Curriculum 21 and Heidi Hayes Jacobs

Today, during our professional development, we had an amazing opportunity to hear from a visionary in the field of education and curricular design, Heidi Hayes Jacobs.  As she spoke during our morning session, I felt a whole lot of this running through me.

For example: 

Heidi spoke about differentiated professional development reflective of not only your district but individual buildings respective of their cultures and tribal patterns.

She attributed the quote "You're either growing or you're decaying" to Jean Piaget.  I've found it attributed to either Lou Holz (sub dying for decaying) and Alan Arkin.  Though I don't doubt Jean Piaget has said something to this effect too.  He was pretty into growth and child development, after all.

The message hard chairs in rows sends: Stay in your place.  Design flexible spaces.

In relation to curriculum, we need to decide what to cut; what to keep; and what to create.

Perspective taking.  Last week, we watched this video from Alan November.  Similarly, Heidi pointed out that in Britain, the "American Revolution" is referred to as "The War with the Colonial Insurgents."

Digital Literacy involves Access; Selection; Curation; and Creation

Research means to "search again"

In our buildings/districts, there are "people doing interesting work that should be shared." 

Um, hello #sharetheawesome

Things I'm planning to check out:

The film, Beyond Measure   Not surprising to me, this is by the same film maker who created The Race to Nowhere, Vicki Abeles.

Global Partnership Resource Hub, including such awesome as The Global Read Aloud

The Finland Phenomenon

I look forward to my trip (wink wink) to the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY but moreover, checking out the available resources for educators in media creation and literacy.

I also look forward to my trip to The Reading and Writing Project with Lucy Calkins.

Some other resources I plan to investigate further are here in this Symbaloo.  I plan to add more resources as I read Heidi's book, Curriculum 21.

*I don't usually make my symbaloos lopsided, but I noticed that when embedded this was cutoff and made a design decision to do so so you can see them without having to scroll and whatnot.


Oh, and then there's this.  Like Richard Byrne and Donalyn Miller before her, I'm sure this was not at all creepy for Heidi.  Because we are on a first name basis.  She said so.

Friday Tech Tip (Pine Road Edition): My Learning Plan Notifications

If you aren't getting notifications from My Learning Plan to let you know when new workshops are being offered or when you have one coming up, you should check your settings to do so.  It's as easy as 3 clicks.  Once you are signed on to MLP, click on My User Profile under Account Settings on the far left side near the bottom of the page.  Under email notifications, select Yes for New Activity Notification.  Select Yes for Upcoming Activities Reminder and set it to a reasonable number of days in advance.  For example, when mine was first set up, it was for 14 days.  So EVERY DAY for 2 weeks prior to an upcoming workshop, I would get a reminder.  For me, that wasn't necessary.  I've reset mine to 3 days which is enough of a reminder period to jog my memory if I didn't have the event already in my calendar.  Be certain that the email associated to your MLP settings is accurate and don't forget to SAVE changes at the bottom of the screen.