Author: Lensyl Urbano

Using technology for project based learning

Suzie Boss and Jane Krauss have a new book out on using information technology in large-scale projects called, “Reinventing Project-Based Learning“. While you can do great projects without technology, they say,

… what a richer, more authentic landscape it is when students have access to resources, tools, strategies, and concerns found outside the classroom walls.

There are a ridiculous amount of real data available out their on the web, from economic data (FRED) to real-time stream gauging for the entire U.S. (USGS). And many come with online tools to process the data.

In addition, things like wikis make collaboration possible even for home-work projects in a way that was not possible in the past.

For myself, the book provides an interesting guide for for tailoring and improving the structure of the projects I already do, but there is a good bit of information introducing different types of technology to those interested in incorporating it for the first time. I’d be interested to see what teachers new to experimenting with project-based learning with new technology think about the book.

Mindset: Set to grow

Carol Dweck’s book on the importance of your mindset. Fixed mindset – not good; Growth mindset – effort creates ability –> reward effort, perseverance, and character. When you praise you praise growth qualities like effort, and not fixed qualities like intelligence. It sounds like it ties in with all of the research on praise and rewards. It’s a book I should read.

Non-verbal communication: Micheal Grinder

To communicate an important or difficult message, it is important that your non-verbal communications, gestures, body language, align with the words you speak. Micheal Grinder who teaches courses on presentation skills and classroom management has a few good YouTube videos like the one above.

His blog is also a good resource.

Spell check

I have a spelling checker,
It came with my PC.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss steaks aye can knot sea.

– From “Spellchecker Poem” Zar (1994)

Do grammar and spell check actually help students learn? While it is Montessori-like in principle, making writing more like a self-correcting work, it removes much of the burden of correcting mistakes from the student because they are not forced to identify errors as the software makes suggestions for them.

In addition, grammar and spell checkers in particular, are not especially sensitive to context. The “Spellchecker Poem” (Zar, 1994; Hensel, 2008) passes through a spell checker without comment despite the obvious errors. While grammar checkers are getting better, accurately assessing context is a difficult challenge and fail when a person is trying to intentionally break the rules of grammar, which distracts the writer from their true intentions. Auto-correct functions can also be an incredible pain.

Spell and grammar check functions might work better if they just identified errors but not give students suggestions for corrections.

Of course, in writing this I am using spell check for almost every other word. They are an essential part of electronic writing and inseparable from computer use today. They are ubiquitous in academia and the workplace. Indeed it can be argued that their proper usage is a necessary skill to learn, although to most effectively use checkers you may very well need to know the rules of grammar that the checkers prevent students from learning.

I need to do a bit more research on the subject since I’m pretty sure I’m not the first to address this dilemma. I would really appreciate any suggestions about where to find publications about the topic (my Google-fu is weak with respect to this topic for some reason).

It would also probably be useful to create a lesson specifically dealing with the use of grammar and spell checking, probably using the “Spellchecker Poem“. My students do most of their writing electronically, either on the wiki or using word processing software so this is a topic I need to clarify my own thoughts on soon.

Fierce leadership: Not wimping out

In my new “Books to Read” series, Susan Scott’s book Fierce Leadership. This was recommended by Mary Yenik who’s been teaching classroom management at HMC. Scott is the author of Fierce Conversations, which is about enabling people to have challenging conversations (parent-teacher conferences can be contentious sometimes) effectively. According to my notes, the new book is about “not wimping out.”

Montessori Secondary Training Blog

The training at the Houston Montessori Center for secondary teachers is long and quite intense. Two teachers from a new Montessori school in Lakeland Florida are keeping a blog about their experience to keep the parents and supporters of the school at home updated on what’s going on. It’s a wonderful read.

Ms. Clarke and Ms. De La Cruz are an excellent team. They’re starting up a new program and it’s nice to see the training program from that perspective. I am quite excited to see how their middle school turns out. In their blog, they convey quite nicely the quality of the training program and the impressive quality of the teachers in training.