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Here's How Challenge and Choice Create Authentic Learning Experiences
Educator Insights, Teaching Strategies, Product Updates | October 4, 2018
By Christine Blackburn and Jennifer Rhodes, Middle School Principal and Middle School Art Teacher American School of the Hague
In his book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Yuval Harari (2018) writes that "the last thing a teacher needs to give her pupils is more information" (p. 261). He believes that "most important of all will be the ability to deal with change, to learn new things, and to preserve mental balance in unfamiliar situations" (p. 262).
We aren't sure about the facts and knowledge that students will need in the future, but we do know that helping students practice critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, and communication will help them along the way. These four core skills are a pillar for 21st Century Skills, the buzz phrase in education. We believe that challenges and choices in learning are key factors to success in these skills.
Challenge and Choice to Hone 21st Century Skills
In the middle school at the American School of the Hague, we focus on ensuring that all students are given challenge and choice in conjunction with 21st century skills. Learning is a process where challenges provide growth and choices instill what Parker, Novak and Bartell (2017) describe as "autonomy, competence and a sense of belonging" (p. 39). These characteristics are essential for the wary middle-schooler.
Providing challenges and choices benefits students by:
Empowering them to make choices about how to either best demonstrate their learning or to move beyond the level of mastery for a topic
Allowing students to access the real world through authentic learning
Enabling students to choose the best way to demonstrate their understanding
Placing emphasis on deeper understanding
Appealing to all students
Providing a stimulating learning environment
Ensuring that they are working in Vygotsky's Zone of Proximal Development
Requiring students to take responsibility
When and how might we use challenge and choice?
During any moment of student learning
Within any curriculum
While working with students from preschool until high school, including students with learning needs
Throughout the learning transition when students move from one school to another
For pre-assessments, summative and formative assessments or practicing skills and sharing knowledge that may not be assessed
Challenge and Choice to Foster Authentic Learning
Students who are engaged in a challenging environment where choice is an option experience authentic, or real-life learning. In other words, students practice skills and behaviors that they will use to engage and connect with the world around them.Authentic Learning "is real life learning. It is a style of learning that encourages students to create a tangible, useful products to be shared with their world." Not only are we teachers bringing in real world context to our classrooms, but our students are taking real world issues and problems and developing solutions applicable to the world or community around them.
Design Authentic Learning Experiences >>
Challenge and Choice to Deepen Learning in Every Subject
At ASH, we aspire to achieve a challenging, choice-based classroom. Challenge and Choice can be used in all lessons from Math to Art to Social Studies to Science. A few of the ways that teachers provide challenge and choice in the classroom for authentic learning are:
Students have access to 'expert' videos for almost every lesson. Students watch the videos for a variety of reasons: to better access the material during the lesson, to review a lesson or to move ahead to learn about the next lesson. Math videos are also created with challenge options.
When assessing the students understanding of feudalism, for example, students are able to demonstrate their understanding in a variety of ways. The first choice is accessible for all students, with a variety of choices increasing in difficulty and challenge.
After a skills bootcamp where students practice using a variety of techniques, students create from their choice of media using a chosen artist and a chosen theme. Although choice is given, the units are structured and students document learning by recording elements of art used, skills developed, vocabulary learned, results of peer feedback, and media explored. Students can work at their own pace and differentiation is inherent within the tasks.
After a phenomenon-driven demonstration, students are required to ask testable questions and plan an investigation to test those questions. After analyzing and interpreting results, students develop a results and theory-based cause and effect model of the phenomenon, ultimately trying to explain why the phenomenon happens. In these standard types, assessment focuses on the quality of their practices, not whether or not their explanation was accurate (though, clarifications and redesigns are made eventually for inaccurate models).
Incorporate authentic learning experiences into your instruction to engage students and elevate their comprehension and understanding.Christine Blackburn, in her role of Middle School Principal, is committed to meeting the social, emotional, and academic needs of Middle School students. Christine is a Third Culture Kid (TCK) herself, which allows her to understand and advocate for the unique needs of TCKs. As a student, she lived in the U.S., India, The Netherlands and Sudan.
Christine earned her Bachelor's Degree from the University of Texas and her Master of Education from the University of Houston. She has worked in education in both inner city and rural U.S. schools as well as international schools in Tunisia, Russia, Qatar, and Jordan.
