HOT TOPICS THIS WEEK:  #KINDESS #PRINCIPALS #ACHIEVEMENT #FUTUREREADYSKILLS #SPARVELLOUS TWITTER @sparvell

Top 3 Edu Watch-List

Sharing the things I share on social, bookmark and ponder as potentially significant or intriguing.

• SCHOOL LEADERS MATTER– 85 MILLION DOLLAR 5 YEAR STUDY RELEASED

One theory for how to improve schools begins not with teachers in the classroom but with the principals who hire and oversee them. To that end, the Wallace Foundation spent $85 million on a five-year project to improve school principals in six cities and large urban counties, from New York to Denver, beginning in 2011.

READ IT   here

• THE FUTURE OF JOBS– WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM REPORT

Workforce transformations are no longer an aspect of the distant future. As shown in the five-year outlook of this report, these transformations are a feature of today’s workplaces and people’s current livelihoods and are set to continue in the near term

READ IT here

• KINDNESS CAN MAKE YOU A BETTER LEADER– INC OPINION PIECE with 3 TIPS

We live in a world with a lot of disagreement. And, in my opinion, that’s OK. Varying, even opposing, perceptions and ideas often lead us to the greatest results–both in life and at work

READ IT here

HOT TOPICS THIS WEEK: #SEL # WEBINAR #SALZBURG #FUTUREREADYSKILLS #A

My Weekly Top 5  Monday 18^th March

The things that caught my biased eye since last week.

Remember- this is biased- it’s the things that caught my attention  in the last week. The things I share on social, bookmark and ponder as potentially significant or intriguing.

0. MDR Insights: Education Market Information and Trends

Latest edition is focused on…guess what? Social and Emotional Skills referring to this as ‘ a growing trend in schools’ and notes a ‘shift from the guidance office to the classroom’.

State of the K-12 Market 2018 reports are essential reading for a thorough and up-to-date understanding of the market, and offer key takeaways for companies and organizations who provide products and services to K-12 schools in the U.S.

Read the State of the market 2018 report   here

1. SAVE YOUR SPOT: March 20^th Webinar Social and Emotional Skills   To coincide with the release of Emotion and Cognition in the Age of AI + the release of the Salzburg Global Statement on SEL + the UN Day       International Happiness Day , MSFT has sponsored an Education Week Webinar.

Register and share here

3. SALZBURG GLOBAL SEMINAR Social and Emotional Learning: Time for Action

This event held last week bought together policy makers, academics, practioners, experts from across the globe and had a particular focus on students living in complex, violent, mobile situates in conflict zones.

Microsoft was both a sponsor, co-chair, and working-group lead across the event.

Find out more

4. Finland, Switzerland and New Zealand lead the way at teaching skills for the future: Find out what the future skills needed are (hint: The Class of 2030 calls them out)

Finland is the world leader at the provision of future skills education, according to the Worldwide Educating for the Future Index (WEFFI), which is now in its second year, closely followed by Switzerland.

Find out more here

5. THE ROLE OF EDUCATION IN AI AND VICE VERSA Interview with Jennifer Rexford, Princeton.

Princeton’s head of computer science, Jennifer Rexford, explains how artificial intelligence is set to change not only what teachers teach but how they teach.

Read it here

Past editions of the LIVEFIVE on my blog www.sparvell.com  PLUS my curated research articles on Modern Classrooms (physical spaces )

See you in around

Mark

Mark Sparvell

Marketing Education Leader

https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-teaching-happiness.html

My Weekly Top 5 Edu-live for Monday 11^th March

The things that caught my biased eye since last week.

Remember- this is biased- it’s the things that caught my attention  in the last week. The things I share on social, bookmark and ponder as potentially significant or intriguing.

GET OUTSIDE! Residential green space in childhood is associated with lower risk of psychiatric disorders from adolescence into adulthood

This caught my attention. Modern learning spaces increasingly feature ‘green-classrooms/ outdoor learning spaces’ . This nation-wide study covering >900,000 people shows that children who grew up with the lowest levels of green space had up to 55% higher risk of developing a psychiatric disorder independent from effects of other known risk factors here

THANK YOU! neuroscience reveals how gratitude literally re-wires the brain   

According UCLA’s Mindfulness Awareness Research Centre, regularly expressing gratitude literally changes the molecular structure, keeps the grey matter functioning and makes us healthier and happier.

here

SO, HOW DO YOU LEARN STUFF? Why Teachers Should Help Students Learn Effective Study Strategies

I thought this was interesting especially around retrieval, spaced practice and successive relearning.

