The 30-Second Challenge Every Leader Should Accept

Reposted from Inc.:

Connecting with others, making others better as a result of your presence, and making sure the impact lasts are at the heart of leadership.

But the problem is that leaders tend not to have a lot of free time on their hands. So how can you engage in meaningful and memorable leadership with zero hours in the day to spare? That’s where the 30-second challenge comes in. It turns out, there’s a lot you can do with a tiny sliver of time.

So whenever you want to engage and make a lasting impression, commit to spending 30 seconds to make a big impact. You could…

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Inspire! Challenge! Excite! [VIDEO 7:23]

Derek Muller explores why many technologies have promised to revolutionize education, but so far none has. Now there is a glut of information and video on the internet so should we expect it to revolutionize education? This video makes the case it won’t, because technology is not inherently superior, animations over static graphics, videoed presentations over live lectures etc. and learning is inherently a social activity, interacting with others. “The job of  teachers is to inspire…to challenge….to excite. The most important thing a teacher does it to make every student feel like they are important…and to make them accountable for their learning.”

The Teacher Turnover Challenge [INFOGRAPHIC]

Keeping great teachers in the classroom is as much about retaining them as it is about hiring and training them. Yet while it can take educators approximately five years to master their craft, 30 percent of new teachers stop far short of that and leave the classroom within the first two years. Teacher attrition is a real problem that many school systems face. In an effort to communicate the causes, consequences and solutions to this issue, this infographic has been created to shed some light on teacher turnover.

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Breaking Through the Academic Fixed Mindset

Reposted from Edudemic:

When you have a fixed mindset, you believe that at a certain point, what you have is all you’re ever going to have: You’ll always have a set IQ. You’re only qualified for the career you majored in. You’ll never be any better at playing soccer or dating or taking risks. Your life and character are as certain as a map. The problem is, this mindset will make you complacent, rob your self-esteem and bring meaningful education to a halt. In short, it’s an intellectual disease and patently untrue.

If you’re regularly praised for your intelligence by a teacher or parent, for example, you internalize that praise. It becomes a part of your identity. You work to prove yourself over and over again in just one area. If you’re then criticized or discouraged when you fail, you also internalize that negative feedback and try to avoid it at all costs. When something threatens your competence, you let it threaten you. Rather than take risks and make moves to grow in your understanding – which might mean you get things wrong or that your intelligence is called into question – you defend against having to grow because it might mean you’ll fail.

The growth mindset is the opposite of the fixed: It thrives on challenge and sees failure as an opportunity for growth. It creates a passion for learning instead of a hunger for approval. It seems like a mere platitude to say “If you believe you can do something, you can.” It’s not an easy belief because building practically any skill is hard. When setbacks, crushed expectations, and critics gather and compound, it’s much easier to ascribe ability to talent and give up. Dr. Carol Dweck, however, has found that the platitude is correct. Her research has shown a correlation between accepting intellectual limitations and actually learning more!

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Design Challenge Launched to Reimagine School Report Cards

Reposted from Getting Smart:

Calling all designers! The Foundation for Excellence in Education (ExcelinEd) has launched the My School Info Design Challenge (#SchoolInfo), a competition to reimagine school report cards. The design challenge stems from research published today in an accompanying brief, My School Information Challenge: Building a Better School Performance Report Card for Parents & Students. Written for designers and the general public, the brief gives further insight and research about the challenges with school report cards.

Recent research from Education Commission of the States (ECS) and ExcelinEd reveals that many of today’s report cards are difficult to find online and often impossible to understand. The #SchoolInfo challenge is an effort to provide parents with necessary information to make informed decisions about their student’s education, and to inform policymakers with information for reform strategies.

The #SchoolInfo challenge is open to the country’s top talent in design, technology, education, and parental advocacy fields.

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Visit the official challenge page here.

View the challenge design brief (.PDF) here.

“You can’t have an education technology revolution without strong privacy protections for students”

Reposted from the New York Times:

“Last year, sales of education technology software for prekindergarten through 12th grade reached an estimated $7.9 billion, according to the Software and Information Industry Association.

As schools embrace these personalized learning tools, however, parents across the country have started challenging the industry’s information privacy and security practices.

“Different websites collect different kinds of information that could be aggregated to create a profile of a student, starting in elementary school,” said Tony Porterfield, a software engineer and father of two pre-teenage sons in Los Altos, Calif. “Can you imagine a college-admissions officer being able to access behavioral tracking information about a student, or how they did on a math app, all the way back to grade school?”

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