Presently, Christine has returned to her alma mater, the American School of the Hague, as a leader of both the learning and development in the classroom and the learning and development of the adults in the school.Jennifer Rhodes is the Middle School Art Teacher at the American School of the Hague. She has been a moderator for the MYP, taught art at both the IGCSE and the Diploma levels, was a Year Leader and Coordinator for Learning at her previous school in France, and served as an EAL teacher in Assiut and Cairo, Egypt.
Jennifer has co-led workshops in Design Thinking and is inspired by teaching methods that ignite students' curiosity and promote community. She holds a Master's degree in both Art Education and School Counseling and believes that learning can be addictive. Jennifer is married to a blues playing philosopher .
Announcements | January 1, 2021
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Men's basketball lost to rival VCU earlier this month at the Robins Center.
Kiana Marshall, Dessi Zlateva, Lea Owens, Ana Ramirez and Lyndell Giffenig all won their singles matches.
Junior Tyler Shoults scored a career-high four goals, but the No. 14 Spiders fell in overtime.
Senior Marissa Brown scored five points to lead the Spiders past William & Mary. Brown is now fifth all-time in career points scored by a Spider.
Brown set the program's record for career assists in a blowout win against Old Dominion. Redshirt sophomore Sam Geiersbach and senior Mia Castagnero each scored their 100th career point.
Grant Golden and Jacob Gilyard combined for 41 points in the Spiders' loss. Golden and T.J. Cline (2016-17) are the only Spiders to record 500 points, 200 rebounds and 100 assists in a season.
Richmond suffered a close loss in its regular-season finale after a late comeback from Davidson. Golden finished with 20 points, and Gilyard added 17.
A fourth-quarter comeback attempt wasn't enough to lead the Spiders to victory against St. Louis in the first round of the Atlantic 10 tournament. First-year Claire Holt led the team with 13 points, and junior Jaide Hinds-Clarke scored nine.
The Spiders won all three doubles matches. Matt Fernandez, Klein Evans, George Lovitt, John Walsh and Campbell Erwin all won their singles matches.
The team's three-game series at Davidson was canceled.


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Relationship between conformational dynamics and electron transfer in a desolvated peptide. Part I. Structures.
David Semrouni 1 Carine Clavaguera 1 Gilles Ohanessian 1 Joel H. Parks 2
2 Rowland Institute at Harvard
2 Rowland Institute at Harvard (100 Edwin H. Land Blvd., Cambridge, MA 02142 - United States) StructId : 235537
Harvard University [Cambridge] (Massachusetts Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138 - United States) StructId : 38302
Abstract : The structures, dynamics and energetics of the protonated, derivatized peptide DyeX-(Pro)(4)-Arg(+)-Trp, where "Dye" stands for the BODIPY analogue of tetramethylrhodamine and X is a (CH(2))(5) linker, have been investigated using a combination of modeling approaches in order to provide a numerical framework to the interpretation of fluorescence quenching data in the gas phase. Molecular dynamics (MD) calculations using the new generation AMOEBA force field were carried out using a representative set of conformations, at eight temperatures ranging from 150 to 500 K. Force field parameters were derived from ab initio calculations for the Dye. Strong electrostatic, polarization and dispersion interactions combine to shape this charged peptide. These effects arise in particular from the electric field generated by the charge of the protonated arginine and from several hydrogen bonds that can be established between the Dye linker and the terminal Trp. This conclusion is based on both the analysis of all structures generated in the MD simulations and on an energy decomposition analysis at classical and quantum mechanical levels. Structural analysis of the simulations at the different temperatures reveals that the relatively rigid polyproline segment allows for the Dye and Trp indole side chain to adopt stacking conformations favorable to electron transfer, yielding support to a model in which it is electron transfer from tryptophan to the dye that drives fluorescence quenching.
David Semrouni, Carine Clavaguera, Gilles Ohanessian, Joel H. Parks. Relationship between conformational dynamics and electron transfer in a desolvated peptide. Part I. Structures.. Journal of Physical Chemistry B, American Chemical Society, 2013, 117 (6), pp.1746-1755. ⟨10.1021/jp3078375⟩. ⟨hal-00880173⟩

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Afghanistan and Pakistan: Five Terrorisms
Antonio Giustozzi
| 11 Dicembre 2018
Between Afghanistan and Pakistan there are probably a record number of organizations dedicated to terrorist activities, some hundreds if even the smallest ones are counted. In practice, the 'terrorists' of Afghanistan and Pakistan can be grouped into five groups:
• The Afghan Taliban, involved in terrorist activities mainly through the Haqqani network, which operate against Western presence in Afghanistan and against the Afghans accused of collaborating with them;
• Pakistani Taliban (mainly TTP, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan), who fight against the Pakistani government;
• The Kashmiri jihadists, who intend to separate Kashmir from India and join it to Pakistan;
• Sectarian groups, whose objectives are members of other sects (mainly Shiite Muslims, targeted by groups such as Lashkar-e Jhangvi);
• Global jihadists, for whom Afghanistan and Pakistan are mainly platforms for operations whose importance goes far beyond these two countries (Islamic State and Al-Qaida).
