Musings About Educational Dashboards: They’re About More Than Green Lights

I’ve been doing some musing about educational dashboards lately, the displays that school districts and others are developing to provide quick indicators of success or failure. The iconography, of course, is derived from the dashboards in our automobiles, and we understand the self-correcting nature of those indicators. People who don’t heed the “tank empty” light […]

High Tech High and Networks of Ideas

Today I published a long-in-the-works case study of High Tech High, the collection of schools in San Diego County that follow the same design and operating principles. Each of the 11 HTH schools is small, a maximum of 125 students per grade, and personalized. Each of the schools follows a project-based curriculum that requires students […]

The Road to Learning 2.0: Publishing as an Incentive To Practice Writing

Ben Heckman, an 8th grader from Framington, MN, is a twice-published novelist whose story was told in a New York Times piece about the growing number of young writers who break into print, usually with a little bankrolling from their parents. Hundreds of teenage and younger authors are publishing every year. The Times story by […]

A Quick Look at ‘Students as the Real Workers in the Education System’ in Riverside

Part of Learning 2.0 is being Beta tested in the Riverside Unified School District, the 43,000-student school system 60 miles east of Los Angeles. At the invitation of Superintendent Rick Miller, I undertook a blitzkrieg tour of Riverside schools last week and came away impressed with how they have pushed the envelope of teaching and […]

Learning 2.0 The Movie, Again with Fixes

The first version of Learning 2.0, The Movie was a little fuzzy so I engineered it again and resent it to YouTube. This one should be of higher quality. Thanks for watching.

Learning 2.0.net: A Way to Create Winners and Increase the Capacity of Public Education

Over the last two years, I have been researching and writing about Learning 2.0, the next full scale version of public education. I started the research to find a way through the political gridlock of education politics, not because I considered myself an expert in learning theory or pedagogical practice. I think I have. In a […]

Re-Bundling Teaching, Testing, and Growing Up

We need to rebundle. For the past century, teaching, testing, and growing up have been tied into a bundle called school. My schooling—like that of every other student—was a mixture of maturation and mental exercise, of intense bonding among peers under the watchful eyes of adults, who understood more than we thought they did. An […]

The Elements of Learning 2.0: Developing the New Basic Skills

Learning to collaborate and to solve ill-defined problems are to the 21st Century what industrial discipline was to the last hundred years, according to those who have studied what employers and society need. They need to be considered basic skills just as are reading, math, and science, and they are one of the key elements […]

The Elements of Learning 2.0: Students as the real workers in education

Most education reforms start with the premise that adults need to work harder so students will learn more. But ultimately, maybe quickly, that premise is self-defeating. Regardless of the pedagogy used, who governs the school, or how long teachers toil, students are the real workers in the system. Building around that reality is one of […]

The Elements of Learning 2.0: A Remix of Knowledge Acquisition and Practice

The words “remix” and “mashup” entered the vocabulary as descriptors of life in the digital age. They are also key to what I am calling Learning 2.0, the next full-scale version of public education. At the simplest level, these new terms are represented by three teenagers using Apple Garage Band to combine bits and pieces […]

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'On California' at EdWeek.org

I have concluded my opinion blog on the Golden State's politics and education policies at EdWeek.org. An archive of the 281 posts can be reached by clicking HERE

Learning 2.0

Learning 2.0 is the next full scale version of public education, one that builds on the capacity of the Internet age.

The five elements of Learning 2.0 are explained by clicking HERE:

Mixing acquisition of knowledge and practice, head and hands.
An individual education plan for everyone.
Understanding that students are the real workers in the education system.
Unbundle teaching, testing, and mentoring.
Add collaboration and solving tough, ambiguous problems to the list of basic skills.

Recent Projects

Teacher Work and Teacher Unions
‘Learning from L.A.: Institutional Change in American Public Education’
Teacher-Run Schools

Currently Reading

About

Charles Taylor Kerchner is an Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Fellow at Claremont Graduate University. My daily musings appear in the blog. The archives of my EdWeek blog are available via link under the 'On California' head. Some of my photography can be seen by clicking on 'Gallery.' And numerous links to academic work and other research and commentary can be found by clicking on 'Projects.'

Mindworkers

Charlet T. Kerchner / MindWorkers