Sylvia Libow Martinez's Blog, page 16

Quoted from “Conditions of Learning” – A research brief from the What Kids Can Do siteHow Youth Learn: A Portfolio to Inform and Inspire Educators, Students, Parents & More

In a recent paper, “Realizing the Potential of Learning in Middle Adolescence,” cognitive psychologists Robert Halpern, Paul Heckman, and Rick Larson remind us:

Good learning involves direct experience, “deep immersion in a consequential activity” (Bruner, 1966).
Learning works best when young people can focus in depth on a f...

I was quoted in this article in the New York Times about what the impact will be of removing the ban on students using or even having cell phones in New York City.

As New York prepares to lift its longstanding ban on cellphones carried by students in schools, it joins an increasing number of cities, including Chicago and Miami, where school leaders are yielding to the ubiquity of mobile phones and the futility...

This is possibly the question I hear most frequently – “Where do I start incorporating making in my classroom?” I wish there was a single, simple answer!But here are a couple of ideas of where to start.

1. Start with your kids – What are their interests? What would they like to make? It may take some time to get beyond the typical answers, but a patient and non-judgemental listening session (or two or ten) might spark a few ideas. Success with a few projects might get the ball rolling for othe...

[A version of this postappeared on the website: Engaging Modern Learnersin a compilation of articles on self-directed learning.]

In my recent book, Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering and Engineering the Classroom, there are many stories shared by teachers about how to create opportunities that support self-directed learning in their classrooms using modern technology. This one is from Maryann Molishus, a teacher in Pennsylvania who has taught both second and fifth grade.

“What do you want to le...

Click here to listen to the podcast

At ISTE 2014, Ginger Lewman and I recorded a podcast hosted by Don Wettrick calledInnovatED – Tomorrow’s Education Innovations Today, on theBAM Radio Network.

We talked about the connection between project-based learning and the Maker Movement, best practices, and potential pitfalls. Plus had a ton of fun! Take a listen

ISTE has released about 9 minutes of my ISTE 2014 session that focuses on 3D printing and education.

Ijust wrote a short blog for Edutopia about whether “making in the classroom” is just a fad, and what we can do to make sure it isn’t –

Should we worry that making in the classroom is just the new-new thing, soon to be replaced by some other newer new-new thing? Should we worry that lots of schools will run out and buy 3D printers without thinking about what they will do with them? Yes, I think we should worry, but not give up! To prevent this, I like to combine the work of education pioneers...

FabLearn 2014 is the third annual conference on making, fablabs, and education. This is a high quality event for educators, researchers, and designers to meet and talk about things that matter in the quest to make schools more authentic places for kids to learn.

The event will be held Oct. 25-26, 2014 on the beautiful Stanford campus in Palo Alto, California. This is an intimate, education-focused gathering with the emphasis on making schools better, not selling stuff.

The first phase of regist...

Scott McLeod of theDangerously Irrelevant bloghas been asking for posts on leadership for seven years now on what he calls “Leadership Day”. This is a great emerging resource with so many interesting perspectives – almost500 blog posts! I’ve participated in some years, with my own range of perspectives (see below).

In the past few years my focus has shifted from student leadership to the new affordances of the Maker Movement in K-12 classrooms. Since writing Invent To Learn: Making, Tinkering,...

You may have heard that it’s best to “ease” into hands-on project-based learning at the start of the school year. Maybe you feel your students aren’t ready, need some skills development, or just need to have a few weeks of settling down before getting started with more independent work.

Good teachers know that students learn a lot more when they get their hands on real materials, and get to do their own projects and experiments. But sometimes we get frustrated thinking about the students who w...