This subdivision is inevitably a bit arbitrary and there are actually overlaps and relationships between the different groups. For example, some Afghan Taliban, especially among the Haqqani network, have relations with the global jihadists of the Islamic State and of Al-Qaida. However, some simplification is needed to describe the galaxy of terrorist organizations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Taliban terrorist activities are currently in decline. Increasingly concentrated in the hands of the Haqqani over the years, the terrorist attacks claimed by the Taliban have been rare since February 2018. Sources among the Taliban indicate that Haibatullah, head of the Taliban, has decided to block a Haqqani campaign that was sliding more and more towards indiscriminate violence, potentially with serious damage to the image of the Taliban.
The Pakistani Taliban's terrorist campaign is also in decline, but in this case because the Pakistani Taliban themselves have passed the apogee of their strength and have been driven out of most of the territories they once controlled. In the past the Pakistani Taliban had distinguished themselves with indiscriminate attacks, often intended as retaliation for military operations against them, but today their operations are mostly limited to occasional raids from Afghanistan
Kashmiri jihadism was slightly recovering in 2018, probably as a result of the renewed tension between India and Pakistan. However, it remains the shadow of what was in the 1990s. The bulk of the pro-Kashmir jihadist groups' strength is not even close to the Indian border, but within Pakistan and often also in Afghanistan, where some groups like Lashkar-e Taiba support the Taliban.
Sectarian organizations too are losing steam in Pakistan. The government repression against Lashkar-e Jhangvi considerably weakened it. The Pakistani authorities are under pressure from the Iranian side to contain anti-Shiite terrorism and undoubtedly did achieve results in this regard, probably fearing a large-scale Shiite response, sponsored by Iran. The main protagonist of sectarian violence are no longer specialized groups like Lashkar-e Jhangvi, but a global jihadist group such as the Islamic State, which has claimed all the main attacks against Shiites of recent times. There are doubts in truth about the genuineness of certain claims, especially when other groups, such as Jamiat ul Ahrar, a split of the TTP, have claimed at the same time.
However, it is clear that the lion's share of Afghan-Pakistani terrorism is accounted today by the Islamic State, whose branch for Khorasan is particularly active in the Afghan cities of Kabul and Jalalabad. After a stunted beginning in 2015, the terrorist activities of the Islamic State have gradually intensified, and now it carries out major attack more than once a month. The growing terrorist efficiency of the Islamic State seems to derive at least in part from the confluence in it of much of the Haqqani structure in Kabul, but also from the support provided by the Haqqani network itself, from the end of 2017 onwards.
The terrorist strategy of the Islamic State is to operate on two parallel axes. On the one hand there is a clear 'zarqawian' intent to generate a sectarian conflict in Afghanistan, mercilessly targeting the local Shiite community. The Islamic State to date has not even tried to hit the leaders of the Shiite community, but from the beginning privileged indiscriminate attacks against defenceless targets. On the other hand there is the intent to generate a volume of indiscriminate attacks both Kabul and increasingly also in Jalalabad, which puts pressure on the Afghan authorities and potentially could also generate a political crisis of great proportions.
Why do the Haqqani support the Islamic State, albeit 'clandestinely' (ie without the consent of the Taliban leadership)? An ideological explanation could be that Serajuddin Haqqani, head of the network, has long been influenced by global jihadism and has sympathy for the Islamic State as such. More pragmatically, Serajuddin opposes any reconciliation option between Taliban and Kabul authorities, fearing that there would be no room for him in a peaceful Afghanistan. Having assumed the task of doing the dirty work (terrorist attacks) on behalf of the Taliban's political leadership, Serajuddin would be marginalised in the event of a peace agreement and could not hope to be assigned a prestigious position in a future post-war government. So for him the Islamic State could be a reserve option in case of successful peace negotiations.
Some readers will have noticed the absence of Al-Qaida from this albeit simplified summary. Al-Qaida and some affiliated organizations, such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), still maintain a presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but in recent years this presence has been reduced due to defections to the Islamic State (especially the IMU) and the defeats suffered from the Islamic State in the old strongholds of Al-Qaida in the east of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, whose roles in Afghanistan were assisting the Taliban and some Pakistani groups such as the TTP and training terrorists to deploy elsewhere, saw its operations considerably disturbed by the loss of bases in the east and is currently being redeployed to the south of Afghanistan.
