This report by “Innovative Teaching and Learning” was sponsored by Microsoft Partners in Learning. It contains very interesting and pertinent points about creating a culture of innovative teaching in schools.
2011 ITL Research Findings and Implications
Full report here
This report provides the findings from the 2011 analysis across 7 participating countries.
Key Findings from ITL Research in 2011
- Innovative teaching supports students’ development of the skills that will help them thrive in future life and work.
- However, students’ opportunities to develop these skills are typically scarce and uneven, both within and across the sample of schools in the study.
- While ICT use in teaching is becoming more common, ICT use by students in their learning is still an exception.
- Innovative teaching practices are more likely to flourish when particular supportive conditions are in place:
- Teacher collaboration that focuses on peer support and the sharing of pedagogical approaches
- Professional development that involves the active engagement of teachers, particularly in practicing and researching new teaching methods
- A school culture that offers a common vision of innovation and consistently encourages new types of teaching
- Researchers observed examples of innovative teaching at the classroom level. However, coherent and integrated support for the adoption of innovative teaching was lacking in most of the schools and all of the systems in this study.
- Students: efforts to provide ubiquitous ICT access to students must continue to ensure that all students have equal opportunities inside and outside school to develop the skills they will need for life and work.
- Teachers: they need professional development opportunities that leverage the most innovative teachers in each school to drive peer collaboration focused on teachers themselves designing, practicing and researching the innovative teaching approaches that develop students’ future skills.
- Schools: critically, school leaders need to cultivate holistic and shared visions of innovation that integrate advanced pedagogies with technology.
- Systems: innovative teachers and schools need the kinds of assessment and performance accountability measures that help more innovative teaching and learning to flourish.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.