Posts in Category Teaching
IDEA Voices: Beth Sanders on Digital Learning Tools and Democratic Education
IDEA Digital Organizer and Social Studies teacher Beth Sanders uses tools such as Twitter and Google Hangouts in her classroom every day. This great video showcases a whole class worth of learning shot as part of Powerful Learning Practice's Virtual Classroom Visits series. Sanders and her students are using these digital learning tools to deepen their understanding of the Civil Rights Movement, and this video showcase their work on The Upstander Project. This project is driven by the essential question, "How can an individual influence the path of a nation?"
In this description Beth shares the learning that happened leading up to video and her learning goals for the lesson presented.
...Posted on Apr 14, 2013 - 08:49 PM by David Loitz
How to Honor the Art (& Science) of Teaching
Recently, I gave a TED talk outlining why I think we’re in the midst of the most exciting and difficult time to be a teacher in American history. These sorts of talks are always imperfect (and timed) efforts to inject new ideas into the stratosphere, but I received lots of nice comments and feedback, including some observations that only a mom – my mom, actually – would share (“Your posture was very relaxed, and you never even said ‘um’!”).It was another thing my mother said that struck me, though. “Do you feel sure that your audience knows what to do with all you've said?” she wrote.
Great point, and I’m not sure. So here, as simply as I can say it, are three specific things – some big,...
Posted on Oct 25, 2012 - 01:30 PM by Sam Chaltain
Power Dynamics with Young Children
Every community/school faces the challenge of dealing with peer pressure and bullying among children. As Dr. G so eloquently put it in a recent post, there is no such thing as a bully; instead “the vast majority of children and teens will find themselves in each of the three roles in any bullying encounter -- victim, bully, bystander -- on different occasions.” What we must learn to teach children is how to recognize and negotiate power relationships. I teach 5-7 year olds in a mixed-age classroom at The Patchwork School, a small independent school in Colorado influenced by three major educational approaches: democratic education, Reggio Emilia, and humane education. In our class,...
Posted on Sep 03, 2012 - 09:44 AM by Isaac Graves
A Public School Teacher and Student Discuss Democratic Education
It wasn't the first time a left-brained colleague had come to me with such a request. Stacy, the pragmatic and exceptional science teacher from the 7th grade hall, sent me a Facebook message, "If you don't mind, I may refer my little sister, Anna, to you…She is considering education, but is losing faith in our current...
Posted on Jun 20, 2012 - 08:20 PM by Leigh Pourciau
The Yellow Zone
Posted on May 22, 2012 - 01:05 PM by Megan Nesbeth
A conference that will matter after it is over
Justo Méndez Arámburu has had a very clear message about IDEC 2012 over the last two months.
“The most important day of IDEC 2012 is April 1st.”
That date is remarkable because it is the day after the conference is over.
In total, the conference will bring together over 750 young people, educators, community leaders, organizers, academics, and advocates from around the world and across Puerto Rico. But, the most profound accomplishment of conference organizers has happened even before the conference begins. Unlike so many other conferences, IDEC 2012 has been organized to have maximum impact in the lives of young people and communities in Puerto Rico after the international...
Posted on Mar 22, 2012 - 06:58 AM by Scott Nine
Teach for Humanity
This is a story about experience. Strangely enough, experience has the power to both sever and prompt connection. There are threads of my story—my experience—that are particular to me as a black child, a black woman, and an African immigrant. On the other hand, there are fibers in my story that are universal, and linked to my and your human self. I imagine that you will find things in my story that will surprise you, resonate with you, frustrate, and perhaps even anger you. I hope that all of the above will happen. When you arrive at the end of my story, I hope that you will be wrestling with your own experiences, struggling to understand how they have shaped you as a particular...
Posted on Oct 31, 2011 - 03:15 PM by Esther Ohito
Knowing and I Don’t Knowing
As the coordinator for the Detroit Future Schools program, I get to visit 12 classrooms all over the Metro-Detroit area every month. Grades range from third grade up through twelfth. School focuses range from the basics to aeronautics. Class sizes ranging from ten to thirty-five students. I’m learning more right now about schooling and learning (the two are not synonymous) than I did as an undergrad earning my teaching certificate. Every class has a unique personality–a unique pulse–but one thing remains the same…
In every classroom I’ve visited, I hear the phrase “I don’t know.” It is most commonly used in response to a teacher asking a student a question and the student...
Posted on Oct 27, 2011 - 02:22 PM by Ammerah Saidi
Links and a Theory
I was going through old email messages when I came across a link a friend sent me about a contest. The link was dead, so I decided to shorten it to the main http. I was redirected to a site by the name of "energizestudents.org." They feature videos about the things that should change in education, have a running blog roll, polls, and the "your point of view" education video contest. This site reminds me a lot of what we're doing here at IDEA. So I invite you all to check out the link - it might lend itself to a cool connection.Other than that I've been pondering about the financial side of the education system. Schools complain that they aren't getting enough funding. Due to the issue of...
Posted on Jun 23, 2011 - 11:53 AM by Zuleka Irvin
Teacher Appreciation Week: Reflections from my childhood
Teachers have deeply impacted my life. Ok, not a revolutionary statement, but nevertheless true. During the school day, my third grade class and our teacher Dave took a trip to our local park just half a block down from the Governor's mansion in Albany, New York. While throwing a baseball back and forth with Dave, I experienced something I had never previously experienced in my life: a teacher talking to me as a person. We were discussing whether the Cardinals had a real shot at the pennant and it hit me, he actually wanted to know what I thought. He considered my opinions valid and wanted to have a real conversation with me. Did it matter that I was nine and he was twenty-seven?...
Posted on May 02, 2011 - 08:51 AM by Isaac Graves
IDEA Bloggers
- admin
- Jonah Canner
- Tanya Reza
- Ammerah Saidi
- Dana Bennis
- Alison Bagg Brink
- Khalif Williams
- Shawn Strader
- Tim Curley
- Darren Schwindaman
- Melia Dicker
- Claire Russell
- Scott Nine
- Kristan Morrison
- Adam Fletcher
- Sara Schmidt
- Laura Stine
- Luis Moreno
- Zuleka Irvin
- Cian Sawyer
- Jason Lacoste
- Esther Ohito
- Laura Chytka
- Manauvaskar Kublall
- Adam Burk
- IDEC 2012
- Dana Bennis 77
- Kelly Dillon
- David Loitz
- Kirsten Olson
- Isaac Graves
- Guest
- Leigh Pourciau
- Sabrina Stevens
- Susan Chen
- David Loitz 14
- Sam Chaltain
- Jesse Bason
- Beth Sanders
- Jonathan Carlisle
- Catherine Reynolds
- Nadya Vila
- Dana Bennis and David Loitz