MRVED Business
Upcoming Meetings
February 21 - Teachers' Advisory CouncilFebruary 22 - Principals' Advisory Council
February 27 - Superintendents' Advisory Council
MRVED Did You Know
Did you know there are 9 school districts that are members of the Minnesota River Valley Education District? The 9 school districts are Ortonville, Lac qui Parle Valley, Dawson-Boyd, Montevideo, Benson, Yellow Medicine East, Lakeview, Minneota, and Renville County West. The MRVED serves over 600 teachers and and 5,800 students.Science Standards - 2nd Draft & Comment Period
The second draft of the 2019 Minnesota K-12 Science Education Standards is now available. The public is invited to provide feedback on the standards during its Public Review and Comment Period, February 14-28, 2019. The standards can be found on the MDE Science page (link below the article) and the online feedback form link can be found below as well. Let your voice be heard. The standards committee reads all feedback and makes adjustments to the standards accordingly.
Online Feedback Form
In the political climate of today, showing kids both sides of stories is important. All Sides allows you to examine news headlines from all sides. It will even tell you if the article is left or right leaning, or centered. All Sides can be used as a great teaching tool to show bias in the media, and teaching kids to think critically while they read. If you are not going to use it with your kids, take a look yourself and see how headlines and stories are spun based upon political bias.
Matt Miller starts chapter 19 by talking about Daniel Pink's research on motivation. You can see Pink's TED talk on Motivation on the TED website. I have watched this TED talk numerous times and find something to take away from it every time. Students need to feel as if they have a choice while learning. This could be choice in the activities or even how they learn the new material. Students must also see a purpose in why they need to learn something or do an activity. If the purpose is simply to get the activity completed, that may not be enough motivation for many of your students. Show them the purpose, talk about the purpose. If you can't give them a good reason as to why you are doing something, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it.
Chapter 20 moves into embracing new technology. Miller gives us a great quote in this chapter, he says, "Technology must be an inalienable right to students" (Miller, 112). I love this quote and it really made me think. Miller gives the example of a new technology that comes out in the medical field that can save lives or make surgery recovery quicker...we would INSIST our doctors learn the new technology. I don't think we would give them a choice if they want to implement the latest device into their practice. Yet, we do this as teachers. Our students are INSISTING we use the latest technology to make their learning more relevant.
This idea of insisting we (teachers) learn new technology flows right into the premise of chapter 21. YOU are your own best PD. Miller talks about not waiting until the next staff PD day to learn or see how the new technology works. Dig in and try to figure it out yourself. YOU have the greatest minds at your fingertips with Twitter, the best tutorial videos imaginable on YouTube. Not to mention, you probably have a classroom of 20+ "experts" in front of you every day! YOU have full control over your own PD. YOU. YOU. YOU!
I get a little fired up over this topic. Miller reaffirms many of the same thoughts I have about education, PD, and technology. We are living in a day and age where we have access to SO much information, almost too much information. There should be no reason in the world why we can't learn something new to be the best we can. After all, our kids deserve your very best EVERY DAY!
Tech Tip of the Week - All Sides
In the political climate of today, showing kids both sides of stories is important. All Sides allows you to examine news headlines from all sides. It will even tell you if the article is left or right leaning, or centered. All Sides can be used as a great teaching tool to show bias in the media, and teaching kids to think critically while they read. If you are not going to use it with your kids, take a look yourself and see how headlines and stories are spun based upon political bias.Ditch That Textbook - Ditch That Mindset (Part 3)
This week we will look at chapters 19-22. Again, this book is such a quick read and full of awesome ideas! Below is simply my thoughts from these chapters, so please get Ditch That Textbook and read the chapters. I can, by no means, do the book justice in my short couple paragraphs of a synopsis.Matt Miller starts chapter 19 by talking about Daniel Pink's research on motivation. You can see Pink's TED talk on Motivation on the TED website. I have watched this TED talk numerous times and find something to take away from it every time. Students need to feel as if they have a choice while learning. This could be choice in the activities or even how they learn the new material. Students must also see a purpose in why they need to learn something or do an activity. If the purpose is simply to get the activity completed, that may not be enough motivation for many of your students. Show them the purpose, talk about the purpose. If you can't give them a good reason as to why you are doing something, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it.
This idea of insisting we (teachers) learn new technology flows right into the premise of chapter 21. YOU are your own best PD. Miller talks about not waiting until the next staff PD day to learn or see how the new technology works. Dig in and try to figure it out yourself. YOU have the greatest minds at your fingertips with Twitter, the best tutorial videos imaginable on YouTube. Not to mention, you probably have a classroom of 20+ "experts" in front of you every day! YOU have full control over your own PD. YOU. YOU. YOU!
I get a little fired up over this topic. Miller reaffirms many of the same thoughts I have about education, PD, and technology. We are living in a day and age where we have access to SO much information, almost too much information. There should be no reason in the world why we can't learn something new to be the best we can. After all, our kids deserve your very best EVERY DAY!