Blog posts

Too often, school boards and districts, teachers, and parents use the Ostrich Safety Method: block everything and don’t talk about it. This is not a sound educational method.

"A wealth of scholarship reveals that students seem to learn as well in abbreviated courses as they do in longer ones, but we wanted to see which format students rate as more effective. We looked at effectiveness, as indicated by course instructor surveys, and found that intensive nine- and 11-week classes garnered significantly higher overall course ratings, even after controlling for class size, probable grade in course and workload."

<p>And before they set foot in a classroom, student teachers must examine their own cultural identity – race, gender, social class, even sexual orientation – so they are aware of the bias they may bring to a classroom.</p><p>"Our research shows who you are impacts how you deal with children, so the worst thing is to act colour-blind," said Solomon, whose urban diversity program has graduated more than 1,000 teachers over the past 14 years, many of whom have gone on to school leadership positions in the field of equity.</p>

"Teachers need to know more than the 3 R's; if you don't know the community your students live in – the social, the racial dynamics – you won't be as effective," said Solomon.

The 90-9-1 theory explains the percentage of a wiki's participation, breaking it down as readers being the highest percent, with minor contributors composing the 9 percent and enthusiastic and active contributors composing 1 percent of the total participants in a wiki.

While it is impossible to overcome this type of human behaviour, it is possible to change the participation distribution (i.e 80-16-4 where 80% are lurkers, 16% contribute a little and 4% contribute the most).

We know they are student centric, wholistic, they are teaching about how to learn as much as teaching about the subject area.

The ability for teachers to understand and add value to the comment ‘back channel’ is a key skill for the ‘connected teacher’. Anyone can swap an writing pad for a blog, there is no value in that. The back channel is the conversation, and is the heartbeat of thought.

I can’t think of another way in which teachers can get such immediate access to the ‘thinking’ process that is playing out in front of them.

<li>online learning communities are grown, not built </li> <li>online learning communities need leaders </li> <li>personal narrative is vital to online learning communities.</li>

<p>He gives a set of mantras for teacher/leaders in any online community:</p> <ul> <li>all you need is love </li> <li>control the environment, not the group </li> <li>lead by example </li> <li>let lurkers lurk </li> <li>short leading questions get conversations going </li> <li>be personally congratulatory and inquisitive </li> <li>route information in all directions </li> <li>care about the people in the community; this cannot be faked </li> <li>understand consensus and how to build it, and sense when it's been built and just not recognised, and when you have to make a decision despite all the talking.</li></ul>