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Illinois Lures Wind Farm Away from Missouri with Bold Energy Policy
Affinity Wind is building its first wind farm in Illinois, not home state Missouri, because of a wind-friendly RPS there — and it's not alone
When St. Louis University (SLU) business professor Trey Goede and his students sought to turn their plan for a $250 million wind facility into reality, they headed to neighboring Illinois, where the wind is powerful and so is clean power demand.
They aren't alone. Once known only for coal and nuclear, a robust renewable energy policy is making Illinois a magnet for commercial wind farm developers of all stripes.
The SLU classroom project, which became in 2007, will break ground this spring on the first 36 megawatts of a 150 megawatt-plan. The second phase is slated for 2012. The 75-turbine project in the state's western Pike County is on par with other utility-scale wind farms cropping up across the industrial Midwest.
Goede, Affinity Wind's founder and CEO, said his decision to set up the facility out of state was fairly simple.
"At the time, Illinois had a renewable portfolio standard (RPS), and Missouri did not," Goede told SolveClimate News. "Illinois has been the benefactor of a strong RPS."
Ten States Aim for Offshore Wind Boom in Alliance with Interior Department
Citing "Secrecy," NY Counties Demand Offshore Wind Details
Technology Takes on Wind Power's Biggest Challenge: Predictability
As Offshore Wind Power Grows, a Push for Transmission 'Supergrids'
Fears of Radar Interference Threaten Oregon Wind Farm, but Solutions Exist
Like Obama, Ban Ki-moon Shifts from Climate to Clean Economy Focus
The UN secretary general will redirect efforts to making more immediate gains in clean energy and sustainable development
By Suzanne Goldenberg,
Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general who made global warming his personal mission, is ending his hands-on involvement with international climate change negotiations, the Guardian has learned.
In a strategic shift, Ban will redirect his efforts from trying to encourage movement in the international climate change negotiations to a broader agenda of promoting clean energy and sustainable development, senior UN officials said.
The officials said the change in focus reflected Ban's realization, after his deep involvement with the failed Copenhagen summit in 2009, that world leaders are not prepared to come together in a sweeping agreement on global warming – at least not for the next few years.
"It is very evident that there will not be a single grand deal at any point in the near future," said Robert Orr, UN assistant secretary general for strategic planning and a key adviser to Ban.
Obama's State of the Union: Mum on Climate, Loud on a Clean Economy Future
Mexico Hailed for Making Climate Talks a Global Triumph
Climate Talks End With Modest Deal and Standing Ovation
United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
EPA Ethanol Expansion Hardens a Divide
The divide between pro- and anti-ethanol forces is widening now that EPA has approved E15 gas for 2001-06 cars, and it's spilling over to Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON—A fracture between pro- and anti-ethanol forces seems to be widening into a gorge now that the EPA has expanded the fuel's reach in the transportation sector.
On one side, business, environmental, budget watchdog and public interest organizations are castigating the Environmental Protection Agency's to allow vehicles manufactured between 2001 and 2006 to use gasoline containing 15 percent ethanol. On the other side, the won't be content until even older-model cars, trucks, minivans and sport utility vehicles are included in the E15 mix.
The vituperative back-and-forth has spilled over to Capitol Hill where Oklahoma Republican Sen. Jim Inhofe, ranking member of the , is seeking an oversight hearing.
"EPA's latest action continues to push too much ethanol too fast," in an e-mail. "Unfortunately, Congress has done little to exercise appropriate oversight of such decisions, despite growing bipartisan concerns over ethanol's mechanical problems and its economic and environmental impacts."
Bipartisan Groups Want to End Ethanol Subsidy and Save Taxpayers Billions
Report Offers Roadmap to Cleaner Biofuels from Non-Food Sources
Fight to End Corn Ethanol Subsidy Creates Strange Bedfellows
corn ethanol
Green Autos
Obama adopted a more centrist tone during his State of the Union, avoiding any mention of climate change but embracing the promise of clean technology
WASHINGTON—President Obama's commitment to lessening the nation's carbon footprint hasn't likely changed. But the manner in which he's pursuing that ideal has definitely shifted.
