Best Practices in Education

"The top ten ‘in demand’ jobs in 2010 didn’t exist in 2004 – so we’re “preparing students for jobs that don’t exist yet, using technology that hasn’t yet been invented, in order to solve problems that we don’t even know are problems yet.

- Richard Riley. Past US Secretary of Education (1993-2001)

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Across the nation, there is a growing consensus that schools must change in fundamental ways if they are to accomplish the goals we now have for them: teaching our very diverse student population for higher order thinking and deep understanding. The system we work in today was invented nearly 100 years ago for another time and another mission—the processing of large numbers of students for rote skills and the education of only a few for knowledge work. It was never designed to teach all children to high levels.
Caring and dedicated teachers, administrators, and parents work hard every day within this system to educate our children for more ambitious thinking and performance skills—and yet their efforts are often stymied by outmoded institutional structures, most notably the large, impersonal, factory-model school.

A growing number of educators and policymakers believe that existing assembly-line schools that inhibit our students’ and teachers’ potential need to be replaced by smaller schools that are better designed to support teaching and learning. And we have evidence that small schools are indeed better for our children: All else equal, they produce higher achievement, lower dropout rates, greater attachment, and more participation in the curricular and extracurricular activities that prepare students for productive lives. There is real potential for the current small schools movement to transform the educational landscape in America for the better. Read more.

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Project Based Learning offers opportunities for students to learn by applying core knowledge to real world issues while working on real projects.

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Service Learning. Learning while serving communities.

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21st Century Learning. Across the country, there is a refreshing and growing movement to improve America’s high schools by teaching 21st Century Skills.

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Beyond the Basics. History offers many explanations for why people should acquire what today we typically term a “broad, liberal-arts education.” Prominent thinkers and leaders over the centuries have expounded on the virtues of such learning. Aristotle said liberal education is necessary if one is to act “nobly.” Benjamin Franklin said it was needed in order to cultivate “the best capacities” in humans. And Einstein found in liberal learning the locus for imagination, which he deemed more important than raw knowledge.

Beyond the Basics: Achieving a Liberal Education for All Children

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Global Learning. The global marketplace and the workplace in which today’s students will be involved are rapidly changing. Most jobs they will have in the future don’t exist today. Global learning goes beyond crossing the bridge and attending a school out of our community.

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Social and emotional intelligence. It's not enough to simply fill a students' brain with facts. A successful education demands that their character be developed as well.

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Character education holds that widely shared, pivotally important, core ethical values—such as caring, honesty, fairness, responsibility, and respect for self and others—form the basis of good character

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Arts in education. The Arts improve vocabulary and reading comprehension.  The Arts enhance self-esteem, creative thinking, problem solving and communication skills. The Arts enrich, enlighten and educate.

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The National High School Alliance is a partnership of nearly fifty organizations representing a diverse cross-section of perspectives and approaches, but sharing a common commitment to promoting the excellence, equity, and development of high school-age youth. A Call to Action: Transforming High School for All Youth 

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Do schools kill creativity?

Creativity expert Sir Ken Robinson (biography) challenges the way we are educating our children. He champions a radical rethink of our school systems, to cultivate creativity and acknowledge multiple types of intelligence. Sir Ken Robinson makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines)

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Redesigning High Schools

Educational researchers have found that, all else equal, in comparison to large schools, small schools tend to have:

• better attendance rates

• stronger academic achievement

• lower dropout rates

• higher grades

• fewer failed courses

• greater participation in activities

• less vandalism and violence

• fewer behavioral incidents

Visit the School Redesign Network at Stanford University website at http://www.srnleads.org/ o read their report on high school redesign.

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See some samples of best practices in action within "traditional" public schools:

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Key Largo School: Using Technology to Understand How the Brain Learns

We do not have to travel far to see how innovating programs are shaping the future of education.  Technology use based on brain research gives students an edge at Key Largo School.

 

More to this story.

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The role of technology in the curriculum:

Technology is ubiquitous, touching almost every part of out lives, our communities, our homes. Yet most schools lag far behind when it comes to integrating technology into classroom learning. Many are just beginning to explore the true potential tech offers for teaching and learning. Properly used, technology will help students acquire the skills they need to survive in a complex, highly technological knowledge-based economy.
                                 

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Learning Landscape: Kids Monitor Terrain with Tech

Students at this Minnesota elementary school use new technology to study the ancient ecology of a vast prairie wetland.

 

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Harrison Central High School: A Commitment to High Tech

Sophisticated electronic gadgets such as probes and global-positioning-system devices catch students' interest.

 

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References:

30 Strategies for Educational Reform.

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These are ideas for you to explore. We will continue to expand on these topics. Is there a theme you would like to explore? Let us know. Send us your comments.

As we move firmly into the conceptual age, our professional success will depend on our ability to think on our feet – be very agile if you will. Be creative thinkers, be critical thinkers, be social learners.

- Prakash Nair
Fielding Nair International

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The World has changed. See video here