Eclectic Technology

The number of students participating in online courses continues to grow and for those that currently teach with students in their physical classroom, there are shifts towards blended learning, with part of the day online and part of the day with more direct instruction. This post looks at ways to keep students' attention online, but the same components are also important in the face2face classroom.

What is it that help students pay attention?

* Problem solving

* Comparisons

* Visuals

* Questions

* Emotions

* Stories

* Contrast

* Controversy

* Brevity

* Lists

Each of these areas is described in more depth when you click through to the post and in many cases you will find links to additional resources.

You may already be using some of these strategies, but try combining two or more to see how students react. Many of the strategies promote authentic learning opportunities, which promote high engagement. All are valuable to understand and to use in the classroom, but it online or face2face.

Can teachers teach the Common Core standards and provide authentic learning so students are engaged? This post explores this issue and provides eight strategies for teaching in authentic ways. Below are four of the strategies.

* Make the standards fit into student interests.

* Teach students to question.

* Emulate effective risk taking.

* Be open to many answers.

For additional information the four strategies above and for four more click through to the post.

How do you boost your creativity? This infographic provides details on the following five steps.

* Gather the five materials

* Digest

* Don't think

* Wait for eureka

* Bring the ideas to reality

Along with these five steps there are also six tools and techniques to explore: oblique strategies, lotus blossom technique, six thinking hats,  mass brainstorming,  reverse brainstorming and limit yourself. More information on each of these is also included in the infographic.

But we are in the 21st century. How should we look at Bloom's today?

This post suggests four strategies to use as we look at the 21st century skills "which include persistent connectivity, dynamic media forms, information-rich (digital and non-digital) environments, and an emphasis on visibility for pretty much everything."

* Use every level

* Use asynchronous collaboration

* Allow students to BYOM

* Use Bloom's spiraling

Additional information on each of these strategies is available in the post.

You may choose to go directly to the infographic on Instructional Strategies Ideas or you may want to check out the post that provides examples, definitions and more information at http://www.fortheteachers.org/instructional_strategies.htm#.UlYC7BD4ugR

As For The Teachers blog states "Because you can never have enough strategy ideas in your teaching toolbox…"

Sticky teaching looks at "understanding what the brain can't ignore." In this post there is an explanation of six strategies of sticky teaching.

1. Awaken the intrigue.

2. Begin and end often.

3. Create lots of contrast.

4. Draw them in with stories.

5. Emotion draws attention.

6. Focus on the big idea.

Each of these ideas is discussed in the post.

There is also an embedded slideshare in the post. It provides some interesting statistics and explains why each of these strategies work.

How often have you tried to get your students to show their critical thinking abilities and walked away frustrated as they struggled to reach the depths you had hoped for? This post shares a wide range of habits (or strategies, actions, behaviors, use the word that suits you) that will help students reach the depths of higher order thinking. Four of the suggestions are below. Click through to the post see all 33 (that's right, one more has been added).

* Thinks laterally, endlessly connecting this to that, here to there.

* Can move back and forth from micro to macro thinking.

* Asks “Why?” almost annoyingly.

* Values questions over answers.

Are you looking for ways to increase rigor in your classroom? This post provides three strategies as well as a number of examples to help you. The strategies are:

1. Design With Inquiry & Diversity

2. Have Students Create Videos–From Beginning To End

3. Use Virtual Tours

Additional detail is available in the post for each of the strategies and suggestions for adding rigor in ELA and math is also discussed. In fact, the final paragraph states asking "students to write riddles about words, rather than having them simply write a definition...requires students to think at higher levels to complete the activity." Adding rigor may not be as difficult as might think...but it may require that we rethink how we are teaching.

Here are seven strategies you might choose to use to make your teacher smarter. They are explained in the post (and listed in the image above). For those whom may see this without the image:

* Place the big rocks first

* Use technology to automate (with suggestions on what you might do)

* Know yourself

* Teach in the moment

* Advocate for yourself

* Find new measures of success

* Open your classroom doors wide

You may find some new ideas to try out in your classroom!

Learn about the characteristics of genius in this post as well as five strategies to create a growth mindset in children. Two are listed below:

* Perseverance

* Praise the process, not the person

The March 2013 issue of Educational Leadership is focused on “Technology-Rich Learning.” There are a number of articles that are available on the site that you might be interested in reading. A list of some is below:

* "Students First, Not Stuff" by Will Richardson discusses how "technologies reframe learning, but educators reimagine schooling."

* "Our Brains Extended" by Mark Prensky discusses "What will humans do with their new enhanced capabilities?"

* "A Bold New Math Class" by Salman Khan and Elizabeth Slavitt discusses how "Khan Academy offers a student-centric, self-paced learning model."

* "New Literacies and the Common Core" by William Kist discusses "Strategies for learning the fundamentals of reading, writing, and comprehending in the information age."

To go directly to the page of these articles (and others): 

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar13/vol70/num06/toc.aspx ;