In education, we often talk about “student-centered learning,” but what does a student-centered learning environment actually look like? In this article, we define what student-centered learning really means and outline the common components of a truly student-centered learning model.
In this month’s Mentor Forum, we hear from Debbie Lynch, our Outreach Coordinator for Mentors about the important role that mentors play in online learning and some strategies for connecting with and supporting online students.
Each month our team of researchers will be discussing all things K-12 online learning in Michigan and across the nation. Our hope with this series is to provide a primer on K-12 online learning, cover established and emerging topics, and provide relevant research and resources.
Each month our team of researchers will be highlighting K-12 online, blended, and innovative learning research, reports, standards, and other noteworthy resources published nationally and internationally in the preceding weeks. Our hope with this series is to inform the educational community of the latest digital learning research in order to better serve students.
What makes for quality online teaching? In this blog post, we overview the latest revision to the National Standards for Quality Online Teaching, which offer a consensus from national online learning experts on what constitutes effective online teaching.
The most powerful thing we can do as educators is to invite our students to explore. Service-learning and project-based learning are two ways to allow students to explore and get involved in their communities. These two experiences continue to be woven into Katie Bielecki’s teaching and have spurred on the implementation of Genius Hour in her classroom.
Roadmaps is an open educational resource that allows teachers to create interactive, graphical, collaborative, and adaptive deeply digital lessons that are easy to use. This tool promotes collaboration between students and teachers which is why Denise Gallemore regularly uses it in her 5th-grade social studies and ELA classroom.
Jemma Bae Kwon & Kristen DeBruler Online gradebooks situated within a learning management system (LMS) go far beyond simply a space to record student grades.
Kindergartners have the ability to do a lot more than we often expect from them. Taylor White’s use of computer science and computational thinking lessons opened her eyes to what kindergartners have the capacity to do at a young age. While she witnessed them break down problems with machines and codes, she began to see it bleed into how the students broke down problems with their peers.
In this episode, we chat with Keith Tramper about digital wellbeing. We discuss what digital wellbeing is, how it relates to our lives, and
Learning analytics provides a mechanism to support educational decision-making and provide in-time interventions. This webinar focuses on recent research by Dr. Kerry Rice and
In this episode, Jeff chatted with Kevin Santer, Lead instructor with the Career & Technology department at Michigan Virtual. Kevin shared his story about coming
Debunking the common misconception that online courses are “easier” than face-to-face courses.
In my district, we continue to work on preparing our students for a changing world. Maintaining positive relationships is always important, but we need to
I’ve been teaching for 14 years, most of which have been at the middle school level in an urban school district. I’m a risk taker,
Some of my students were struggling with specific aspects of taking a course online, as well as certain assignments. They would send me emails that
When a student fails a class — or perhaps multiple classes — they may come to the realization that taking classes over the summer is the only way they can graduate on time with the rest of their peers. For students facing this situation, taking summer courses online can be a great way to recover the credits needed for graduation without missing out on their existing summer plans.
In 2016, Michigan Virtual, in conjunction with partner schools in the Virtual School Leadership Alliance, published a report on educating students across locales. This report
As an online teacher, Google Slides been the answer to all my hopes and dreams. Using it is like making a collage, but my fingers don’t get sticky! Pretty much everything I post in my online courses is created in Slides. One of my favorite ways to use Slides is for a Class Gallery, a place where students can showcase their artwork.
Young students often have a hard time thinking about actions, consequences, and, generally, anything that takes place in the future, so setting goals is not an easy task for them. In this article, Erin walks you through how to use the iPad App, SeeSaw, to help students set and achieve goals.
