Evolving Learner

Learn from Kids, Peers, and the World to Transform Professional Learning What can kids teach us about educational practices? It turns out, plenty. PD is evolving into professional learning (PL), where personalized experiences focus on goals and outcomes, rather than seat time. In Evolving Learner, successful PL is framed through three critical sources: learning from kids, from peers, and from the world. Woven throughout the book are tangible connections to cycles of inquiry where a harmonious balance is the ultimate goal when students are engaged in inquiry for deeper learning and teachers are engaged in a parallel process to improve their practice. The authors’ unique framework shifts away from factory model "PD" and transforms it into experiences tailored to kids’ and adult learners’ specific needs. Clear strategies for accomplishing PL are presented through A framework where both students and teachers are active agents of learning Cycles of inquiry to empower students to become the owners of learning Techniques to make thinking visible for teachers and students Cutting edge coverage of applying technology to professional learning including the use of social media, gamification, and digital badges The time is right to reclaim ownership of your professional learning: Evolving Learner is an essential guide for embarking on this journey.

It's time to create a new normal. It's time to leave behind practices that don't best serve all learners and educators, and to prioritize what matters most: relationships, connection, purpose, flexibility, agency, and authentic learning. Education must evolve. Looking to learners will help us see what's working, what's challenging, and, ultimately, what's possible. To ensure that all of those learners thrive, we'll need to use insight from our own experiences, research from the field, and new tools and approaches to adapt our practices. In Evolving Education, Dr. Katie Martin advocates for a much-needed shift to a learner-centered teaching model. Learner-centered education creates purposeful, personalized, authentic, and competency-based experiences that help students develop skills that empower them to learn, grow, and solve problems that matter to them and others. Following on Martin's previous book, Learner-Centered Innovation, Evolving Education offers a deeper dive into how educators can harness new technologies, learning sciences, and pedagogy that center learners and learning. After all, Martin argues, if we truly want to develop knowledge, habits, and skills in students, we have to know them, love them, and help them see the full beauty of who they are and what they can become. Endorsements "Evolving Education clearly articulates how to redefine success, create powerful learning experiences, and support them with enabling conditions. This would make a great book study for any school faculty or community group." -Tom Vander Ark, CEO of Getting Smart "Katie Martin absolutely nailed it in Evolving Education. A learner-centered paradigm requires that we examine beliefs and biases and disrupt systems that do not serve each and every learner. This work requires innovation, creativity, flexibility, and heart. This book is the perfect mix of incredible storytelling, inspiration, and concrete strategy." -Katie Novak, EdD, author of UDL and Blended Learning

"The concept of personalized professional learning has gained a good deal of traction over the past decade. Much in the way that classroom instruction has shifted from a twentieth century factory model (at least in theory), the notion of one-size-fits-all professional development has been widely discredited. A recent blog post (http://blog.edmentum.com/5-best-practices-personalized-professional-development) makes the following case: Gathering all of a school's teachers in a room for one day and offering strategies with the intention of universal classroom application doesn't work anymore-'one size fits all' is no longer an effective option. Instead, attention must be paid to the broader context of each teacher's classroom world. The subject(s) they teach, the technology they utilize, as well as the ages and specific challenges of their students, all must be taken into account. Moreover, technological advances have dramatically improved access to individualized PL options. But while the idea that teachers can tailor their professional learning to unique needs is inherently appealing, there remains a central paradox: most experts are in agreement that the most impactful professional leaning experiences take place in collaboration with other teachers. The authors of the proposed title believe that powerful professional learning can be grouped into three distinctive categories: (1) Learning from students; (2) Learning from peers; (3) Learning from the world"--

Essays on the contributions to historical and contemporary evolutionary theory of the Baldwin effect, which postulates the effects of learned behaviors on evolutionary change.

Now is the time to evolve from the existing model of schooling into one that is more innovative, relevant, effective, and successful. Leading the Evolution introduces a three-pronged approach to driving substantive change (called the evolutionary triad) that connects transformative educational leadership, student engagement, and teacher optimism around personalized competency-based education. Each chapter includes supporting research and theory, as well as clear direction and strategies for putting the evolutionary triad into practice. Learn how and why to implement a personalized competency-based approach for academic achievement and student engagement: Understand the current state of education and why changing to a competency-based approach is imperative. Identify the instructional leadership behaviors that lead to the organizational and cultural shift necessary to transform the current education paradigm. Consider in detail all three points of the evolutionary triad: transformational instructional leadership, teacher optimism, and student engagement. Examine the central focus of the evolutionary triad: personalized, competency-based education. Explore educational leadership practices that support successfully implementing the evolutionary triad and learning competencies in schools. Contents: Introduction Chapter 1: Foundations for Evolution Chapter 2: The Transformational Instructional Leader Chapter 3: The Optimistic Teacher Chapter 4: The Engaged Student Chapter 5: The High-Impact School Epilogue References and Resources Index

"This book fills the gap between theory-laden academic books designed to help academic faculty incorporate self-directed learning activities into their courses and the self-help books designed to help motivate individuals to learn new skills"--

Learning on Demand presents new ideas around the topic of web-enabled instruction, challenging long-held beliefs about proper ‘design’ and the methods for engaging students. Drawing on technology trends, this book shows that accessibility of information on demand overshadows ‘interactive design’ for creating effective web-based instruction. In addition, the trends that are evident outside of the training and development industry are ones that could empower and bring training and development professionals into vital roles within an organization. Learning on Demand showcases fascinating examples of web and mobile technologies that are based on an increasingly open web platform. Right now, technology innovations are moving faster than innovations in learning. The showcase of technologies presented in this book can create a baseline of innovation to use for comparison in the future. We must continue to look at new, developing technologies, and assess whether training and development trends are taking advantage of these technologies. If they are not, we need to examine how we can do so moving forward. This book will discuss new ways of measuring the effectiveness of web-enabled instructional solutions based on the success of business intelligence and web analytic technologies.

This collection presents research-based interventions using existing knowledge to produce new pedagogies to teach evolution to learners more successfully, whether in schools or elsewhere. ‘Success’ here is measured as cognitive gains, as acceptance of evolution or an increased desire to continue to learn about it. Aside from introductory and concluding chapters by the editors, each chapter consists of a research-based intervention intended to enable evolution to be taught successfully; all these interventions have been researched and evaluated by the chapters’ authors and the findings are presented along with discussions of the implications. The result is an important compendium of studies from around the word conducted both inside and outside of school. The volume is unique and provides an essential reference point and platform for future work for the foreseeable future.