Important Notice


Dear Classrooms for the Future Contacts,

Congratulations on your Classrooms for the Future grant!  We look forward to working with you.  Below is a link to your 2008-09 CFF Handbook.     

Please note that we are still in need of contact information from many school districts.  If you have not e-mailed your list of updated contacts, please do so as soon as possible.  Keep in mind that we need the names, e-mail addresses, and phone numbers for the following individuals:  CFF Contact, Superintendent, Assistant Superintendent, Curriculum Director, Technology Director, High School Principal, Assistant High School Principal, CFF Coach, and the Keystone Integrator. 

This information can be e-mailed to Kara Thomas, CFF Secretary at c-kthomas@state.pa.us or Bethany Rohler, CFF Administrative Assistant at c-brohler@state.pa.us.

 Classrooms for the Future Handbook (Word)

National School Boards Foundation Education Leadership Toolkit

A project of the National School Boards Foundation implemented by NSBA's Institute for the Transfer of to Education with a grant from the National Science Foundation.

Systems Thinking “in 25 Words or Less” – Debra Lyneis (PDF)

… Why is systems thinking in education so difficult to explain at first?  

Systems Thinking – Assembled by Carter McNamara

Management sciences have learned a great deal lately about organizations and how they work. Much of this learning has come from adopting the perspective that organizations are systems, much like people, plants and animals. There are many benefits to leaders who adopt this systems view of their organizations.

Assessment and Achievement Resource Center

In this resource center assembles a variety of news and information as well as outside resources to help put assessment in clearer perspective and tie it more closely to its primary purpose—namely, better test scores through improved instruction.  

Data-Driven Teachers

Data-driven decision-making (DDDM) is a system of teaching and management practices that gets better information about students into the hands of classroom teachers. Are you struggling with data-driven decision-making? Do you wish you had better training in data-driven instructional practices? Dr. Scott McLeod, Director of the School Technology Leadership Initiative (STLI) at the University of Minnesota , has created a white paper that outlines the basic competencies needed for effective data-driven instruction.  

North Central Regional Educational Laboratory—Data Use: School Improvement Through Data-Driven Decision Making

This web site is designed to give educators - and others involved in using data in a classroom, school, or district - a variety of places to find resources, tools, and action steps to foster school improvement.

Mapping a Route Toward Differentiated Instruction

Carol Ann Tomlinson

Developing academically responsive classrooms is important for a country built on the twin values of equity and excellence. Our schools can achieve both of these competing values only to the degree that they can establish heterogeneous communities of learning (attending to issues of equity) built solidly on high-quality curriculum and instruction that strive to maximize the capacity of each learner (attending to issues of excellence).  

Reconcilable Differences?  Standards-Based Teaching and Differentiation Carol Ann Tomlinson

Recent demands for more standards-based teaching can feel like a huge impediment to encouraging differentiated instruction, especially for teachers and principals who recognize student variance and want to address it appropriately. A relatively new phenomenon (at least in its current form), standards-based instruction dominates the educational terrain in a time of great academic diversity in contemporary classrooms. In fact, standards-based instruction and the high-stakes testing that drives it can often feel like a locomotive rolling over everything in its path, including individualized learning.  

CAST Universal Design

Not all students are alike. Based on this knowledge, differentiated instruction applies an approach to teaching and learning so that students have multiple options for taking in information and making sense of ideas. The model of differentiated instruction requires teachers to be flexible in their approach to teaching and adjusting the curriculum and presentation of information to learners rather than expecting students to modify themselves for the curriculum. Classroom teaching is a blend of whole-class, group and individual instruction. Differentiated Instruction is a teaching theory based on the premise that instructional approaches should vary and be adapted in relation to individual and diverse students in classrooms.

Buck Institute for Education Project Based Learning Handbook

The introduction is designed to orient you to the field of Project Based Learning. Included in this section are a brief history of PBL and a description of its benefits. By the end of this section, you will be able to describe PBL and identify key elements of successful projects.  

Edutopia Newsletter – George Lucas Educational Foundation

In project-based learning, students work in teams to explore real-world problems and create presentations to share what they have learned. Compared with learning solely from textbooks, this approach has many benefits for students, including:
• Deeper knowledge of subject matter;
• Increased self-direction and motivation;
• Improved research and problem-solving skills.  

Why Do Project Based Learning?

Project-based learning (PBL) is a model for classroom activity that shifts away from the classroom practices of short, isolated, teacher-centered lessons and instead emphasizes learning activities that are long-term, interdisciplinary, student-centered, and integrated with real world issues and practices.  

 Napa New Technology High School (NTHS)

 Napa New Technology High School (NTHS) opened in 1996 serving students in Grades 11-12 from two feeder high schools. Today the school serves 400 students in grades 9-12. Napa New Tech may be a remodeled elementary school facility, but it looks like a workplace, not a school. Founding NTHS Director and Principal Mark Morrison calls it " a high-tech, high-touch learning environment."

Technology is integrated into every class, courses are interdisciplinary and project based, and each student graduates with a Digital Portfolio. Students take a course in New Media, which gives them the skills to use powerful authoring and presentation technologies in all their work. In the senior year, each student does a year-long internship in a local business, many of them technology or related companies, and also completes an on-line Internship Project "Work Summary" about their experience that will become part of their professional digital portfolio.

How People Learn – Chapter 6 National Academy of Sciences  

John Bransford, Ann Brown, Rodney Cocking, editors

We use the term "learner centered" to refer to environments that pay careful attention to the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs that learners bring to the educational setting. This term includes teaching practices that have been called "culturally responsive," "culturally appropriate," "culturally compatible," and "culturally relevant."  

Iowa State University – Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching Learning-Centered Syllabi Workshop

Creating and using a learner-centered syllabus is integral to the process of creating learning communities. The concept is simple but its implications are far-reaching: students and their ability to learn are at the center of what we do. This means that we focus on the process of learning rather than the content, that the content and the teacher adapt to the students rather than expecting the students to adapt to the content, that responsibility is placed on students to learn rather than on professors to teach.  

Principles of Learning in “Learner-centered” education

• the learner is the beginning and the end point of the learning process
• the learner's needs are the focus of the course/program/organization
• the learner is in control of the learning experience

Partnership for 21 ^st Century Skills

The Partnership for 21st Century Skills has emerged as the leading advocacy organization focused on infusing 21st century skills into education. The organization brings together the business community, education leaders, and policymakers to define a powerful vision for 21st century education to ensure every child's success as citizens and workers in the 21st century. The Partnership encourages schools, districts and states to advocate for the infusion of 21st century skills into education and provides tools and resources to help facilitate and drive change.  

Center for Media Literacy Learning for the 21 ^st Century

How do we best prepare our young people to succeed in the 21 ^st century? As a comprehensive effort to identify the essential skills that people need today — and tomorrow — the Learning for the 21 ^st Century report articulates a compelling vision for education in the United States and provides an urgent call for action, outlined in its "Mile Guide for 21 ^st Century Skills."  

21 ^st Century Learning Environments eSchool News online

We're living in the 21st century, so by definition every classroom must be a 21st century learning environment, right? Wrong. Just as educators were often accused of teaching with 19th-century methods in the 20th century, many are still not changing with the times. For some schools, the biggest challenge is understanding the true nature of 21st-century learning. Once this transformational concept is embraced, technology becomes a means to help boost achievement across the board.  

The 21 ^st Century Learning Initiative:  Promoting a Vision, Knowledge, Experience and a Network

The 21st Century Learning Initiative's essential purpose is to facilitate the emergence of new approaches to learning that draw upon a range of insights into the human brain, the functioning of human societies, and learning as a community-wide activity. We believe this will release human potential in ways that nurture and form local democratic communities worldwide, and will help reclaim and sustain a world supportive of human endeavor.

Synthesis Thinking: What America’s Students Need to Thrive in the Flat World - Richard J. Mextorf, D.Ed.

In the book The World is Flat, Tom Friedman (2006) discusses the forces of Globalization that have flattened the world and the implications of the flat world for the new world economy. In the new, flat world, individuals, not just countries or corporations, can market themselves globally, making it possible for individuals to thrive in a world-wide marketplace and for companies to recruit the best and brightest talent from anywhere on the globe. The flat world has virtually eliminated low-skill labor in America and, due to automation and digitization, produced an economic reality that does not guarantee workers lifetime employment with a single company or corporation. According to Friedman, workers of today and in the future will change jobs or careers multiple times throughout their working lives. In order to thrive in the flat world, individuals must continually learn and upgrade their skills in order to add value and remain indispensable to employers. The reality of the flat world requires new skills and has profound implications for education.

The following are resources related to teaching and learning with a computer for each teacher and student.  

Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation

The Anytime Anywhere Learning Foundation is a 501(c) 6 not for profit association whose primary purpose is to serve as an advocacy vehicle for anytime, anywhere learning.  

Ubiquitous Computing Evaluation Consortium

SRI International, an independent not-for-profit research and development organization, is coordinating a consortium that will evaluate the impact of ubiquitous computing in K-12 classrooms. SRI International is teaming with six other leaders in the field to create and maintain an active network of evaluators and to develop a common framework for understanding how desktop, laptop, and handheld computers are currently used in mathematics and science education.  

One to One Computing

The Editors of eSchool News

An extensive collection of news, analysis, and history of one-to-one computing initiatives from our archives. The information contained here could help you weigh the potential benefits of one-to-one computing against its considerable challenges. By reading about how other schools have tackled (or, in some cases, have failed to overcome) these challenges, you might come away with some ideas you can use in your own schools--if you decide to move forward with one-to-one computing plans of your own.

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)

ISTE is the trusted source for professional development, knowledge generation, advocacy, and leadership for innovation. A nonprofit membership organization, ISTE provides leadership and service to improve teaching, learning, and school leadership by advancing the effective use of technology in PK–12 and teacher education.  

Classrooms  for the Future

Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA)

Upgrade Magazine October – November 2003

Classrooms of the Future

Holly M. Jobe  

Building the School of the Future

The School District of Philadelphia and Microsoft are working together on an ambitious and purposeful task: To build a School of the Future

Technology in K-12 Education: Envisioning a New Future
by David Thornburg
A white paper resulting from The Forum on Technology in Education: Envisioning the Future sponsored by the U.S. Office of Educational Technology. Other white papers are available from this site.

Grant Writing Tips
In Search of Technology Treasures: An Online Grant-Writing Seminar

SchoolGrants

A one-stop site for PK-12 school grant opportunities.  

Toshiba America Foundation

The Toshiba America Foundation offers grants to math and science teachers in grades 7-12 to support the design and implementation of new classroom projects. Applications for grants under $5,000 are accepted throughout the year. Twice a year, the foundation also considers applications for grants over $5,000.