21 century education

The most recent Infinite Thinking Machine episode takes a crack at defining and explaining different modes of blended learning. In short, “you mix online learning with face-to-face instruction on a regular basis.” The model — and products — teachers choose to use will depend on their instructional styles: teaching content or more open-ended styles, like project-based learning.

This episode brings up some important points: cost efficiencies, “magic bullet” solutions, and content delivery should not be the goal for using blended learning tactics. Rather, the focus should be on allowing kids to be creators of work that’s relevant to their own world — that’s what will catapult “blended learning” out of the next edu-fad and qualify it as a true change agent. Mindshift video.

Whether you're an administrator or a teacher leader, you will find some great advice and tips in this list of videos, blogs, and articles on school leadership.

Can creativity be taught? If innovation is truly the key to this country’s success, then it’s time to think strategically about engendering creativity into our education system.

That’s part of Tina Seelig’s thesis in her new book Ingenius: A Crash Course on Creativity. Case in point: In schools, when we give students math problems to solve, we ask simply, “What’s the sum of 10+10?” to which there is only one right answer. But Seelig says we should turn the question on its head, and ask, “How many ways can you add 10+10?” The question you ask is the frame in which the answers will fall, Seelig says.

"What makes someone successful in the 21st century is definitely not your ability to memorize facts. What will make someone successful is your relentless capacity to innovate, to create. It's your ability to network, to make friends from your own circle and from other countries. It's your ability to see through challenges, to look for opportunities in problems, and to take action to change things instead of waiting for someone else to do something," Zhao said in an interview after his keynote.

Meanwhile, he added, the U.S. is focusing on the wrong goal by aiming for higher standardized test scores. "Fixing the horse wagon won't get us to the moon," he said, referring to the current educational system as a holdover from an outdated era. Emphasizing test scores over creativity will undermine American students' talents and confidence -- the very qualities that countries like China are trying to encourage. An "outlier" like Lady Gaga, Zhao noted, would be of no use in the village where he grew up. Yet she's become a mega-star in the U.S. because of a "tolerance for diversity of talents."