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10 Team-Building Games That Promote Critical Thinking

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Posted By Ian Jukes

One of education’s primary goals is to groom the next generation of little humans to succeed in the “real world.”

Yes, there are mounds of curricula they must master in a wide breadth of subjects, but education does not begin and end with a textbook or test. Other skills must be honed, too, not the least of which is how to get along with their peers and work well with others. This is not something that can be cultivated through rote memorization or with strategically placed posters.

Students must be engaged and cooperation must be practiced, and often. The following team-building games can promote cooperation and communication, help establish a positive classroom environment and — most importantly — provide a fun, much-needed reprieve from routine.

10 Team-Building Games That Promote Collaborative Critical Thinking

1. If You Build it…

This team-building game is flexible. Simply divide students into teams and give them equal amounts of a certain material, like pipe cleaners, blocks, or even dried spaghetti and marshmallows. Then, give them something to construct. The challenge can be variable (think: Which team can build the tallest, structurally-sound castle? Which team can build a castle the fastest?).

You can recycle this activity throughout the year by adapting the challenge or materials to specific content areas.

Skills: Communication; problem-solving

2. Save the Egg

This activity can get messy and may be suitable for older children who can follow safety guidelines when working with raw eggs. Teams must work together to find a way to “save” the egg (Humpty Dumpty for elementary school students?) — in this case an egg dropped from a specific height. That could involve finding the perfect soft landing, or creating a device that guides the egg safely to the ground. Let their creativity work here.

Skills: Problem-solving, creative collaboration

3. Zoom

Zoom is a classic classroom cooperative game that never seems to go out of style. Simply form students into a circle and give each a unique picture of an object, animal or whatever else suits your fancy. You begin a story that incorporates whatever happens to be on your assigned photo. The next student continues the story, incorporating their photo, and so on.

Skills: Communication; creative collaboration

4. Minefield

Another classic team-building game. Arrange some sort of obstacle course and divide students into teams. Students take turns navigating the “mine field” while blindfolded, with only their teammates to guide them. You can also require students to only use certain words or clues to make it challenging or content-area specific.

Skills: Communication; trust

5. The Worst-Case Scenario

Fabricate a scenario in which students would need to work together and solve problems to succeed, like being stranded on a deserted island or getting lost at sea. Ask them to work together to concoct a solution that ensures everyone arrives safely. You might ask them to come up with a list of 10 must-have items that would help them most, or a creative passage to safety. Encourage them to vote — everyone must agree to the final solution.

Skills: Communication, problem-solving

6. A Shrinking Vessel

This game requires a good deal of strategy in addition to team work. Its rules are deceptively simple: The entire group must find a way to occupy a space that shrinks over time, until they are packed creatively like sardines. You can form the boundary with a rope, a tarp or blanket being folded over or small traffic cones. (Skills: Problem-solving; teamwork)

7. Go for Gold

This game is similar to the “If you build it” game: Teams have a common objective, but instead of each one having the same materials, they have access to a whole cache of materials. For instance, the goal might be to create a contraption with pipes, rubber tubing and pieces of cardboard that can carry a marble from point A to point B in a certain number of steps, using only gravity.

Creative collaboration; communication; problem-solving

8. It’s a Mystery

Many children (and grown-ups) enjoy a good mystery, so why not design one that must be solved cooperatively? Give each student a numbered clue. In order to solve the mystery — say, the case of the missing mascot — children must work together to solve the clues in order. The “case” might require them to move from one area of the room to the next, uncovering more clues.

Skills: Problem-solving, communication

9. 4-Way Tug-of-War 

That playground classic is still a hit — not to mention inexpensive and simple to execute. For a unique variation, set up a multi-directional game by tying ropes in such a way that three or four teams tug at once. Some teams might choose to work together to eliminate the other groups before going head-to-head.

Skills: Team work; sportsmanship

10. Keep it Real

This open-ended concept is simple and serves as an excellent segue into problem-based learning. Challenge students to identify and cooperatively solve a real problem in their schools or communities. You may set the parameters, including a time limit, materials and physical boundaries.

