• Unstuck iPad app – How to live better every day – Unstuck

  “Creativity is innate in all of us. It helps us define who we are, how we live, how we can make life better every day. But somewhere between sculpting Play Doh and applying for our first job, many of us get the message that creativity is a rarified trait, possessed by only a lucky few. The team at Unstuck is here to tell you otherwise.”

  tags: Creativity #MustRead

• Soft skills and hard – Krypton Community College

  “Do successful people learn hard skills (differential calculus, advanced Spanish, Ruby on Rails) and then go on to learn the soft stuff (connection, innovation, humility, initiative, the ability to ship work that matters) or does it happen the other way around?

  I think the answer has shifted, and just recently.”

  tags: Seth Godin Future of Learning future of schools school model curriculum time space #MustRead

• Education Week: Taking a Relationship-Centered Approach to Education

  “Let’s play “what if” for a second.

  “What if schools used real-world scenarios to teach? What if learning were tied to complex problem-solving? What if students graduated from high school knowing how to negotiate peace treaties, stimulate depressed economies, and reduce obesity rates in America?

  “Now imagine a school where students and teachers decided collaboratively that the future of energy, the problem of inadequate access to safe drinking water, and the issues surrounding genetically modified organisms were among the topics of study.”

  tags: transdisciplinary TDed #MustRead curriculum relationship real-world

• Scarcity and abundance in education – Krypton Community College

  tags: scarcity abundance education Seth Godin school model time curriculum instruction #MustRead

• Don’t Let FOMO Affect You As a Pro – Explore. Create. Repeat. – by 4ormat

  An important read for educational innovators and creatives. How does one find balance when there is such easy access to so many compelling opportunities and learning possibilities? How does one decide what to say “No” to, so that what one says “Yes” to can be fully embraced?

  tags: FOMO QOL #MustRead Leadership balance

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

• The Value of Scalable Learning, Or How a Hardcore Geek Became a Softy | Big Think Edge | Big Think

  “What is the half-life of a skill? It used to be about 30 years, says Brown. In other words, you could go to school and expect to learn a skill that would last throughout most of your career. In today’s rapidly changing world, however, the half life of a skill is more like 5 years, Brown says. That means that what you learn in school only gets you so far. The rest of your learning will need to come on the job.

  Moreover, the business model of the last 100 years that aimed to achieve scalable efficiency, according to Brown, is the very thing that stands in our way now in our unpredictable world. 

  So how do we move institutions to a model of scalable learning?”
  [HT Jenn Graham, Unboundary, (co)lab]

  tags: learning innovation johnseelybrown #MustRead

• Five Principles to Turbocharge Innovation

  “Matanovic outlined five simple yet profound principles for the day. These are leadership values that you can articulate and model to reframe group work to maximize creativity and minimize destructive politics; overcome barriers and avoid rabbit holes; and bolster enthusiastic engagement. They aligned nicely with work that I have done and research I have encountered exploring systems-based leadership:”

  tags: innovation #MustRead PopTech Cities COI leadership engagement

• How to Make a New Product Unique

  “Most important, the culture of the organization changed from one of silos, largely indifferent to one another, to one of intensive cross-functional alignment, with a strong feeling of mutual commitment.”

  tags: innovation #MustRead

  • Establishing that kind of advantage—unique product attributes, supported by a differentiated set of capabilities to buoy them up—is harder than it seems at first glance. Essentially, it involves making a big bet on a very few capabilities, and giving up all the other activities that don’t feed into that commitment.

• Seth’s Blog: Learn together

  “It’s easy to be exposed to education, but actually quite a challenge to learn.”

  tags: #MustRead learning

• 21st c. competencies as transfer: NRC’s Educating for Life and Work | 21k12

  “21st century competencies are the outcomes of deeper learning; they are what students are able to do and demonstrate by leveraging their previous learning to transfer to real world problem solving and life long learning.”

  tags: competencies transfer 21C 21k12 DeeperLearning #MustRead ubd

• American Education and the IQ Trap | The Creativity Post

  tags: Testing IQ ability gifted growth mindset mindset #MustRead

• Playing with Professional Development (Literally) | The Creativity Post

  “But sometimes, putting teachers and students out of their comfort zones can encourage them to interact and design solutions with one another.”

  tags: professional development creativity space time curriculum #MustRead engagement innovation

• What Makes Real Leaders – 99U

  tags: leadership #MustRead

• Walt Disney On Fullfillment – 99U

  The 4 Cs at the heart of the other Cs.

  tags: #MustRead

• Why the Maker Movement matters to educators | SmartBlogs SmartBlogs

  “Giving kids the opportunity to learn about what they love means they will love what they learn.”

