Day: September 25, 2014

Dr. John Hattie, from the University of Melbourne in Australia, has written several incredible books, including his latest one – Visible Learning and the Science of How We Learn. His books represents the largest-ever collection of evidence-based research about the strategies and approaches that work and the strategies and approaches that don’t work in improving learning in the classroom. Hattie’s books are amazing – he has done more than 1000 meta-analyses of tens of thousands of studies that involved tens of millions of students that shows the effect size of using different instructional strategies. An effect size is a quantitative measure of the effectiveness of using a specific teaching and learning strategy. He has identified the effect size of more than 50 educational strategies used today – some of which have been in use for 100 years. His research is remarkable because it definitively dismisses some of the longstanding beliefs, assumptions and practices that continue to be used in the classroom today.

Posted by Ian Jukes

Original Source

http://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/

John Hattie developed a way of ranking various influences in different meta-analyses according to their effect sizes. In his ground-breaking study “Visible Learning” he ranked those influences which are related to learning outcomes from very positive effects to very negative effects on student achievement. Hattie found that the average effect size of all the interventions he studied was 0.40. Therefore he decided to judge the success of influences relative to this ‘hinge point’, in order to find an answer to the question “What workAs best in education?”

Hattie studied six areas that contribute to learning: the student, the home, the school, the curricula, the teacher, and teaching and learning approaches. But Hattie did not merely provide a list of the relative effects of the different influences on student achievement. He also tells the story underlying the data. He found that the key to making a difference was making teaching and learning visible. He further explained this story in his book “Visible learning for teachers“.

Here is an overview of the Hattie effect size list that contains 138 influences and effect sizes across all areas related to student achievement. The list visualized here is related to Hattie (2009) Visible Learning. Hattie constantly updates this list with more meta studies. You can find an updated version in Hattie (2011) Visible Learning for Teachers.

I’ve really enjoyed the articles posted by from fractuslearning.com – lots of very topical, useful stuff. This is a terrific September 22, 2014 article by Wade Gegan. Note that some of the sites do bring up commercial images. I found that Photo Pin and Flickr were pretty much the “F Word”…free!!!

Posted by Ian Jukes

Original Source
 

Overview

Photos, logos, graphics and images are an important part of any multimedia creation that students produce. A few well placed, high quality images ca

n transform class work from amateur to spectacularly professional. So, unless you plan on taking your own photographs or creating your own artwork, finding legitimate Creative Commons images is an essential digital skill.

To help students (and teachers) navigate and understand the often confusing space that is digital copyright, here are five tools that we recommend using to to search, reference, attribute and download Creative Commons images.

1. Photo Pin

Photo Pin is one of the best tools for using with students for both the results it returns and its focus on correct image attribution. My favorite feature is to sort results by what they call ‘interestingness’, this places the images that just look great first. When selecting an image, you are given links to download all image sizes as well as a ready made html block giving the correct reference and attribution to the image creator.

2. Iconfinder

Iconfinder is a little different to other Creative Commons image searches as it specializes in returning icons and logos. The tools is especially useful if students are looking for well known brand logos or are trying to find generic glyphs and symbols to place in their work. I find the detailed filtering options especially useful in Iconfinder, allowing you to refine results by styles such as flat, handdrawn, 3D and much more.

3. Pixabay

Pixabay is a very popular image search tool among educators due to its huge catalogue of hand picked photos, vectors and art illustrations. One feature that can help students think outside the box when searching, is the ability to browse by tags. This means students can find an image close to what they want and then click associated tags to find similar images.

4. Flickr (Creative Commons)

The original and some would say the best source for Creative Commons images, Flickr has an amazing selection of amateur and professional Creative Commons photos available for use. Although the level of filtering and browsability may not be as full featured as Photo Pin or Pixabay, the interface is beautiful and slick and it is a wonderful experience to browse.

5. Freepik

Created originally for graphic and web designers, Freepik’s image collection revolves more around vectors, icons and illustrations. These graphic designs and often modern artwork can be used directly by students, but are also an excellent source of inspiration if creating their own digital pieces.

Links and Next Steps

• Creative Commons: About The Licenses -Details on CC image licensing
• Choosing a License – Interactive tool to help define the right license
• Wikimedia Commons – Database of 22,836,421 freely usable media files
• Flickr: The Commons – Share hidden treasures from the world’s public photography archives
• Getty images – Royalty free image search
• The Best Online Sources For Images – Huge list by Larry Ferlazzo
• The Educator’s Guide to Copyright, Fair Use, and Creative Commons

What tools have you used to help students find Creative Commons images? Let us know your picks in the comments below.

Feature image courtesy of Flickr, Giuli-O.

Katie Lepi from Edudemic lays out in simple terms a consumer’s guide to the Creative Commons in this September 14, 2014 article.

Posted by Ian Jukes

Original Source

Enter Creative Commons. (And thank goodness). The Creative Commons licenses allow any internet user to easily understand how they can (and can not) share what they find on the web. The licenses are visual, and if you aren’t sure of what you see on the work you’d like to use, you can refer back to the CC website to see. The handy infographic below gives a pretty thorough overview of the licenses and what they mean. Whether you have a personal blog, a class blog, or your students want to use a photo they’ve found in a presentation, this guide will be super handy!