Skills: Problem-solving; communication

While education technology is a basic and crucial component of the 21st century classroom, educators must still ensure that students are engaging with each other in meaningful ways. Team-building exercises are a great way to do this, and because of this, they will never go out of style.

 

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Parents Struggle to Balance Screen Time Rules With Digital Homework | MindShift

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Posted By Sherwen Mohan

As technology becomes a more common feature of classrooms and computer-based testing becomes the norm, even the youngest learners are being pushed to master keyboarding and computing skills. But what does it feel like for a kindergartener, whose family has faithfully followed the American Academy of Pediatric’s suggestions to limit screen time, to arrive at school and immediately be assessed on a computer?

In her PBS MediaShift essay, Jenny Shank describes the tensions emerging between parents with low-tech child rearing styles, teachers frantically trying to prepare students for computer-based tests that could determine the future of their careers, and districts following the latest trends. Shank’s essay gives voice to that “stuck in the middle” feeling when a parent supports the idea of technology integration in school generally, but isn’t sure she thinks it’s being done well. Shank writes:

“I’m all for teaching kids about technology, which will be a part of their personal and work lives forever. But shouldn’t they learn how to write software programs rather than how to scan a text and answer multiple-choice questions on a screen? Shouldn’t they learn about how to assemble computer hardware, build an object with a 3-D printer, or shoot and edit digital video footage rather than passively watch as a computer reads them a book? Many studies suggest that when people read on a screen rather than paper, they read less attentively and retain less. So why aren’t schools using computers for what these machines are actually good at instead?”

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Less Is More: 4 Strategies To Streamline Your Curriculum

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Posted By Sherwen Mohan

Less Is More: 4 Strategies To Streamline Your Curriculum

Less Is More: 4 Strategies To Streamline Your Curriculum

by Renee Rubin, Ed.D., educationmomentum.com

Educators often wonder how they are going to meet all the demands of Common Core. One important point is that the standards require more depth and less breadth. Meeting these standards can be done by doing less, not more. In this post, we’ll look at three effective ways to do this: integrating curriculum, combining test prep into daily learning, and cutting topics.

First, let’s look at what the standards mean by more “depth.” For example, fifth graders need to “conduct short research projects that use several sources to build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic.” This means that students need to be able to find and read with comprehension several sources on the same topic. They need to evaluate those sources for relevance and validity. Finally, the learners need to demonstrate that they have built knowledge about different aspects of the topic.

This is just one example of how the Common Core requires teachers and students to spend extended amounts of time on one topic. The problem is there simply is not enough time to spend days or weeks studying one topic unless changes are made. In our recent book, Less is More in Elementary School: Strategies for Thriving in a High-Stakes Environment, we suggest a variety of ways to find the time required for the in-depth teaching and learning needed for the Common Core Standards. Here, we’ll focus on three major strategies; integrating, combining, and cutting.

If we want to prepare students for the Common Core and lifelong learning, we can’t keep adding to the curriculum. One response is to integrate, combine, and cut. Less is more!

Less Is More: 4 Strategies For A More Efficient Curriculum

1. Integrate subjects

This effectively meets the Common Core and saves time by removing duplication in different subject areas. For example, students may learn to compare and contrast two habitats and then apply similar skills to literature or social studies with the guidance of the teacher. With integrated curriculum, elementary school teachers no longer need to carve out specific times for reading, social studies, and science.

If students are studying a theme, such as cooperation, they may read realistic fiction about cooperation one week and social studies texts about historical or current examples of cooperation the next week during the same time of day. Integrated curriculum also is a good way of finding time to read more non-fiction texts as required by the Common Core Standards and assessments.

(See Less is More in Elementary School for examples of integrated units with appropriate Common Core Standard C)

2. Combine Assessment Prep Into Daily Learning

Although students need some practice with the format of high-stakes tests, we believe that most assessment should be integrated with daily learning to save time and improve student achievement. Extensive benchmark testinging and test-preparation materials take time away from the in-depth learning required by the Common Core.

