Teaching & Learning Blog

Next Gen Learning in Action

This blog offered perspectives from educators engaged in redesigning the future of public schools. This blog is no longer being updated.

Professional Development Opinion New Year Resolution = Habit
If you want to achieve certain goals in 2018 or build on certain relationships, the most effective thing you can do on New Year's Day is to resolve to focus on the habits necessary to achieve such goals.
Contributing Blogger, December 27, 2017
3 min read
Professional Development Opinion Professional Development Reimagined: What It Means for Teaching and Teachers
What happens when teachers are given the same learning experiences as students? It's transformative.
Contributing Blogger, December 26, 2017
4 min read
School Climate & Safety Opinion A New Education Research-Practice Center: Early. Personal. Relevant.
The International Center for Educational Research and Practice aspires to address the challenge of "inter-sectionality of thought." Bringing research and practice together is the only way school districts and their communities can create the learning environments that will prepare today's students for tomorrow's future.
Contributing Blogger, December 22, 2017
6 min read
Professional Development Opinion A Student's Most Important Lesson: Learning How To Learn
To prepare students for a lifetime of learning, empower them with choice in how they consume and learn content.
Contributing Blogger, December 21, 2017
6 min read
Personalized Learning Opinion The Teacher's Role in a Student's Independent Learning Journey
What do you think of when you hear independent learning? Many people imagine students on laptops. But when integrated with a holistic personalized learning model that includes multiple learning modalities, it can be much more than that.
Contributing Blogger, December 20, 2017
4 min read
School Climate & Safety Opinion Please, No More Rigor!
Today I grapple with one of the real conundrums I wrestle with all the time: how do we push students to do a level and quality of work they don't necessarily believe they can do? And at some point, I referred to this as "the rigor question."
Contributing Blogger, December 19, 2017
3 min read
Personalized Learning Opinion It Takes a Village: Talent Cities at Vista Unified
Dropping out is not a high school problem; it's a middle school problem. How do we hook students early and show that what they are learning is relevant? This edition of NGLC's Practitioner's Guide to Next Gen Learning is the second of a two-part series about leveraging strong community partnerships to provide real-world learning to students in middle and high school.
Contributing Blogger, December 15, 2017
5 min read
Assessment Opinion A Year in the Making: Lessons My New Year's Resolution Taught Me about Next Gen Learning
What can you learn about next gen learning by taking a new creative class each month? The first takeaway Liza Veto of NGLC had was that Making provides a different kind of learning than most traditional schools offer.
Contributing Blogger, December 13, 2017
5 min read
School & District Management Opinion It Takes a Village: Community Partnerships for Real-World Learning
This edition of Friday Focus: Practitioner's Guide to Next Gen Learning is the first of a two-part series about three school systems that are leveraging strong community partnerships to provide real-world learning to students in middle and high school.
Contributing Blogger, December 11, 2017
10 min read
School Climate & Safety Opinion Why a High-Achieving School is Reinventing Itself
As a high achieving school in Colorado Springs School District 11, Chipeta Elementary has embarked on a school-wide change process. The simple answer is that we can always do better.
Contributing Blogger, December 7, 2017
2 min read
Assessment Opinion Mo'olelo: Building a Culturally Responsive Framework for Assessment
We've produced a series of podcasts to share the voices of students, educators, and others who are reimagining assessment and experiencing assessment for learning. The first podcast, fittingly, profiles a project that grounds assessment in the Hawaiian practice of mo'olelo (storytelling) to build a culturally responsive framework for assessment.
Contributing Blogger, December 5, 2017
4 min read
Professional Development Opinion Unstoppable PD
3 key formative ideas for teacher professional development to prepare students for tomorrow in the context of a deeply historical societal problem: generational poverty.
Contributing Blogger, December 1, 2017
4 min read
School Climate & Safety Opinion Yes, We Can Define, Teach, and Assess Critical Thinking Skills
Critical thinking is a thing. We can define it; we can teach it; and we can assess it.
Contributing Blogger, November 27, 2017
6 min read
Assessment Opinion Real-World Learning at the Workshop School
For this edition of Friday Focus: Practitioner's Guide to Next Gen Learning, we spoke to Matt Riggan, co-founder of the Workshop School in Philadelphia.
Contributing Blogger, November 27, 2017
9 min read