Keeping Focus on What is Important in Student-Centered Learning

I initially approached this post from a perspective of trying to tease out the nuances of problem-based, project-based, and challenge-based learning.  My first plan was to comment on the differences between them, and provide examples of each that I have incorporated in my own practice. However, I did find myself questioning some of the examples …

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Initial Thoughts on Two Common Technology Integration Models – SAMR and TPACK.

As an IB DP Chemistry teacher, models are an important part of what I teach.  In fact, one of the very first lessons in the course that I teach focuses on how our understanding of atomic structure has changed and developed over time. As new data arrive, we need to re-examine our existing models to …

Presenting Google Cardboard – Design Principles for Introducing the Potential for VR in the Classroom.

For my Course 3 final project, I decided to focus on the aesthetics of presentation design as described in “option 1”.  As I am also aiming to complete my GET certification with this program, this seemed like a great opportunity to practice giving a training seminar for colleagues which focuses on one of Google’s Educational …

Data Visualization and Infographic Design

Effective data visualization helps us to more easily comprehend trends and relationships between sets of quantitative data that may not otherwise be readily apparent.  If one is looking at numbers and statistics on a page, trends and correlations are many times not easy to see.  Large data sets that are effectively transformed into a more …

Bringing Storytelling into the Science Classroom – Some Initial Thoughts and Ideas

Storytelling has played an integral part of human development and evolution over many thousands of years.  I had read this before in various articles (like this article from Time Magazine) but I had not realized the profundity of its importance until recently reading Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.  According to Harari: “Storytelling is our speciality. …

Applying Principles of Design to Presentations

I really enjoyed exploring the Presentation Zen blog this past week, and noticing the ways that good design can really make or break a presentation.  Unfortunately, bad presentation/slide design is so ubiquitous that we come to expect it, and it usually never phases us when we are subjected to poorly designed presentations ourselves.     (Left …

An Example of Visual Literacy in the High School Science Classroom

There is a common misconception that science does not interest itself with design, and that those working in scientific fields think that design is best left to the arts and other more subjective disciplines.  However, elements of good visual design are crucial to the field of science, especially when it comes to communication.  Recognizing this, …

Initial Thoughts on Visual Design

On a recent trip to New York City, I spent a very pleasant afternoon at the “Cooper Hewitt”, the Smithsonian Design Museum, which was not a museum I would have typically predicted I would enjoy as much as I did. (I highly recommend it if you are in NYC.)  I have also been enjoying the …

Putting Global Collaboration into Practice

For the Course 2 final project, I worked with fellow COETAIL Cohort 9 participants Rory Bell and Gene Marie Chagaris.  Each of us brought a somewhat different perspective to the project, having different roles in our home schools, not to mention living in very different places - Switzerland (me), Taiwan (Gene Marie), and Japan (Rory). …

From Digital Potential to Real Action

The possibilities that now exist for students (and teachers!) to leverage digital technology to foster change is one of the most exciting and promising emerging frontiers of education in the 21st century.  I wrote a bit already about this topic in my previous blog post, where I focused on the “citizen” aspect of “digital citizenship”. …