Synergy: Selecting next projects

Our team has over 300 observation journal entries from which to brainstorm questions and projects. See Synergy: Complexity~Simplicity, Collaboration & Brainstorming for the beginning of this work. After Monday’s work in class, our learners were prompted to use a quick-write to reflect on the process of narrowing the project ideas using the idea wall as [...]

Read Full Post »

Synergy 8 Update – Week 3

Last week in Synergy 8, our team of 26 established and integrated our triad of foundational course-communication tools – Schoology, Posterous, and WordPress. After all, a learnopolis needs an infrastructure for advanced communication. Additionally, we began utilizing and practicing our #1 tool in Synergy – the observation journal. In the upcoming weeks, our team observations [...]

Read Full Post »

A World of #PBL Possibilities

I am training myself to see more #PBL possibilities. Through the years, and from reading such works as Dan Pink’s A Whole New Mind and Carol Dweck’s Mindset, I am convinced that being an artist largely involves practicing the acts of looking and seeing. Why would becoming a “PBL-ist” be much different? Here are a [...]

Read Full Post »

Calculators, Spell Checks, and Ideas

As a regular thread of my educational contemplations, I wonder about the use of calculators and spell checkers in our learning. The debate is more than just about those tools – it’s really about the heart of learning, automaticity, and retained knowledge. I have a colleague that uses this analogy to try to convince me [...]

Read Full Post »

The World Becomes What You Teach

Yesterday, in a Center for Teaching brainstorming meeting, one of us suggested some curriculum-design work that would go beyond traditional subject-area or departmental curricula. Then, this morning I read David Wees’s blog post about Zoe Weil’s TEDxDirigo talk. In the 17 minutes and 24 seconds, Zoe explains the brainstorm idea perfectly…

Read Full Post »