  Great “Lessons from the Maker Movement”

  tags: maker design makered #MustRead

• Not Too Hard, Not Too Easy: Finding Flow In Your Work – 99U

  Not the best piece I’ve read on Flow, but still a great thought-provoker on how we might design for flow in school.

  tags: flow motivation self-efficacy #MustRead

• Parents: 19 Meaningful Questions You Should Ask Your Child’s Teacher | Edutopia

  What if “back-to-school night/day” for parents was handled by preemptively addressing these Qs as a faculty?!

  tags: parents questions edutopia #MustRead

• How You Climb A Mountain Is More Important Than Reaching The Top

  tags: process #MustRead How

• Debunking the Genius Myth | MindShift

  “It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.” Einstein 

  tags: Mindset #MustRead genius Brain-based perseverance persistence

• Do You Assume the Best? | Connected Principals

  tags: leadership assumethebest #MustRead

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

• Incomplete Manifesto for Growth

  @boadams1 @scitechyEDU u may have seen this before… http://t.co/Ww60nXEdfY #dtk12chat [HT @bombayscot]

  Love this manifesto!

  tags: manifesto design inspiration innovation growth learning #MustRead

• Medical Schools Prepare Students to Navigate a New Flood of Biodata – Administration – The Chronicle of Higher Education

  I often hear K-12 folks say something like, “But the universities and professional schools have the leverage on what we do in K-12.” Well, I feel like I see more and more evidence and sharing about universities and professional schools shifting and transforming. So, is that excuse for K-12 nearly gone?

  tags: instruction critical thinking criticalthinking #MustRead

• 7 building blocks for the future of schools | @mcleod

  “If I had the chance to build a new school organization (or redesign an existing one), I would start by attending to the educational movements listed below.” [HT Edutopia and MindShift for find]

  tags: futureofed future of schools Future of Learning #MustRead

• Why My Six-Year-Olds Blog (And Why Your Students Should, Too) — THE Journal

  “In a digital world, learners of every age should be taking their first steps toward establishing an online presence. Here’s why.”

  tags: blog writing eportfolios elementary digitalfootprint #MustRead Online_learning

• Are You Ready for the Post-College SAT? – WSJ.com

  “The test [CLA+] is part of a movement to find new ways to assess the skills of graduates. Employers say grades can be misleading and that they have grown skeptical of college credentials.”

  tags: assessment career-ready college #MustRead professional learning

• Inquiry: The Cornerstone of Teaching–Part I

  tags: inquiry #MustRead

  • In the Global Thinking Project teachers from different cultures came together to develop a curriculum was inquiry-based and involved students in solving local problems, as well thinking globally about these problems by participating in a global community of practice.  Inquiry was at the heart of the project.
  • Inquiry is the sin qua non of experiential teaching and learning.
  • classrooms organized as democratic spaces encourage imagination
  • Becoming an inquiry teacher is a life-long phenomenon that emerges from the craft of teaching in the context of classrooms and schools that advocate professional collaboration and a pursuit of wisdom in teaching.

• Increase Your Potential by Thinking Like a Rookie – Explore. Create. Repeat. – by 4ormat

  “What creative doors can we open when we start thinking like a rookie? Is it possible to reclaim that sense of unlimited potential for growth we had at the beginning of our careers?”

  tags: innovation transformation change beginnersmind #MustRead

• Why I spent 10th grade online – The Washington Post

  Great account of a learning sabbatical engaged by a tenth grader. Relates some pros/cons of traditional and emerging schooling. (HT @occam98)

  tags: Online_learning hybrid self-initiated sabbatical #MustRead engagement

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

• Learning Walks: “Instructional Rounds” for your school

  tags: learning walks #MustRead Wagner leadership professional learning

• http://atlas.edupunksguide.org/index.html

  The EduPunks’ Atlas
  “What’s this? Mapping education’s evolving landscape; a sortable database of educational resources from the Edupunks’ Guide and around the web.”

  tags: education learning courses resources edupunk professional development professional learning #MustRead

• Chaos and Creativity: Forum | KQED Public Media for Northern CA

  “Fostering chaos in the workplace may not be an obvious route to business success. But in his new book “The Chaos Imperative”, Ori Brafman advocates the use of “contained chaos” to encourage and develop innovation. We talk to Brafman and creativity expert Keith Sawyer about how to achieve the most productive balance between structure and chaos.”

  tags: creativity design thinking chaos innovation #MustRead

• 1 | SparkTruck: A “Bookmobile” That Brings Rapid Prototyping to School Kids | Co.Design: business + innovation + design

  “THE TRUCK CONTAINS TWO 3-D PRINTERS, A LASER CUTTER, SEWING MACHINES, AND A CLAY OVEN—AND ITS MEANT TO FOSTER A NEW GENERATION OF MAKERS.”

  tags: makerspace design thinking prototype learning environment space #MustRead

• Guerrilla Geography – National Geographic Education

  Be an explorer. Be a guerrilla geographer. [HT @jennynovoselsky]

  tags: geography exploration observation #MustRead #MustSee

• 10 of the Most Counterintuitive Pieces of Advice from Famous Entrepreneurs | The Creativity Post

  Not sure I agree with the “Goals” advice, but the other contradictory suggestions resonate with me for school and Ed innovation.

  tags: Innovation entrepreneurship #MustRead leadership

• How Bezos, in his first memo to Washington Post staff, achieved believable optimism | Poynter.