Assessment that is part of instruction allows teachers to provide effective feedback to students during the learning process so they can improve their work. For example, the Common Core math standards call for students to “construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.”

As students are working on math problems, the teacher can circulate through the room asking them to explain their reasoning. Thus, the teacher can informally assess the progress of the students and provide immediate feedback to encourage improvement. Students may do fewer, problems but their reasoning skills should improve.

3. Use Power Standards

According to edglossary.org, Power Standards refer to “a subset of learning standards that educators have determined to be the highest priority or most important for students to learn.” The big idea? They explain that “it is often impossible for teachers to cover every academic standard over the course of a school year, given the depth and breadth of state learning standards. Power standards, therefore, are the prioritized academic expectations that educators determine to be the most critical and essential for students to learn…”

Educators and authors Larry Ainsworth and Douglas Reeves “propose three criteria for selecting power standards:

  • Endurance: Standards that focus on knowledge and skills that will be relevant throughout a student’s lifetime (such as learning how to read or how to interpret a map).
  • Leverage: Standards that focus on knowledge and skills used in multiple academic disciplines (such as writing grammatically and persuasively or interpreting and analyzing data).
  • Essentiality: Standards that focus on the knowledge and skills necessary for students to succeed in the next grade level or the next sequential course in an academic subject (such as understanding algebraic functions before taking geometry or calculus, which require the use of algebra).”

In short, establishing Power Standards, and then designing curriculum and instruction around this critical and anchoring content, can be a powerful–and learned-centered–strategy to create a sense of priority in what you teach, and what students learn.

Note, the 40/40/40 Rule can be useful here as well.

4. Revisit Old Work With New Thinking

If we want to prepare students for the Common Core and lifelong learning, we can’t keep adding to the curriculum. We need to integrate, combine, and cut. Less is more. What’s most important in your curriculum?

Cut topics: Even with the above measures, educators probably need to make cuts, which can be tough to do since we all have our favorite activities or topics. Perhaps the easiest type of cutting to do is in quantity; fewer math problems or fewer integrated units. For example, students need to be given opportunities to revise and edit their writing and do peer editing. This may mean that they write fewer texts, but they will have a better understanding of the writing process.

Renee Rubin, Michelle H. Abrego, and John A. Sutterby areis co-authors of Less is More in Elementary School: Strategies for Thriving in a High-Stakes Environment. She is also an educational consultant at Education Momentum; Co-authors are Michelle H. Abrego and John A. Sutterby; Less Is More: 4 Strategies To Streamline Your Curriculum; image attribution flicr user jirkamatusek

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63 Things Every Student Should Know In A Digital World

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Posted By Ian Jukes

Digital World

It could be argued—and probably argued well—that what a student fundamentally needs to know today isn’t much different than what Tom Sawyer or Joan of Arc or Alexander the Great needed to know.

  • Communication.
  • Resourcefulness.
  • Creativity.
  • Persistence.

How true this turns out to be depends on how macro you want to get. If we want to discuss our needs as humans in broad, sweeping themes, then food, water, shelter, connectivity, safety, and some degree of self-esteem pretty much cover it.

But in an increasingly connected and digital world, the things a student needs to know are indeed changing—fundamental human needs sometimes drastically redressed for an alien modern world. Just as salt allowed for the keeping of meats, the advent of antibiotics made deadly viruses and diseases simply inconvenient, and electricity completely altered when and where we slept and work and played, technology is again changing the kind of “stuff” a student needs to know.

Of course, these are just starters. Such a list really could go on forever.

The Changing Things They Need To Know: 13 Categories & 63 Ideas

Information Sources

1. The best way to find different kinds of information

2. How to save information so that it can be easily found and used again

3. Distinguish fact from opinion, and know the importance of each

4. How to think critically—and carefully–about information

Learning Pathways

5. How to self-direct learning

6. How to mobilize learning

7. How to identify what’s worth understanding

8. How to relate habits with performance

Human Spaces

9. The relationship between physical and digital spaces

10. The pros and cons—and subsequent sweet spots–of digital tools

11. What mobile technology requires—and makes possible

12. The nuance of communication in-person (e.g., eye contact, body language) and in digital domains (e.g., introduction, social following, etc.)