There are hundreds of teaching strategies, most of which can be effective in certain situations. Dunlosky was looking for strategies that are broadly applicable and don’t just aid memorization; he wanted to find the approaches that deepen understanding and help students transfer learning to new situations.

here

WHAT IS EXCUTIVE FUNCTIONING

Some people describe executive function as “the CEO of the brain.” That’s because these skills allow us to set goals, plan and get things done. When kids struggle with executive skills, it impacts them in school and in everyday life.

1. Working memory
2. Cognitive flexibility (also called flexible thinking)
3. Inhibitory control (which includes self-control)

More Here

EVIDENCE FRESNO UNIFIED 4^th largest school district in California’s Personalized Learning Initiative with Microsoft drives measurable achievement on state-based test and more!

It’s kind of a big deal. Since its first year of implementation, Fresno’s PLI has grown in both size and scope. In its first year, 220 teachers and 12,000 students were touched by the PLI; in Year 2 this number increased to 362 teachers and 17,045 students. PLI teachers applied to the program from schools across the district and were selected randomly within that application pool.1

http://bit.ly/fresno2

My Weekly Top 5 Edu-live for Monday 5^th March

The things that caught my biased eye since last week.

Remember- this is biased- it’s the things that caught my attention  in the last week. The things I share on social, bookmark and ponder as potentially significant or intriguing. This past week I’ve been noticing GAMING and, as always #SEL popping up.

1. GAMES LIKE MINECRAFT that are grabbing EDU ATTENTION

Sandbox Games i.e. online places which allow users to be creators of narratives.

1. DREAMS is an upcoming sandbox video game developed by Media Molecule and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4, scheduled for release in 2019,^[1] with the public beta released in 2018. The game puts focuses on ‘play, create and share’, and allows players to create user-generated content.

1. HYTALE combines the scope of a sandbox with the depth of a roleplaying game, immersing players in a procedurally generated world where teetering towers and deep dungeons promise rich rewards. https://hytale.com/

1. MINETEST An open source voxel game engine. Play one of our many games, mod a game to your liking, make your own game, or play on a multiplayer server. Available for Windows, macOS, GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, and Android. https://www.minetest.net/

Thanks to Steven Reid from Immersive Minds for the leads.

2. SAVE YOUR SPOT: March 20^th Webinar Social and Emotional Skills  To coincide with the release of Emotion and Cognition in the Age of AI + the release of the Salzburg Global Statement on SEL + the UN Day of Happiness, MSFT has sponsored an Education Week Webinar. Register and share here

3. 10 BIG INSIGHTS on Teaching, Learning, and STEM Education: 100Kin10’s Trends Report for 2018Ten Trends by COREeducation notes WELL-BEING numero uno

Thanks @Sam Reich for this one.

1. 1. TEACHER SHORTAGES GROW, ALONGSIDE STOP-GAPS AND EVEN SOME INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS
   2. BRINGING THE M BACK TO STEM
   3. STEM IS ENGINEERING THE FUTURE WORKFORCE, WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT
   4. ANCHORING STEM IN JOY, CURIOSITY, AND EXPERIMENTATION
   5. BEYOND HARD SKILLS: STEM AS SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING

Get them all here

4. MINDFUL MARCH: The build up to our March 20^th release

Even you can achieve March the 5^th challenge!

Get the calendar in multiple languages here

5. DOES HIGHER ED NEED TO REDISCOVER GENEROSITY? Interview with Kathleen Fitzpatrick, a professor of English at Michigan State University, an influential digital-humanities scholar, and the author of Generous Thinking: A Radical Approach to Saving the University

Read the full piece here  Thanks to @Maria Langworthy for the lead.

Past editions of the LIVEFIVE on my blog www.sparvell.com

See you in around

Mark

BEYOND HARD SKILLS: STEM AS SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL LEARNING

Full article here

Leaders from LinkedIn and the World Economic Forum agree: students need soft-skills and social-emotional competencies to be effective leaders and team members in the 21st century. Prominent education publications are also discussing this, focusing on the need for teachers to understand social-emotional learning and brain science to better support their students in developing social skills that complement academics. Funders like the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative are embracing the whole child approach to learning, and there is growing interest in STEM — with its natural connection to curiosity, experimentation, and teamwork — as an integrated, content-forward way to foster growth mindset, grit, perseverance, and the soft skills most essential to 21st-century life.

Our Teacher Forum members have pointed out that the myth that STEM is only about hard skills is slowly waning, and partners are already taking early steps in this direction. The Charles A. Dana Center at the University of Texas at Austin is partnering with Agile Mind to lead a Project Team that aims to support students in adopting a growth mindset by addressing teachers’ implicit biases about who can and cannot excel in STEM. Colorado Education Initiative has championed the Student-Centered Accountability Program (S-CAP), a joint effort by small, rural Colorado school districts that considers the whole child to develop an approach to accountability that incorporates a wide range of indicators of district and school quality, focuses on the needs and interests of local communities, and is supported by a network of peers. With more partners contributing and more national attention, we predict that in 2019 we’ll see STEM increasingly being used to strengthen metacognitive and social-emotional skills so that more students can flourish in all aspects of their lives.