Guide To Creative Commons Licenses

• More than 90% of CC photos on the web are not attributed
• More then 99% of CC photos on the web are not attributed properly!
• ALL CC licenses allow you to: copy the work, distribute it, display it publicly, make it digital, and shift it verbatim into another digital form (eg: pdf to jpg)
• ALL CC licenses: Apply worldwide, last for the duration of the copyright, are non revocable, and are not exclusive
• There are conditions that may be applied beyond that. For example, some say: You must attribute the work, you may not make money off the work, you may not make a derivative of the work, or you may distribute derivative works only under the same license as the original work
• It is preferable to place your attribution below the photo (for photos), or at the bottom of a blog post (if you’re sharing online).

This article was originally written by Laura Devaney for eSchool News on September 17, 2014.  It outlines five steps to building a problem-solving culture. These include Conjecture, Communications, Collaboration, Chaos and Celebration.

Posted by Ian Jukes

Original Source
 

Problem solving is one of today’s top skills—students who apply problem-solving strategies in the classroom are building important talents for college and the workforce. The math classroom is one of the best places to help students build these skills.

Creating a culture of problem solving in a math classroom or in a school involves prompting students and educators to think a little differently and systemically.

“The world does not need more people who are good at math,” said Gerald Aungst [2], supervisor of gifted and elementary mathematics in Pennsylvania’s Cheltenhamn Township Schools. “What the world needs are more problem solvers and more innovators.”

“We want people who are innovators, and don’t assume that what people tell them is impossible is impossible,” Aungst said during an edWeb leadership webinar [3].

One of the most important mindsets comes in realizing that, even in math, the context of a statement makes all the difference. Students should understand more than just the mechanics of math, Aungst said—they should investigate the context, the meaning, and how math problems and concepts work in a particular situation.

The five steps to building a problem-solving culture aren’t quick fixes or easy tips, Aungst said, but can be impactful when applied with the bigger picture of the classroom environment in mind.

Conjecture

“Our need to have things explained is as strong an impulse in our kids, and in us, as being hungry and thirsty,” Aungst said. “The problem with how we usually teach math is that we take all that wondering away.”

Educators usually teach math by laying out the facts, showing them processes, and asking students to practice until they achieve “mechanical perfection”–students have nothing to wonder about.

“One element of conjecture is being able to provoke that sense of wonder in kids, and allowing them to look for explanations and let that drive keep them engaged,” Aungst said.

But it goes deeper than that, he said.

“It’s about students not just solving problems–it’s about them looking for problems, too,” he added. “Innovators are looking for problems and they try to solve them before anyone even realizes the problem exists. We need innovators. Math class is a great place to start doing that.”

Educators should strive to avoid ending with the answer. Instead, they should ask students why they think the answer is what it is, how they arrived at the answer, if other answers are possible, if other methods of solving are possible, if students encountered difficulty, and if so, how they overcame it.

Digital tools to support conjecture include:
http://data.gov [4]
http://edte.ch/blog/maths-maps [5]
http://www.geogebra.org [6]

Communication

When students are able to explain their thought processes and understanding, their own knowledge increases.

One way to promote better math learning is to think of math as if it were a foreign language.

“If all we’re doing is teaching students how to move the symbols around and get an answer out of it, without embedding meaning into that, then the meaning behind the math is completely lost,” he said. “Learning how to do math is like learning how to read a foreign language.”

Students should be able to explain, in their own words, what numbers and symbols mean and represent.

Instead of asking students to show their work, ask them to convince mathematical experts that their solution is a good one–students understand what they do, but communicating it to someone else is a challenge.

Digital tools for communication include:
Infographics such as http://piktochart.com [7] and http://infogr.am [8]
Social media (speaking to others about the math students are doing)
YouTube and Vine
Classroom blogs

Collaboration

“Problem solving in the real world is nearly always collaborative,” Aungst said. “In fact, competition might even serve to dampen innovation. We want to get our kids working together.”

Working together inspires students to consider other points of view and other approaches to problems. This, in turn, informs, and may change, their thinking.

Educators could begin with a “You, Y’all, We” approach: present the problem first, and let students work on that problem individually. They’ll struggle, Aungst said, but that’s OK. Then, move to small-group discussion, before involving the whole class in the discussion or in solving the problem.

Aungst also recommends the “three before me” strategy, in which students consult three other resources or people before bringing an “unsolvable” problem to their teacher.

Digital tools for collaboration and building classroom teams include:
Wikis and Google Sites
Google Classroom
Skype and Google Hangouts
Wiggio
Edmodo

Chaos

As odd as it seems, chaos promotes learning and discovery, Aungst said.

“What it really is about is the fact that problem solving is messy–it’s not a linear step-by-step,” he said. “Real world problem solving is a messy thing.”

Students should struggle in productive ways, and if they’re not, instruction isn’t particularly effective. In short, they need “cognitive sweat,” Aungst said.

Digital tools to support chaos include:
http://enlvm.usa.edu [9]
http://ohiorc.org/for/math/stella [10]
http://mathpickle.com [11]

Celebration

Educators should celebrate students’ growth, successes, “and even their failures, and what you can learn from their failures,” Aungst said.

Sometimes, a “catch me if you can” strategy works well. Educators tell students they plan to make mistakes, and students must try to identify those mistakes. This makes it safe for students to point out errors.

“It’s really important that you validate effort, and not answers,” he said. “It’s really important that we recognize that the students who start out as the smartest at the beginning of the year may not be the smartest at the end of the year.”