery feed” that functions sort of like an educational version of Spotify or iTunes, Yowell says, suggesting new content or learning opportunities based on a student’s demonstrated interests and where they live
  • Students would complete the challenges and earn badges. Upon demonstrating a certain level of proficiency, a student would be given the opportunity to shadow a designer at the headquarters of Fossil. “The idea eventually being that they might be able to have an internship,” says Black. “So it’s ripe for potential to connect the right kids to real-life working experiences.”
  • Most of all though, she views badges as a means — not an end — to fostering interest-driven learning.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.