  Amazing piece of communication and leadership. 

  tags: communication leadership #MustRead Bezos post

• 5: Anything can be prototyped. You can prototype with anything. | metacool

  “A wise person operates with the worldview that anything can be prototyped, and we can prototype with anything.”

  tags: prototype design thinking designthinking DEEP #MustRead

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

• Welcome to the Mathematics Assessment Project

  tags: Math assessment #MustRead #EDUC115N

• http://www.cuip.net/~cac/nlu/tie512win10/articles/Inquiry%20Modeling%20and%20Metacognition-%20Making%20Science%20Accessible%20to%20All%20Students.pdf

  Academic article on research surrounding the effects of peer + self assessment on achievement. Developing a heightened sense of what one knows. Meta-cognition and mindset.

  tags: motivation assessment mindset evaluation performance #MustRead #EDUC115N

• ENHANCING AND UNDERMINING INTRINSIC MOTIVATION: THE EFFECTS OF TASK-INVOLVING AND EGO-INVOLVING EVALUATION ON INTEREST AND PERFORMANCE – BUTLER – 2011 – British Journal of Educational Psychology – Wiley Online Library

  Academic article on research surrounding the differences in 1) giving grades, 2) giving diagnostic feedback, and 3) giving both. Developing a heightened sense of what one knows. Meta-cognition and mindset.

  tags: motivation assessment grading feedback mindset evaluation performance #MustRead #EDUC115N

• Finding Ways to Nguyen Students Over: When I Let Them Own the Problem

  I’m engaged in a Stanford MOOC called “How to Learn Math” offered by Dr. Jo Boaler. It is amazing and integrated with Dweck’s work in Growth Mindset. This example of a math re-design is a wonderful case study of big, open problems vs. small, closed problems.

  tags: math problem_based_learning #MustRead EDUC115N

• How Your Brain Reacts To Mistakes Depends On Your Mindset – Association for Psychological Science

  “people who think they can learn from their mistakes have a different brain reaction to mistakes than people who think intelligence is fixed.”

  tags: mindset #MustRead innovation

• Peter Sims, on Finding Creativity Through Imperfection – NYTimes.com

  “This is how comedians and entrepreneurs must work — by making countless small bets to discover what works. The real genius is in the approach.

  The same holds true for leaders, managers and collaborators. They must to be willing to learn from mistakes. Affordable risks should be encouraged, and small failures celebrated — these are the mark of learning organizations. Otherwise, risk aversion will lead to stagnation and decline.”

  tags: creativity innovation mistakes entrepreneurship #MustRead ooching bullets_then_canonballs

• 8 Tips and Tricks to Redesign Your Classroom | Edutopia

  Incredible case study and resource curation for space redesign of learning environments (“classrooms”)!

  tags: classroom edutopia redesign design space 3rdTeacher learning environment #MustRead

• I Believe in One Size Fits All Professional Development

  A great piece about doing what we know works, as a team, with “band adjustments” so that PL (PD) does, in fact, fit all, instead of none.

  tags: pd professional development professional learning #MustRead bestpractices

• Rebuilding Joplin High School | DesignRealized Adaptive Reuse Course

  This is a different kind of #MustRead – a web session about…

  “A 55 DAY DESIGN & CONSTRUCTION PROJECT
  A deadly tornado tore through Joplin, Missouri last May 22, and leveled the town’s high school. School officials were determined that school would start on time on August 17, just 55 days later.
  This session takes a look at the condensed design and construction process of transforming a vacant big box retail store into a 21st Century learning environment. It demonstrates how community involvement and a committed team created a space that surpassed all expectations.”

  tags: adaptive reuse space design Joplin #MustRead

• Barrington Irving: ‘Classroom in the Sky’ project by Florida pilot includes key Wichita stop | Wichita Eagle – newsle

  It’s past time that we rethink what we mean by “classroom.”

  tags: classroom space curriculum time #MustRead

• Diana Laufenberg: Classroom Redesign Challenge! Think Like a Designer | MindShift – newsle

  What if there were a show on HGTV about classroom redesign? Like “Design on a Dime” or “Trading Spaces.” But for learning environments in schools!

  tags: classroom design space #MustRead

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