Tag Archives: Dan Meyer

Your School Year in Numbers

5 Replies

Dean Shareski recently shared a post where he has a compelling video that talks about his “year in numbers” (inspired by this Dan Meyer post), where he has compiled some information about 2012. (I made the video!)

Many schools say that too many people focus on “test scores”, yet how often do we share (in engaging ways), the stats that are really important to many of our community.  Wouldn’t a video like this for a school year, or broken up into semesters and terms, share some REALLY important stats that many miss out on that goes beyond showing our kids as “test scores”?

For example, how much has your school raised to serve others?  How many hours of coaching and practice have happened?  How many hour have been spent doing musicals or plays (in Canada, these are most often voluntary hours)? What is your school doing to lead in your community?

The thing that I want to be careful of though is that schools aren’t necessarily sharing stats like, “How many books we have read?” and then forcing kids to read for “numbers” as opposed to interest.  But with that being said, wouldn’t this be a cool project for schools to take on?  I know that many schools share a lot of evidence through a large document, but I think that there is a certain appeal to creating a video.

This is something that shares YOUR story and doesn’t allow for the narrative of your school to be told by others or be determined only by test scores.

What do you think?  What questions or data could you compile that would show what your school does that people need to know about?  Any schools out there interested in doing something like this or have already?

 

You Should Read… (October 9, 2011)

3 Replies

Here are some links and articles that I would love to share with you this week:

1. Come join the Video Story Problems Channel – Ben Rimes has started a fantastic idea for educators to share resources, or have access to them through this channel.  Through this collaborative venture, Ben has seen people use video to present “real-life math problems” (watch Dan Meyers Ted Talk or read his blog for more great ideas on this) and has asked others to participate and share their own.  You can check out Ben’s post or else go straight to the channel and check out or add to the project.  Although there is not much there yet, through collaboration, there will be opportunities for this to grow.

2. Lifelong UNLEARNING – Will Richardson discusses the notion of “unlearning” and how as educators, if we are to move schools forward in this time, we need to undo some of our old practices if we are going to be successful now.  As Will closes the post, he asks some very important questions that every educator should consider:

“It’s that last part that we as educators have to begin to model more transparently for our students. How are we connected with the larger world in ways that show our ability to learn differently and to collaborate with others? How are we ourselves engaging in the process of unlearning, of constantly challenging our long-held beliefs about education and the world in light of a moment when becoming educated now encompasses many paths, and when we carry classrooms and teachers around with us in our backpacks and in our pockets?”

3. 10 Reasons Your Students Should Be Blogging – Matthew Ray shares some great reasons why your students should be blogging, which I am a huge advocate for.  It just needs to be done consistently and with purpose.  Here is one of the reasons that he lists in his blog:

“Authentic writing for authentic audiences. The writing is authentic because kids are writing about whatever they want. Even if I decide to give them prompts or topics to write about, they know teachers and other students will be reading them – not just me. Again, it’s all about their investment, and no doubt knowing you have an audience waiting with baited breath to read what you have to write is something that motivates.”

You should definitely check out the entire post.

Hopefully this will give you some ideas and things to help you with your practice.  One video that really inspired me this week showed me the power of always having fun and staying young.  I wanted to share that with you also:

Have a great week!


cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by gibsonsgolfer