Are Teachers Taught How to Manage Classes?

The National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) report, “Training Our Future Teachers: Classroom Management,” says that teacher education isn’t doing its job when it comes to classroom management. Instead of tackling how to run a smooth and efficient classroom and create a good learning environment, teachers go through programs that emphasize instruction. While learning how to instruct is necessary, if a teacher can’t handle a class, he or she will never make it to the instruction. Notably missing from most teacher education programs were “strategies that impose consistent consequences for misbehavior, foster student engagement, and—most markedly—use praise and other means to reinforce positive behavior.” Other important techniques teachers should include in the management toolbox include: establishing rules, expectations, and routines.

With the addition of technology tools and resources into the curriculum, it seems even more necessary to help teachers learn about proven techniques in order to avoid disruptive behaviors in the classroom.

BYOD—Bring Your Own Disaster

Tech&Learning, together with Intel, offers the white paper, “Don’t Let BYOD Stand for ‘Bring Your Own Disaster’.”  To initiate a BYOD program, schools need to implement plans that include teacher training, student guidance, and an infrastructure that can handle a variety of devices. Although, it may sound good and may seem the reasonable and cost-effective path to allow students to bring their own devices, you’ll need to consider how teachers will handle the program in their classrooms. Are they prepared for BYOD? What content will they use? Is your network ready for BYOD? Are your tech people ready for BYOD? Will your administrators take the lead? What rules will you need? What professional development will be offered? The white paper covers all these issues and more.

Keeping Up with Technology

Barry Saide, Inservice Guest Blogger, ASCD, likens learning about technology to training for a 5K race. Teachers and administrators worry that they don’t know what they need to know and, as advances in technology move forward, their worries escalate. According to Saide, getting attuned to technology you use in the classroom is like preparing for a marathon. Taking on the challenge of learning what you need to know can be divided into small steps. Keep in mind that you don’t need to learn everything at once, that the digital world doesn’t always work, and that you can ask for help. Saide suggests that you give in to becoming a student, learn from your mistakes, and be creative about how you take on your learning.

Coursera Has 80 New Courses

The best teachers are always learning, be it on their own or through credit courses. One of the most convenient ways to learn what you want when you want at the right price (free) is through Coursera. Maybe you or your students want to jump into songwriting, explore digital signal processing, take on quantum physics, learn about comic books, or discover if plants have senses. You’ll find courses on these topics and more in the new Coursera catalog.  Check it out because you won’t believe how much is there for you and your students—cryptography, nanotechnology, Common Core, Surviving Your Rookie Year of Teaching, genetics, critical thinking, bioelectricity, Latin American Culture, Malicious Software, English Composition . . .

Digital Classrooms for Teachers

John Wiley & Sons publishers, together with the American Graphics Institute, offer an e-learning system that, at this time, includes more than 3000 videos, learning tutorials, and over 50 digital books. It’s a comprehensive online learning resource that offers a blended learning experience. The Classroom helps teachers, parents, and students learn about apps, operating systems, Web design, and graphic design techniques. For individuals, the cost is $20 a month or $10 a month with a year’s subscription. Group rates are available.

Pearson Research & Innovation Network

The School of Thought video series, by Pearson, demonstrates how technology integrates smoothly into everyday life and learning. The focus of the series is to show how “innovative connections among technology, educational psychology, and cognitive neuroscience can change how we think about learning.” The five videos are part of Pearson’s Research & Innovation Network and feature some of the products included in Pearson’s vision of the future. You’ll especially enjoy the videos featuring the students Rey and Victoria.

Change Mindsets to Change Schools

J. Robinson in the Tech & Learning Advisor Blog tells us that installing technologies in our classrooms isn’t the way to bring about change, since many teachers will continue as they have always done and as their predecessors did before.  What we need to do is to “stop automating the twentieth century ways of teaching and learning” to move forward.  If the mindset of teachers doesn’t change, teaching won’t change. —But, Robinson doesn’t tell us how to accomplish a change in mindset.

Of course, some teachers have already changed, and they are helping others to follow. Isn’t that what Apple’s Classrooms of Tomorrow research said many years ago—be patient, because you can’t force change? Perhaps, for all classrooms to change, those tech savvy kids of today will need to jump into tomorrow’s classrooms.

Teachscape Win Professional Development Award

The 2013 Golden Lamp Award for Professional Development, presented by the Association of Educational Publishers went to The Teachscape Effectiveness Platform. The online product helps schools and districts by providing observation and evaluation tools. Teachscape was honored for the Platform’s “teacher friendliness, wealth of information and streamlined time-saving approach . . . .”

iPad Mistakes to Avoid

Tom Daccord, in his Edudemic piece, warns us about five critical mistakes schools make when using iPads in classrooms. These include “Focusing on content apps”, “Lack of teacher preparation in classroom management of iPads”, “Treating the iPad as a computer and expecting it to serve as a laptop”, “Treating iPads like multi-use devices”, and “Failure to communicate a compelling answer to ‘Why iPads?’”. 

Although, many schools and teachers are eager to jump into digital device use with students, critical mistakes like these can ruin iPad initiatives.  Daccord suggests we think beyond content apps as we look to integration tools and strategies and content from sources other then apps. In other words, if an app for a particular part of course content cannot be found, that doesn’t mean iPads can’t be used effectively for that content. Essential ingredients in iPad initiative success are: providing time and guidance to help teachers with using iPads in the classroom; having enough iPads for 1-1 integration; and helping teachers, parents, and students understand that iPads are unique devices and not mobile computers.

TED Ed: Lessons Worth Sharing

Take the tour of TED Ed to see how you can use videos that are on the Internet to create super lessons.  On the site, you can also look at lessons others have created, and if you think you can use them in your courses, you can change them to fit your students and your curriculum. Lessons are listed by category such as mathematics, health, literature and language, social studies, and science and technology. Some of those that are called “Best Flips” or exceptional lessons featured are: Atoms from A to Easy!, Pi with Pies, The Secret to Rising Sea Levels, The Dawn of Art, and What is Nano?