My Top 5 Edu-live for Monday 25^th Feb  EARLY EDITION

The things that caught my biased eye since last week.

1. HOT OFF THE PRESS RESEARCH – PEW RESEARCH CENTRE FEB 20th

Most U.S. Teens See Anxiety and Depression as a Major Problem Among Their Peers

Pew released Feb 20 a new report that notes concern about mental health cuts across gender, racial and socio-economic lines, with roughly equal shares of teens across demographic groups saying it is a significant issue in their community.

From <http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/02/20/most-u-s-teens-see-anxiety-ad-depression-as-a-major-problem-among-their-peers/>

2. MEANWHILE IN CANADA: Well-being as a lens for decision making                  

The Canadian Index of Well-being (CIW)

regularly reports on the quality of life of Canadians – nationally, provincially, and locally – and advocates for social change that reflects their values and places wellbeing at the heart of policy.

From <https://uwaterloo.ca/canadian-index-wellbeing/>

3. KIA ORA (That’s ‘Hello’ in New Zealand) Ten Trends by COREeducation notes WELL-BEING 

Wellbeing has emerged as a hot topic across many areas of their social, workplace, and government ecosystems in recent years. While there is currently no agreed international definition for wellbeing, those who research the area agree that wellbeing is more than the absence of disease, it is a construct with many parts. In order to flourish people need to experience high levels of wellbeing.

From <http://core-ed.org/research-and-innovation/ten-trends/2019/wellbeing/>

4. FORBES: Recently noted the following well-being trends for the workplace:

• Wellbeing is a strategy AND a responsibility.
• Personalization and relevancy are key, gone are the days of “burpees and broccoli” only programs.
• Realizing and acting on the fact that HR does not own wellbeing and employee experience alone – everyone does.

From <https://www.forbes.com/sites/colleenreilly/2018/12/19/2019-these-three-wellbeing-trends-are-here/>

5. MICROSOFT Empathy and innovation: How Microsoft’s cultural shift is leading to new product development

The message: Empathy leads to understanding and collaboration, which helps innovation push its way through the often-messy journey toward helpful products.

From <https://news.microsoft.com/innovation-stories/empathy-innovation-accessibility/>

Past editions of the LIVEFIVE on my blog www.sparvell.com

See you in around

Mark

p.s. register for the 3 free webisodes, TEACHING HAPPINESS

https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-teaching-happiness.html

I was browsing the New York Times on Saturday 23rd February in a Starbucks near Seattle (how very America that sounds right?) and a great piece by journalist Kevin Roose grabbed my attention.

Get the full article here

The reason I was interested was I’d just finished reading Your Happiness was Hacked co-authored by Alex Salkever https://www.amazon.com/Your-Happiness-Was-Hacked-Brain/dp/1523095849.

Kevin rightly ponders if obsessive or excessive use is indeed an addiction in the true sense of the word. Although cell phone addiction is not yet listed in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5 th Edition (DSM-5), research has compared it to gambling addiction, which has clearer diagnostic criteria and is included in the DSM-5.

Kevin noted some classical symptoms of heavy-use moving into unhealthy-use

• incapable of reading books
• unable to watch full length movies
• struggling to maintain uninterrupted conversation- on this. Have you head there’s a word to describe when you snub someone in favour of checking your phone? #phubbing

• finding online engagement that used to provide pleasure, no longer , infact making him anxious or angry

How I Ditched My Phone and Unbroke My Brain

Kevin needed his phone (as a Tech writer, made sense) and here’s a summary of the support he had from a coach

1. Address the root cause of phone obsession, the emotional triggers in order to unhook from harmful routines.
2.  Gather statistics- make it visible and become accountable e.g. how many times you pick up, how many minutes per day doing what.

Kevin noted 5 hours 37 minutes in one day …picking up the phone 101 times.

3. Create mental speed bumps to slow and think

• a rubber band around the phone which has to be removed first
•  change the lock screen to 3 questions WHAT FOR? WHY NOW? WHAT ELSE?
•  become aware of bizarre habits i.e. checking email while brushing teeth
•  become aware how you deal (or not) with stillness
•  watch people and life instead of the screen in transit

4. Phones not in bedrooms or, in one case, purchase a safe with combination and give the phone it’s own panic-room experience!

5. Do something interesting with the 5 hours a day you get back.

Kevin ultimate discovery was greater self-awareness and therefore, self-regulation.

Full article THE NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2019