Socializing Ideas

13. The consequences of sharing an idea

14. The right stage of the creative process to share an idea

15. That everything digital is accelerated; plan accordingly. And this kind of acceleration doesn’t always happen in the brick-and-mortal world—and that’s okay.

16. The need for digital citizenship—and how to create their own rules citizenships in general–digital and otherwise

Digital Participation

17. How to remix, mash, reimagine, tweak, hack, and repurpose media in credible, compelling, and legal ways

18. How to identify what information is private and what is “social”—and how to make changes accordingly

19. What expertise they can offer the digital world

20. How to take only what you need, even when the (digital) resources seem infinite

Publishing Nuance

21. How to leverage both physical and digital media for authentic—rather than merely digital–purposes

22. The kind of information people look for on the internet

23. What to share with one person, one group, one community, and one planet. (And the difference in permanence and scale between a social message, email, threaded conversation, and text.)

24. How to take advantage of the fact digital text is fluid and endlessly updated and changing

Applying Technology 

25. What the relationship is between a smartphone, tablet, laptop, desktop, and wearable technology

26. How to use the cloud to their advantage; how to preserve bandwidth when necessary

27. How to effectively use technology in ways that might contradict their original purpose or design

28. How to use technology to perform tasks not traditionally thought of as technology-based—e.g., improving vocabulary and literacy, perform and update financial planning, eat healthier foods, etc.

The Always-On Audience

29. How to choose language, structure, tone, modalities, and other considerations based on a specific purpose and audience

30. Knowing the difference between who’s listening, who’s responding, who’s lurking, who cares, who doesn’t care, etc.

31. How to listen with curiosity when there are a million other things to do

32. Popularity and quality often fail to coincide; “traction” is as much timing and ecology as it is design

Social Rules

33. When it is socially-acceptable to check messages, update statuses, check scores, and so on. (Just because everyone at the table is doing it doesn’t mean it doesn’t have significant consequences.)

34. The acceptable timing of human responses depending on social channels

35. Even in a digital world, patience still matters

36. That mobile devices are “me” devices; the real world isn’t like that

Diction

37. Tone is everything; word choice is crucial when every thought is shared

38. Vocabulary & jargon can obscure communication, but also can communicate specific ideas and can’t always be avoided

39. Structure–essay level, blog post level, paragraph level, sentence level, world level, and acronym and initialism level–changes depending on where you publish

40. The benefits of being a polyglot (speaking more than one language) are increasing (not in lieu of, but because of digital translation tools). (This includes localized figurative language in the context of global communication.)

Connecting with Experts

41. Who the experts are

42. How—and when—to reach them

43. The difference between someone knowledgeable, someone experienced, and someone adept

44. When you need a closed group of friends, a crowd full of moderately-informed people, or a professional and/or academic expert

The Self

45. How to identify and fully participate in critical familial and social citizenships

46. How to prioritizing possibilities in spaces where it all seems so endless

47. How to self-monitor and manage their own distraction

48. How to choose the proper scale for work, thinking, or publishing

49. How to recognize niches and opportunity

A Life Built Around Software

50. The consequences of using a single operating system (e.g., iOS, Android, Windows, etc.)

51. The pros and cons of using social log-ins (e.g., facebook) for apps

52. How to evaluate an app for privacy permissions

53. That apps are businesses and some close–and take your media, files, or data with them

54. Nothing is free

Other Internet Pro Tips For Students

55. Passive-aggressiveness, snark, arrogance, unjustified brazenness, cyberbullying-without-being-obvious-about-it, blocking-for-dramatic-effect, ignoring people, and other digital habits carry over into the real world

56. A 140 character comment may not fully capture the nuance of a person’s stance or understanding of a topic. Don’t assume

