Kathy Anderson, president-elect of Phi Delta Kappan International, posted this YouTube video about people's senses of time and the effects of those differences. Very interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3oIiH7BLmg

After watching, I clicked on a suggested, related video from Dan Pink: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=channel

Then, I posted this to PDK...
"I am spending considerable time researching project-based learning. Currently, I am reading Powerful Learning (Linda Darling-Hammond). According to much of the research (and a great deal of common sense), project-based learning (also problem-based and design-based) appear to provide the students with ENGAGING, ACTIVE learning for a PURPOSE...to have something to control that matters to the students and to the community. PBL also reproduces the conditions under which most of us work 'in the real world.' What superb training and education that might turn out to be. Thanks for sharing the video."

To discover what motivates our students and ourselves would be a key to a great shift in education and learning!

Bright Spots

I am re-reading Chip and Dan Heath's Switch. The concept in the "direct the rider" section about BRIGHT SPOTS is so compelling that I cannot get the idea out of my mind. Why are we so problem-solving oriented versus bright-spot-reproducing oriented? We should be recreating more of the moments when things work well, when our strengths are revealed and engaged, when our efforts are at our best. We should write and send more "class acts" than "class demerits." What has made us so focused on locating and addressing "the broken" that it has us habituated to such behavior? At my school, we use teacher peer visits as an element of a growth system. As the peer visits model is expanding,several are resisting the idea. Much of the resistance seems to center around who will read the peer-visit notes. But the peer-visit notes are strength-based...they are bright-spots notes. Yet he habit in people seems to assume that admin is looking for what's broken. That's something to fix - the assumption that we are mining what's broken versus building on what is strong. Here's to a bright-spots movement!