Tag: #iowacore

Making Progress! Leadership Day 2012

Denise Krebs9 Comments

Today is Leadership Day 2012. Dr. Scott McLeod, Director of Innovation for Prairie Lakes Area Education Agency 8 in Iowa, has been calling people to write Leadership Day posts since 2007. (This year’s post is here.)

Last year I wrote my first Leadership Day post as an open letter to my administrator whom I had yet to met. I didn’t know anything about her. Now, I have had the joy of meeting her and working with her for one year.

As I re-read my post from last year, I am excited! A lot has happened since then, including some great professional development last year. We took a quick tour of the five Characteristics of Effective Instruction described in the Iowa Core. We also did some technology trainings. And, one of the best things, we bought two new laptop carts with Macs. One is housed in my room, with easy access for my students!

My class became more student-centered, due in part to our in-school PD, but even more as a result of my PLN and all I’m learning and sharing as a connected educator. This year I am excited to work more on rigor and relevance in my student-centered, genius classroom. We’ll be studying that characteristic in depth at school. I know I will grow yet again as an educator. I have appreciated our new administrator’s leadership.

And, bonus! On Monday I came into the office after the summer and she told me she was tweeting now. I was tickled! She is becoming a connected educator, and she’s already been tweeting out resources for others to benefit from! I’m looking forward to the new things we will learn together. Follow her at @LisaHamerlinck1

Tonight is open house at our school.

Lisa, I am planning to spend tonight and the first five days of school inspiring learning in my geniuses, not telling students what they can’t do. When they come into my room, this slideshow will be rolling.

Read more Leadership Day 2012 posts here.

Curiosity and Imagination are Survival Skills

Denise Krebs

I’m loving the new Iowa Future website. In the Overview section, it explains how we can’t teach to our past, but to our students’ future: “That is why Iowa Future is promoting the need for innovation in education, sharing ideas from across the state and nation, and highlighting the work underway to prepare for the future, to help all students realize success and possess the knowledge and skills to be ready for tomorrow, not yesterday.”

On a post yesterday at Iowafuture.org there was an interview with Tony Wagner, author of The Global Achievement Gap. On the video, addressing Iowan citizens, he explained that to be ready for college or the workforce, our students all need to be lifelong learners and active and informed citizens. The following are the “Seven Survival Skills” our students need, according to Tony Wagner:

1. Critical thinking
2. Collaboration across networks & leading by influence
3. Agility and adaptability
4. Initiative and entrepreneurialism
5. Ability to access and analyze information
6. Effective oral and written communication
7. Most importantly, curiosity and imagination

In addition to these intellectual survival skills, Wagner reminds his listeners that the habits of the heart have always, and will continue to be, important: The qualities of empathy, moral courage, and a strong work ethic are skills of the heart.

Wagner said we need to develop core competencies and work to teach and test them. Most countries leading the way in education have already been doing this. In Iowa, we are not. An example he used is that the Iowa Test of Basics Skills does not even attempt to test whether our students are critical thinkers.

His talk made me open the Iowa Core Curriculum website and take a look around. I quickly found evidence of the first six survival skills in the sections on Literacy, Employability Skills, and Technology Literacy.

I guess I wasn’t surprised that I did not find evidence of the seventh—curiosity and imagination—the skill he describes in the video as “most important.” Am I wrong? I hope so.

Is curiosity and imagination a standard—either explicitly or implied—in the Iowa Core Curriculum? Is curiosity and imagination in any state or country’s curriculum?