PicLits is a site for finding creative writing prompts. PicLits aims to provide inspiration for writing short stories. PicLits tries to reach this goal by providing users with images upon which they can build their writing.
February 11, 2016 Pixar in A Box is a free online course created out of a partnership between Khan Academy and Pixar Animation Studios. The course introduces learners to the fundamentals of the art of animation. More specifically, learners get to experience first-hand knowledge of the techniques and methods Pixar engineers use to create movies and animations.
“We now need to train everybody to understand the basics of computer science,” she says, “and I don’t equate it to just coding. I equate it to principles of thinking.”
There are ways of approaching problems, for example, or of structuring data, that help students program more effectively and more thoughtfully.
Here are five different ways to apply the same rubric in your classroom.
1. A Rubric for Thinking (Invention Activity)
2. A Rubric for Peer Feedback (Drafting Activity)
3. A Rubric for Teacher Feedback (Revision Activity)
4. A Rubric for Mini-Lessons (Data Indicate a Teachable Moment)
5. A Rubric for Making Grades Visible (Student Investment in Grading)
How often have we heard that students believe grades to be arbitrary or capricious? Repeated use of a single rubric is good for both students and instructors. Switching roles between author and editor results in students’ increased familiarity with the process and the components of good writing. Over the course of the semester, students will synthesize the rubric’s components into effective communication. The instructor, too, will shift from “sage on the stage” to “guide on the side,” answering fewer questions (and answering the same question fewer times). In other words, students will gain greater independence as writers and thinkers. And this is good for all of us.
the main value of project-based learning is that it teaches students to ask the right questions. Traditional assignments predefine the information that the students will use. Project-based learning puts students into the position of having to determine what information they need by asking the right questions.
The online environment proves yet another benefit in that it allows for the possibility of creating public results, such as a blog or Wikipedia article. You can also create a class wiki to host the projects. Students are far more invested in work that will be seen by many others than they are in the traditional assignment that is seen by nobody other than the teacher.
Finally, project-based learning constitutes a kind of gamification of learning, and thus has the same benefits that are driving the gamification of education movement. Games allow for short-term failure on the way to a goal without long-term cost, multiple paths to success, and just-in-time information within context of a goal (Gee, 2003; Kiang, 2014).