Information Age Education Blog

I am a regular reader of the (free) ASCD SmartBrief. Quoting from the 9/9/2010 (http://www.smartbrief.com/servlet/ArchiveServlet?issueid=539D4C89-3ABF-4700-9FA9-4E814961C5C2&lmid=archives) issue:

Philadelphia high school implements mastery-learning model
Class is back in session in Philadelphia, where educators are working to raise achievement at six schools designated by Superintendent Arlene Ackerman as Promise Academies. One high school is adopting the mastery-learning model of instruction. The approach uses pass-fail ratings instead of letter grades and allows students to progress through subjects at their own pace.

The TED videos are one of my favorite sources of information. Recently I viewed Sugata Mitra: The child-driven education. This 17-minute video is available free online at http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html.

Mitra, along many other teachers, feels that: “Children will learn to do what they want to do.” Quoting from the video listed above:

At lunch today I spent time talking to Bob Sylwester, my co-author of the Information Age Education Newsletter available free at http://iae-pedia.org/IAE_Newsletter. We talked about his experiences in teaching in a one-room school, and how collaborative learning and older students helping younger students was the norm in those one-room schools of the “good old days.”

The article Peer Pedagogy: Student Collaboration and Reflection in a Learning-Through-Design Project (http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=15198) caught my attention later in the afternoon. In 2008 research involving a mixed class of 4^th-5^th  grader students studying science, the authors report:

Last spring I taught a distance education graduate course titled “Increasing the Math Maturity of K-8 Students and Their Teachers.” The course was sponsored by the PrISM Oregon (Preparation for Instruction of Science & Math) project funded by FIPSE (Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education).

Recently I "cleaned up" the detailed syllabus for that course, checked all of the links, and added an Appendix as a non-required supplemental reading. The syllabus is available at http://i-a-e.org/downloads/doc_download/201-extended-syllabus-for-prism-course.html.

In December, 2009, the National Science Foundation sponsored a workshop on the future of STEM education.  See http://www.mathcurriculumcenter.org/conferences/stem/index.php. Pay special attention to the "Reflections Papers" article by Sherry Hsi.

Note: In attempting to retrieve this paper on 9/17/2012 I was led to http://www.lawrencehallofscience.org/staff/committees/allhalllearning/2010/BlueSky/Reflection_STEM-BlueSky.pdf. Here is a paragraph from the 2009 paper: