Afternoon Announcements: Transitioning to Project-Based Learning

Teachers at a Maryland elementary school are preparing for more difficult assessments with the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. They reviewed sample test questions. The new questions get rid of the multiple choice format and ask students to explain their answers “using numbers, symbols and words.” Washington Post 

The Journal of Teacher Education will publish results from a new study that finds online professional development has the same outcomes on student learning and teacher behavior as traditional face-to-face models. Education Week 

An increasing number of schools are transitioning to a project-based learning model, such as the Manor New Technology High School in Texas that President Obama visited recently. The schools utilize 21st-century skills such as critical thinking, collaboration, and problem solving in their unit-long projects. High School Notes 

Ypsilanti High School in Michigan deals with behavioral problems in a unique way. Instead of suspending students, the school uses a “conflict-resolution room” in which students go and talk, draw, and express their feelings in other ways in the hope of resolving the conflict on school grounds. NPR