Agile Student Teams: The Secret To Make Groupwork Work

Developing effective teaming skills is a critical requirement for future readiness. In the world of complex challenges, real teams are the key to success, not just groups. Thus, one of the central objectives of an Agile Classroom is to enhance students’ ability to learn and work in real teams. When it comes to working collaboratively,…

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Bridging the Gap

The future will be a wildly different place than what schools were designed for. To thrive in a world that is increasingly complex, constantly changing, highly connected, and intensely competitive, students will need to master 21st Century Skills. Students will need to be adaptive, self-directed, collaborative, creative, and continuously learning. There are many approaches that…

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Reflection: Glows Grows Knows

Sharpening the Saw We can all agree that we want students who are growing in their capacity to be self-directed, make better choices, and interact positively with one another. In order to do this, we have to give time for students to reflect and improve.  Stephen Covey calls this sharpening the saw: “Suppose you came upon someone…

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21st Century Skills Cards

Another Card Deck from us to you.This one lays out the Life and Career Skills as outlined by the Partnership for 21st Century Learning.I recently used it to as a card game to learn about 21st Century Skills and to form cross-strength student teams.There are many other useful and fun ideas to use the 21st…

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The Journey

The Journey The path to a self-organizing classroom (where students are empowered, collaborative, and aligned to meet their goals) is often not a leap, but, a series of steps. It is a journey. Four Learning Zones Like in any journey, a map helps us to get there. The 4 Learning Zones maps out the terrain. As…

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Growing Self-Direction: A Scaffolding Model

How do we differentiate and scaffold self-directed learning? How do we meet students where they are, yet, continuously stretch them to become more self-directed? Empowering Boundaries You know how you grow a plant. Growing self-direction is like that. At first, you need to plant the seeds in a container. The container provides structure to support…

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Values Discovery

Learning Alliance Designing The Learning AlliancePreviously, we introduced you to Designing the Learning Alliance to set the stage for a culture of empowerment, collaboration, and achievement.  Designing Classroom Values Let’s start Designing the Alliance with creating a classroom culture based on shared values. Designing a values based classroom culture has 2 parts, Values DIscovery and…

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Story of Hope: Video Interview With Hope High School

At the Scrum Gathering Phoenix, Hope High School faculty & students share how they use Agile/Scrum to pivot the lives of some of the most disadvantaged students in Phoenix. SolutionsIQ sits down with John Miller (Agile Classrooms) and Mark French (Blueprint Education) to discuss how this idea was born, what it took to make it…

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Agile at King Chavez School

2 Teachers and a Big Idea Room 14 King Chavez Community High School Meet Alicia and Megan, teachers at King Chavez Community High School in San Diego. Alicia teaches Algebra 2 and Megan teaches English Language Arts. They had a bold idea. What if they shared a classroom together with students choosing which subject to…

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3 Questions for Empowerment

Image Source, Leon Reynolds,  /flic.kr/p/ms42JJ Are your students empowered? Ask these 3 questions to find out: (1) What opportunities do students have to make a choice? (2) Do the students use the opportunity to actually make a choice? (3) Does the choice help achieve the desired learning and life outcomes?  What insights emerge when…you answer them? …your…

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