That became abundantly clear when he avoided any mention of climate change or heat-trapping gases but embraced the promise of clean technology during his Tuesday night . As Democratic and Republican legislators parted with the tradition of separate seating and listened side-by-side during the speech, Obama adopted a more centrist tone now that the GOP is wielding far more power in the 112th Congress.
All of that nuance wasn't lost on several dozen clean technology innovators who gathered at a downtown Washington watering hole to listen to Obama's words on a television screen so gigantic that the president appeared life-sized.
They didn't erupt into applause as often as attendees in the House of Representatives chamber — at least 75 such interruptions occurred there — but they did clap, hoot and stomp at the 15-minute mark of the 62-minute speech when Obama called for ditching billions of dollars in taxpayer-funded oil subsidies and steering the United States toward producing 80 percent of its electricity from clean energy by 2035. He also repeated a goal of putting a million electric vehicles on the roadways by 2015.
Obama Tax Deal Leaving Out Clean Energy, Putting Jobs at Risk
A Climate "Plan B" for Team Obama, Now That Congress Has Failed
Green Growth, South Korea's National Policy, Gaining Global Attention
A new economic paradigm is arising out of the ashes of the global financial crisis. Could it take hold?
When the global financial crisis rippled through economies around the world in 2008, experts warned that global warming would slide down on the list of the world's priorities. In part, they were right.
Trillions flowed to resuscitate teetering economies, which were based on fossil fuels. Money pledged to address climate change was never mobilized.
But something else happened at the same time: Many nations' fiscal-stimulus packages included billions to finance clean energy projects.
No nation was as bullish on the idea as South Korea. Asia's fourth-largest economy poured 80 percent of its $38 billion stimulus program into what it calls "green growth." Later, it committed 2 percent of its annual GDP over five years to the same national cause.
Now, both rich and poor nations are turning to Seoul for lessons in green-powered development, and the new economic approach that was born out of financial mayhem.
Could it take hold?
Lord Stern Charts A 'Green' Industrial Revolution
China's Global Dominance in Green Jobs Growing, Report Says
Feeling the Heat Down Under When it Comes to Climate Change
Court Order Could Cause EPA Feud with GOP Congress to Boil Over
A recent court decision ordering EPA to speed up industrial boiler regulations could set the agency and the U.S. House on 'a real collision course.'
WASHINGTON—Tension between a Republican-led House and the EPA is already palpable enough during this nascent 112th Congress. And an order from a federal judge issued late last week has likely exacerbated the pending friction festival.
Washington-based District Court Judge Paul Friedman told officials Thursday that the makes it indisputably clear they need to speed up a final rule setting standards for toxic emissions from industrial boilers by meeting a new Feb. 21 deadline.
Back in early December, the EPA mollified the manufacturing sector and disappointed conservationists by saying it needed more time — 15 months — to review the science to establish long-awaited limits on such large-scale heating equipment. The EPA's original, court-ordered deadline was Jan. 16.
Agency authorities wanted to extend that to April 2012 partially because they were concerned some factories wouldn't be ready to adapt to updated regulations. But Friedman said that wasn't a valid argument.
2011 Forecast: Wind and Natural Gas to Outshine Coal; Policy Vacuum to Continue
Biomass Industry Wants New Boiler Rules from EPA
Solar Acquisition Paying Off for Powertool Giant Hilti
In taking over New Mexico solar parts manufacturer Unirac, tool powerhouse Hilti has become a sudden competitor in the clean energy economy.
When powertool giant was looking to expand its North American presence last year, it didn't beef up its old industrial production base. Instead, Hilti followed a growing and lucrative trend in manufacturing: solar power parts.
The 70-year-old, Lichtenstein-based company, known for hammer drills, firestops and power saws, spent $140 million nine months ago . It is now selling the New Mexico company's solar racking systems as part of the Hilti product portfolio.
In taking over Unirac, the tool powerhouse is doing for itself something it could not possibly have accomplished alone — becoming an instant competitor in the clean energy economy.
Albuquerque-based Unirac came with 13 years of experience in making aluminum and steel mounts for rooftops and ground arrays, as well as a client list that includes some big solar spenders, such as the Google Campus in Mountain View, Calif. and Universal Studios in Hollywood.
Hilti insists its solar business is already paying off. In a released last week, the company said that its mounting systems for PV panels made "a considerable contribution" to its total sales of around $4 billion in 2010, up 7 percent from 2009 results.
The White House Goes Solar. Why Now?
U.S. Solar Market Booms, With Utility-Scale Projects Leading the Way
U.S. Solar Industry Fights to Save Controversial Clean Energy Grants
With No Policy Incentives, