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Innovative Approaches to Teaching and Learning

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Concurrent Enrollment
International Baccalaureate and Advanced Placement
Project Based Learning
Blended Learning
Center on Innovations in Learning
Universal Design
Global Learning

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Science, Technology, Engineering, & Mathematics (STEM) Initiatives

External Sites

This May 2012 Alliance for Excellent Education brief explores the issues associated with shifting the focus of education from a teacher-centered to a learner-centered system.

The words on many people's lips are "teacher shortage," and in some places, they have the ring of crisis to them. "There are 467 current job openings, and we're all trying to pull from the same applicant pool," said Beverly Mortimer, superintendent of the Concordia, Kan., school district. "Out in the rural areas it becomes harder and harder to pull those applicants." Regionally, stories of teacher shortages have been prevalent this summer, perhaps best exemplified by the Clark County, Nev., school district's launch of a nationwide campaign to entice both new and retired teachers with hiring bonuses of up to $5,000. Districts in California, Arizona, and Indiana, among many other states, are also facing high-profile recruitment challenges.

  • Generating Lesson Plans

    • This site from the Center on Innovations in Learning provides teachers with a guide to generating lesson plans.

  • Handbook on Innovations in Learning

    • This link is to the Center on Innovations in Learning's Handbook on Innovations in Learning. As noted in the Handbook's Forward, "The Handbook on Innovations in Learning focuses on innovations—both methodological and technological—in teaching and learning that promise to surpass standard practice in achieving learning outcomes for students."

  • Personal Competencies in Personalized Learning

    • This link to the Center on Innovations in Learning website website provides paper exploring personal leanring competencies.

  • Personal Competency A Framework for Building Students' Capacity to Learn

    • This link to the Center on Innovations in Learning website provides a framework for building students' capacity to learning through personal competencies.

  • The K-12 OER Collaborative

    • This website showcases a multistate effort to create a repository of free, open content designed to allow a wide variety of audiences—including commercial vendors—to take those resources, and build upon them. The K-12 OER Collaborative recently announced that it had awarded $1.3 million to 10 content developers to develop 2-3 week open academic units in English/language arts and math.  Those resources, designed to align with the common-core, are expected to serve as the foundation for more extensive, year-long academic materials.