57. Typos and grammar errors don’t make people stupid

58. Popularity is dangerous

59. Video games can make you smarter. That doesn’t mean that they do

60. People change their minds. That post from 2012 probably feels as dated to them as it does to you

61. If you often find yourself needing to “kill time” with Candy Crush and related fare, check your life choices

62. Just because you can sing, hack, code, paint, run, jump, lead, or dance doesn’t make you any more worthwhile than the next human being, no matter what your follower count suggests

63. Log-in info, passwords, old email address, and other trappings of digital life are a pain. Use password keepers and plan accordingly

63 Things Every Student Should Know In A Digital World

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The Genius Hour Design Cycle: A Process For Planning

The Genius Hour Design Cycle: A Process For Planning

By Terry Heick, January 19, 2015

Original Source 

Posted By Ian Jukes

by Nigel Coutts, thelearnersway.net

Ed note: Part 1 of this 2-part series can be seen here; note that some of the language has been slightly revised from the original post by Nigel. He uses the term passion projects, which is very close to Genius Hour and Passion-Based Learning. The differences across the three terms are often a matter of individual use and interpretation, a point we wanted to help clarify by using the three terms interchangeably even though they may not be exactly the same–passion projects needn’t use a Genius Hour format, nor does passion-based learning necessarily need to take the form of projects. In that way, the above model can be used for any of the three, but it felt most precise as a model for teachers to use to design Genius Hour projects. So, here we are. You can (and should!) read more from Nigel at thelearnersway.net.

In an ongoing effort towards polishing the edges, over the years we have continued to refine the processes we apply to the Personal Passion Project. We have gained insights into the sorts of projects that work well and which will cause difficulties. We have added a degree of structure while maintaining the required degree of freedom necessary for a personalised project.

The results of this learning are presented (in the model above and the text) below.

1. Be prepared to be amazed

The quality of the students projects will go beyond what you expect. This is particularly important when a student comes to you with a grand idea that seems too hard or overly complex. If the student has the right level of passion for the project and an idea for how they will get started they will more than likely complete the project and complete it well.

2. Don’t let your fears get in the way

The students are almost certainly going to select topics that you have no knowledge of and don’t have the skills to support. At this point it could be easy to let your fears and insecurities get in the way. The best way to move forward is to listen to the student; do they know what they are doing? do they know which questions they need to answer? what problems they need to solve? If the answers to all of this are positive, start looking for an expert to help when times get tough.

3. Some students need a push in the right direction

Some students will come up with projects that are too simple with answers that could be easily Googled. We introduced the students to ‘High Order Thinking Skills’ and built these into the planning forms students complete. Projects need to include elements of synthesis, evaluation and creativity with the minimum requirement adjusted for individuals. We provide students with a list of verbs appropriate for the top levels of Bloom’s taxonomy and help them use these in framing their topics.

4. Some students design a project that has nothing to do with their passion

A student might have a passion for surfing and decide they are going to write a book about the history of the sport. The problem is they have designed a project where they will need to be a historian, a researcher, a writer and you know they don’t enjoy doing any of this. Maybe with the right topic they will gain a wider interest in these things but most likely they will quickly dream of days at the beach.

5. Some projects are just not possible

It can be hard to say no to a project but some are just not feasible. A classic example is the student who wants to design a better tennis racquet by selecting the right mix of shape and materials. The problem is that the modern tennis racquet uses high tech composites and even with million dollar R&D budgets the differences between one design and the next is hard to prove.

6. Time and Scale

Some projects will clearly take longer than you have available, others are simply too large in scale or will rely on the involvement of too many people. Setting manageable goals and working to an achievable timeframe is important. At the same time you need to ensure that the concerns over time constraints are genuine.

Creating a detailed timeline with estimates of how long each phase will take is beneficial on many levels at this stage. For the students the conversations around how long the project will take can include some rewarding reflection on how they approach tasks and can assist in their development of an understanding of their learning style. Some students need time to talk about their project and unpack ideas socially, others need quiet time to think through the steps, some just dive in and fix mistakes and redirect their plans as they go.

