You Should Read… (June 17, 2012)

Only a few more weeks until school is over for many in Canada but the learning will continue throughout the summer, anytime we are open to it.  Here are some links that I found interesting this week:

1.  Amplify the Positive Outliers – Seth Godin, one of the most popular bloggers on the Internet, talks about the importance of building culture by highlighting the work of those that are making a change:

“The tribe is hyper-aware of what’s being celebrated, and when you celebrate those that are moving in the right direction, you create a powerful push in that direction. It’s tempting to spend your time extinguishing bad behaviors, but in fact, spreading the word about the superstars is far more likely to change the culture of your market.”

Cultures are so important in the work that we do at schools, so this leads nicely into the next post.

2.  Starting the Conversation on Rethinking Awards CeremoniesChris Wejr, a good friend and principal, often talks about how awards impact our students, and provides this post to help schools start the conversation.  He asks some great questions:

  • Does your year-end awards ceremonies and/or student of the month program align with your school vision, plan and/or goals?
  • What does research say about the use of awards/prizes to motivate (or demotivate) learning?
  • At which age do awards become necessary – 5? 10? 15?  Why?
  • How much of the award is based on culture, language, parents (particularly cultural capital and income) and teachers that the winner has/had and how much is based on the person’s work ethic?

So where is the balance between highlighting the great work that is being done by our outliers, but also building a culture of collaboration?  These two pieces will provide a good starting point for that conversation.

3. The Best Twitter Hashtags for Teachers – Just a simple article to help teachers start using Twitter to do their own learning.  This offers some great connections to Twitter hashtags in the classrooms, but it leaves out two that I follow exclusively which are #ConnectedCA and #CPChat.  Which ones do you follow for your learning?

4.  I love this picture from 22 Words about cheating:

We have to look at what “cheating” means in our schools today.  If collaboration is a skill we are promoting in skills and organizations are begging their employees have, does cheating in our schools today look the same?  Something that I have said to many groups when I have been asked about the concern of using Google to cheat on a test is that if you can look up the answer to test on Google, is the question very good?

Maybe this picture can start some conversations on the topic of cheating and collaboration.

Hope you have a great week!

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