What Inspired Us This Week
Here are some of the articles that made us pause, think, wonder, laugh and hope. Enjoy!
Laurene Powell Jobs Commits $50 Million to Create New High Schools
We are inspired and intrigued by this crowd-sourced project aimed at rethinking high school.
Called XQ: The Super School Project, the campaign is meant to inspire teams of educators and students, as well as leaders from other sectors, to come up with new plans for high schools. Over the next several months, the teams will submit plans that could include efforts like altering school schedules, curriculums and technologies. By fall next year, Ms. Powell Jobs said, a team of judges will pick five to 10 of the best ideas to finance.
“The hunger for change is real, and we’re offering up the tools to communities to make it happen.” — Russlynn H. Ali
via New York Times
70 Practical Things Every Teacher Should Know
From learning how to eat fast to learning how to reflect on and refine one’s view of one’s self as a growing educator, Teach Thought’s Terry Heick created a list of random things teachers have to know in order to survive the day to day demands of their profession. What would you add to the list?
via Teach Thought
‘Lesson Study’ Technique: What Teachers Can Learn From One Another
We loved learning more about this Japanese method of professional development and on-going teacher learning. Some wonderful parallels with the design thinking process. Have you tried a Lesson Study in your school? How did it go? What did you learn from the experience? Let us know.
One of the first things to understand about lesson study is that it’s a long process, kind of the opposite of the one-day workshop American teachers are used to. Teachers come together to identify a problem they want to solve. Then they spend months doing research and planning a lesson.
The organizing principle behind Japanese lesson study is that the best ideas for improving education come from teachers. It’s a bottom up kind of approach.
via Mind Shift
How to be optimistic, according to science
A great round-up of the many and varied benefits of having an optimistic outlook and some concrete steps you can take to reframe pessimistic tendencies.
via The Week
What does innovation in education look like? A new program asks educators to imagine it
The TED-Ed Innovative Educator program, brings together 28 educators from 11 countries to learn how to help students, teachers and parents make the most of TED’s free education tools.
TED-Ed Innovative Educator is a year-long professional development program. It begins with two months of training on how to use video to spark curiosity, how to teach presentation literacy, and how to connect with other schools and teachers around the world to discuss and share ideas. The first class just finished their training. Over the next 10 months, each participant will work on a project that incorporates TED-Ed concepts to have a positive impact on students or teachers in their communities. One core goal of each project: it should be replicable elsewhere.
via TED
We’d love to know what inspired you this week — share with us in the comments below or on Facebook and Twitter, using the hashtag #dare2design