7. Too many changes

One of the challenges for some students has been the ever changing project. They select one topic, discover they don’t like it or encounter a problem they can’t easily solve and change to another topic. A week later and the process repeats. Setting a definite deadline after which there can be no changes is important. In the end the students work out that they have to make their ideas work.

8. Just enough planning

Over the years we refined the level of planning the students were required to do before commencing on their projects in earnest. The initial version required great detail and length processes for developing focus questions and setting targets. For some students and some projects it worked well but for others it got in the way. Eventually we got to a point where the planning had just enough detail, so we know the students have an understanding of their project and that we can support them along the way. View our simplified planning template

9. Relying on experts and building a team

Many of the projects students have explored over the years fall outside of the expertise of their teachers. I have no idea how to sew for example and have been of equally little help to students who are basing their projects around dance or music. Across the school we have found amazing partners with the skills we needed and in most cases they are keen to spend time with a student who they share a passion with. Building a team of support around the project is key to its ultimate success. Being mindful of the workload within this team is also important. We have had some colleagues so keen to help that they become overloaded and although they never complained we

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Game Face On: Gamification for Engaging Teachers in PD

Game Face On: Gamification for Engaging Teachers in PD

Original Source 

Posted By Ian Jukes

This article by Matt Baier, for Edutopia, published on February 19, 2015 outlines a professional development program that inspires teachers to feel the emotions of creativity, contentment, awe and wonder, excitement, curiosity, pride, surprise, love, relief, and joy while learning and developing skills that promote more effective use of technology tools.

Creativity, contentment, awe and wonder, excitement, curiosity, pride, surprise, love, relief, and joy. These are the ten emotions that game players experience, according to Jane McGonigal in Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Change the World. Do teachers report feeling any of these emotions when they describe professional development? No (except for maybe relief when it’s over).

Conquering Technology

My colleague Kathy Garcia and I decided to create a professional development program that inspired teachers to feel these emotions while learning and developing skills toward more effective use of technology tools. We created a professional development game, accessed through the iTunes U platform, called Conquering Technology. Our teachers learn skills like taking advantage of the iPad’s accessibility features, digital workflows, creating their own iBooks, using Google Apps, and authoring their own iTunes U courses.

The critical component for success was for teachers to become self-motivated in advancing their skills. For inspiration, we incorporated badges, awards, levels, gift cards, and public recognition, as everyone is uniquely motivated. Our focus has remained on positive motivation rather than a fear of negative consequences.

Conquering Technology was created for the novice-to-advanced user. Starting with basic skills, faculty members progress through challenges with support resources available any time, anywhere. While some challenges develop general iPad skills, our focus revolved around using the iPad effectively and creatively in our 1:1 iPad educational environment. We didn’t have too much difficulty creating a list of skills in which our faculty should be proficient. Our challenge was determining how faculty would demonstrate their knowledge. We called each skill-learning unit with assessment a challenge and grouped them into levels, which in turn were grouped into episodes.

Motivation and Recognition

Each level has an associated badge that is displayed within faculty profiles on the Cathedral Catholic High School website once all challenges have been completed. We wanted faculty to be publicly recognized for their hard work, so when they pass all the levels in an episode, they earn a $50 gift certificate. In addition, they receive an award that is presented to them either in front of their class or at an all-faculty meeting. Public recognition is a key component — not only do we want to publicly acknowledge our pride, but it’s also critical in motivating some people.

All faculty members are expected to complete one episode per year. As an iPad school, we find that iTunes U is the perfect tool for delivering our professional development game. iTunes U is an outstanding platform for delivering a wide variety of content to an iPad. Videos, links, apps, documents, audio — anything from the iTunes Store, App Store, or iBook Store can be easily added. Even more importantly, any training content that we create ourselves can be easily delivered to our learners.

We use a private course with our faculty but have made the first two episodes public. The third episode is still in development and should be published before the 2015-2016 school year begins.

The first episode focuses on how teachers can use the iPad for themselves. The second episode focuses on how the teacher can use the iPad to manage his or her classes and engage students. The third episode will focus on how teachers can help students to use the iPad to create. The fourth will focus on helping students connect to the wider world (e.g. publish content, connect with other learners or professionals, etc.).

Accessible Resources

As technology trainers we saw several positive outcomes.First of all, there was a marked increase in teacher motivation to participate in our technology training. Even reluctant learners were willing to take part, and many of them reported that they appreciated the opportunity to have all of the necessary resources available to them on their own time. We saw much more buy-in than we expected across our whole faculty. We cannot seem to publish episodes fast enough for our most motivated teachers. This is a great problem to have.

In addition, teachers worked on the game on their own time. Even though we have professional development time set aside once a month, teachers were working on their own during prep periods, after school, and even on the weekends.

Another benefit is that more teachers would actually use the resources that we created. Kathy and I have made many tutorial videos and screencasts that unfortunately were not used as widely as we hoped. Now that they are part of Conquering Technology, they are being used more frequently by teachers.

Anyone can do this. Many of you probably already are. Let’s share and collaborate! Our courses are public and available for free in the iTunes U catalog. Use your iOS device to subscribe to Episode 1 and Episode 2. We’re proud of our work but are always eager to see what’s working in other schools as well. Please let us know about any technology-conquering PD you’ve used or created.

 

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106,000 Free Teacher-created Digital Textbooks Hit the Web

Times are changing. Old, outdated textbooks are sooo 20th century. Laura Devaney, Director of News at eSchool News shares the news of CK-12 Foundation releasing 106,000 free and open digital textbooks for teachers and students to utilize. Please read ahead to learn about this exciting initiative. 

posted by: Ryan Schaaf

Original Source

More than 100,000 teacher-created digital textbooks are now available online through the CK-12 Foundation’s free STEM content and tools platform.

The 106,000 digital texts, or FlexBooks, come from the roughly 30,000 schools using CK-12’s free and open digital resources. CK-12 is launching two new tools in addition to its new content.

One is a new physics simulation module that uses real-world interactivity to increase student engagement. Students relate often-abstract concepts to real-world examples to increase learning.

The second is called PLIX (Play, Learning, Interact, and eXplore), and it gives students an interactive and immersive experience that helps them learn by doing.

PLIX “makes it simple for students to play around with concepts, follow up, and model those concepts,” said Neeru Khosla, the executive director and co-founder of the CK-12 Foundation.

“Learning best happens when you’re exposed to something–you first learn very basic facts and then you think about the material in deeper ways,” she said. “[PLIX] takes students through deeper thinking, critical thinking, and creativity,” in the hopes that they use their knowledge to create new ideas, tools, and concepts.

“We want to make learning happen in any way that it happens for individual students,” Khosla said. “We’re giving them the tools to learn in their own way. We’re on a path to prove that free doesn’t mean low-quality.”

The El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) in Texas is using CK-12’s free online resources for high school science classes, with plans to expand the resources into other subject areas.

Instead of purchasing textbooks, money from the instructional materials fund went toward 15,500 laptops and resources for high school students. District leaders found that opting for CK-12 FlexBooks and purchasing laptops was still cheaper than buying new science textbooks, even with laptop upgrade or replacement costs.

Because CK-12’s resources and digital FlexBooks are adaptable, teachers can customize the resources in whatever manner suits their needs–and this, said EPISD Director of Instructional Services Timothy Holt, is invaluable.

“That’s empowering to teachers–they can modify resources on their own. That’s power that no paper textbook has,” he said.

Initial plans for a spring 2015 rollout were slowed to incorporate intensive professional development, ranging from practical use tips to in-depth tutorials and examples on how to integrate the FlexBooks into instructional practice.

“Nothing will kill a tech initiative faster than poor PD,” Holt said.

And come fall, EPISD leaders hope teachers and students will be using CK-12’s FlexBooks in as many lessons as possible.