Worth Reading...

It has been some time since my last post.  I want to share some good postings, I have come across the past few weeks.


1. Boston Designers Discuss the Creative Process (DeLuca)-  BostInno's 3rd annual State of Innovation brings together more than 1,000 business leaders and professionals for keynotes from high-profile speakers, cutting-edge panel discussions with industry leaders, engaging workshops and endless networking opportunities. This year, a series of workshops with partner General Assembly will focus on skills needed to fuel Boston's growth, including design thinking. 

2. Tomorrow's Learning Today (Heick)- I am never the biggest fan of lists, however, I like the second point raised in the post about the shift from standards to habits of mind.  

We’ve talked about this one quite a bit–most recently in Changing What We Teach, for example. This is among the biggest and most powerful ideas in “future learning,” and should be central to any meaningful discussion therein. What are students learning, why are they learning it, and what are they doing with what they know? In short, the shift from purely academic standards to critical thinking habits supports personalized, 21st century learning through a preceding shift from institution to learner.

3. 10 Buildings Show the Future of Architecture (Kushner)- interesting perspectives on how to play with a space and in particular, recognition of a personal design firm favorite, Snarkitecture

4. Feedback Revolutionizes How We Assess Learning (Barnes)- a teacher shares how he moved from a traditional grading system of handing out letters and percentages to where assessment is provided through conversation.  

Years ago, I decided to eliminate traditional grades from my classroom. I stopped placing numbers, percentages and letters on anything and everything my students completed. Instead, we assessed learning through conversation and narrative feedback. While students quickly grew accustomed to discussing their activities and projects, it was important to give them a system that would make sense. The formality and rigidity of grades disappeared, replaced by the simplicity ofSE2R — Summarize, Explain, Redirect, Resubmit.

5.3D Print Revolution (D'Aveni)- now that the 3D print revolution is underway what are some of the next level of developments to consider

Third, leaders must consider the strategic implications as whole commercial ecosystemsbegin to form around the new realities of 3-D printing. Much has been made of the potential for large swaths of the manufacturing sector to atomize into an untold number of small “makers.” But that vision tends to obscure a surer and more important development: To permit the integration of activities across designers, makers, and movers of goods, digital platforms will have to be established. At first these platforms will enable design-to-print activities and design sharing and fast downloading. Soon they will orchestrate printer operations, quality control, real-time optimization of printer networks, and capacity exchanges, among other needed functions. The most successful platform providers will prosper mightily by establishing standards and providing the settings in which a complex ecosystem can coordinate responses to market demands

6. Push, Don't Crush the Students (Richtel)- the article talks about encouraging students to strive for challenging goals and not placing undue pressure on kids.  

Experts say such clusters typically occur when suicide takes hold as a viable coping mechanism — as a deadly, irrational fashion. But that hasn’t stopped this community from soul searching: Does a culture of hyper-achievement deserve any blame for this cluster?  The answer is complex, bordering on the contradictory: No, the pressure to succeed is not unique, nor does it cause a suicide cluster in itself, but the intense reflection underway here has unearthed a sobering reality about how Silicon Valley’s culture of best in class is playing out in the schools

7. The Backwards Brain Bicycle

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8. The Best Kindergarten You Have Ever Seen- At this school in Tokyo, five-year-olds cause traffic jams and windows are for Santa to climb into. Meet: the world's cutest kindergarten, designed by architect Takaharu Tezuka. In this charming talk, he walks us through a design process that really lets kids be kids