August 11, 2010 – 8:43 am
In July Project Foundry hosted the 2nd annual Project Based Learning un-Conference. The keynote speaker was Peter Pappas. He shared many great examples of how Project Based Learning is transforming schools and helping students explore their worlds, rather than subjecting them to the repetitive lower order thinking tasks characterized by most traditional schools. I would [...]
Here is an opportunity for anyone interested in 3 semester hours of graduate credit on the topic of alternative education from an expert. For about a decade Roy Weaver served as editor of Changing Schools (national journal of alternative education for 20 years) and organized alternative education conferences during the late 1970s and 1980s. The course is offered entirely online and [...]
For the next 5 months Lake Superior will become a living classroom for two lifetime educators and the school groups that follow them, either physically or via the world wide web. Mike Link and Kate Crowley are currently walking the entire shoreline of Lake Superior in an effort to bring attention to the environmental and cultural changes [...]
A report recently released outlines eight strengths of character that can helpboth students and schools achieve ethical and productive futures. http://www.cortland.edu/character/highschool/chapters/SnGReport.pdf
April 19, 2010 – 12:00 pm
I’ve waited for years for this marvelous book, Lives of Passion, School of Hope: How One Public School Ignites a Lifelong Love of Learning. It tells a story of a K-12 progressive school (Jefferson County Open School, Colorado) that combined the best features from research and practice such as: strong advisory system, personal learning plan, [...]
February 28, 2010 – 7:57 pm
High Schoolers have many more options today then they did even a decade ago. There are Alternative, Charter, Private and On-Line options, and now there are options in many states to graduate early or if necessaryto stay one, two or even three additional years. Recently both the New York Times and U.S. Today had articles [...]
February 15, 2010 – 11:01 am
Schools have been involved in environmental education and the “Green Movement” for nearly 40 years now, but now with advances in technology and connections with the internet schools and students are able to connect, create and learn in ways that were not possible in the past. Several sites of interest are available that either [...]
January 13, 2010 – 4:11 pm
Here are a couple of very interesting and extensive articles on graduation rates and the need to promote graduation for all students. The first article talks mostly about the graduation gap between the upper 2/3 of high school students and the lower 1/3, made up mostly of urban, low-income African American and Latino students. The [...]
November 9, 2009 – 6:44 pm
There’s little doubt that the Internet will transform schooling (read choices) and how students learn, play, socialize, and participate in civic life. A newly-created Digital Media and Learning Research Hub at the University of California-Irvine will explore the impact of digital media on learning and its potential for transforming education. The Center is funded by a $2.97 million grant from [...]
September 15, 2009 – 4:21 pm
David Bly, former President of the Minnesota Association of Alternative Programs and a co-founder of IALA has written a powerful booklet, The Middle Class Amendment, which you can read online. Bly, a Representative from Northfield, is a member of the Minnesota Legislature. While IALA does not make political endorsements, we think the topic of interest to alternative educators [...]
September 2, 2009 – 8:46 pm
The technology revolution has entered into every part of our lives, and now it seems that the implications for education are about to bring major changes to the way students and indeed all of us learn and gain information. There are a multitude of options for students of all ages to gather and disseminate [...]
August 26, 2009 – 11:41 am
After school budgets, testing remains one of the most controversial and talked about subjects among administrators, teachers, parents and students. Edutopia has an interesting article along with several links regarding the future of standardized testing. The article Reinventing the BIG test http://www.edutopia.org/reinventing-big-test-the-challenge-of-authentic-assessment gives examples of several promising alternative assessments to the standardized multiple choice tests that [...]
Since the early 1990s when the nation’s first charter school was opened in St. Paul, MN, the scope and availability of school-based options to parents has steadily expanded in the U.S. and abroad. No longer can traditional education be a public monopoly. Sponsored by the National Center on School Choice (NCSC), this 648 page ($115) Handbook of [...]
Several helpful documents are available for describing, implementing and evaluating alternative education programs. The first three refer to alternative education broadly, that is, providing a choice of programs for all students. The last one is more attuned to at-risk students. Ray Morley and the Iowa Association of Alternative Education prepared a thoughtful document, Alternative Learning [...]
February 26, 2009 – 5:01 pm
Here are useful resources with links to other sites: Brief descriptions in Summary of Educational Models include: Accelerated Schools, America’s Choice, Big Picture, Communities in Schools, EdVisions, Job Corps, Youth Build and 17 more. The Alternative High School Initiative (AHSI) is a network of youth development organizations with over 258 sites nationwide for creating educational [...]