LessonCast helps learning communities design professional development that targets specific needs and changes instructional practice. We support a continuum of professional learning that spans support for teachers new to the classroom, experienced teachers with expertise to share, and leaders guiding a community in improving instruction. The Common Core Conundrum – Why We Can Set the How or the What but not Both
2013-05-02 12:17:50
Once upon a time, I learned that in leading a school initiative I could specify the how or I could s...
Author Archives
Ten Takeaways from Eric Ries’ Chat on EdTech
On our return trip from ISTE, our LessonCast team stopped over in San Francisco for an EdTech Meetup featuring Eric Ries. Wayee Chu from New Schools Venture Fund and Alan Louie from Imagine K12 began the event by introducing companies that launched through their respective incubators—great to see friends from Junyo, GoalBook, ClassDojo, and Remind101 all in the same room. Also reconnected with friends from MySciHigh, Kidblog, NoRedInk and Plickers. (Missed my friend from alumn.us!) Jennifer Carolan, from New Schools Venture Fund and longtime friend of Eric Ries, interviewed Ries before …
Can Technology Solve Education’s Woes?
About 26 minutes into his weekly podcast with Audrey Watters, Steve Hargadon asks the astute question: Are there times when we’re tricked into thinking that technology is going to solve problems that are not easy to solve? As much as we want to believe, the perfect tech tool is not going to be developed that will solve all of our education problems. Why not? Because changing teacher practice is hard work; changing practice on a school level is even more difficult. Education companies that promise to solve all student achievement problems without …
Why Do I Blog?
Following on the heels of Audrey Watters’ public posting, I too decided to make my response to Alice Bell’s edublogger survey. Blog URL: LessonCast.org/author/Katrina What do you blog about? I enjoy blogging about education issues, including discussions about reform movements, issues facing teachers and administrators, the importance of STEM education, the need to redesign professional development to make it more job-embedded and tied to improving student outcomes, a need to shift to a transdisciplinary approach to learning, and perhaps most often, the importance of educators being at the font line …
LessonCast Goes to ISTE 2012!
We hope to connect with many members of our LessonCast community while we’re in San Diego for ISTE’s Annual Conference! Here are some of the ways you can connect with the LessonCast team (If you aren’t able to attend ISTE, you can still view some of our events and follow us on Twitter and Facebook): Interested in Meeting Coaches and Mentors at ISTE? Come share best coaching practices at the Birds of a Feather Session, Mentor Teachers Multiplied: Building Teacher Capacity, on Tuesday, June 26, 2012, from 5 to 6:15 PM. Coaches …
We Need to Listen
We need to listen to what students tell us by their actions. Several weeks ago someone tweeted the question about which students should get priority—the disruptive ones or the ones who want to learn. My response was that we’re asking the wrong questions. We need to ask, why is this student being disruptive? Is this child asking us for help in dealing with difficult situations in his or her life? Is there something we can change about our curriculum and/or instruction that would better meet the needs of this child? …
What Is Transdisciplinary Literacy and Instruction?
With the adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), my recent work has focused on literacy across the content areas. As part of this work I’ve been asked to distinguish between content literacy, interdisciplinary literacy and transdisciplinary, so I thought I’d share the definitions I’ve been developing. Background: The CCSS emphasize the integrated nature of reading, writing, research, speaking, listening, language, and to a more limited degree, mathematics within and across content areas. The CCSS shift the focus from “learning to read and write” to “reading and writing to …
