Design

Dan Pink outlines multiple ways to enhance the aptitude of design in A Whole New Mind.  Pink suggests that everyone just needs to learn how to observe, understand, and appreciate the elements of good design and then they will naturally develop their own sense of design. I ran across this article by Steven Bradley...
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I wanted to share a template with you that I use when giving notes. The idea came from a conversation with a colleague who had attended an in-service on Marzano‘s strategies.  (To see more on Marzano and Dan Pink’s right-brain aptitudes see this post) When asking students to take notes, the obvious weakness in...
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This is a great site for resources on Robert Marzano’s instructional strategies. If you are familiar with Marzano, then you will find this site particularly interesting as it connects instructional technology resources with each of his strategies.  If you are not familiar with Marzano, each strategy is briefly defined so that you can implement...
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This is something that most of us would assume, but here is the data to back it up. Just providing access to the internet will not necessarily benefit students.  They must know how to use it. The study surveyed freshmen from the University of Illinois to test their “internet know-how”.  Students from lower socio-economic...
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I was asked once by a colleague to relate Dan Pink’s Right-Brain aptitudes to Bloom’s taxonomy.  To be honest I have always preferred to apply Bloom’s Taxonomy through the verbs that are usually associated with his work.  My colleague and I threw out as many verbs as we could remember, and I wrote them...
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This is some great stuff! If you are looking at enhancing your students’ design aptitude from AWNM, any lesson plan would benefit from one or more of these templates. There are templates for story boards, visual brainstorming, and even just some fun fold-up patterns that might help with spacial understanding in elementary school or...
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It looks like this Chicago school is going to implement quite a few of Dan Pink’s right-brain aptitudes, even though they did not call them by name. The article highlights a school that is implementing a new curriculum supported by Partnership for 21st Century Skills.  They will move to a collaborative, inquiry-based learning model...
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As teachers we may not always feel comfortable with our knowledge of design.  Because of this insecurity, I am always on the lookout for information on design basics. Balance, contrast, and proportion are all concepts that we may inherently appreciate, but trying to teach them to students is a completely different story.
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What a great idea – Using improv to develop design-based thinking. This article highlights Peter Robbie’s Design Thinking class at Thayer Engineering School. As you read the article, Robbie points out that in an age of abundance such as ours, human-centered design is essential to business success.  His ideas are completely in line with...
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What an interesting application of Dan Pink’s ideas from A Whole New Mind. Chris Livaccari outlines how to apply Dan Pink’s ideas in a Chinese language classroom. Although I have always held the flexibility of Dan Pink’s ideas in the highest regard, I never could have imagined applying them in a Chinese language class.
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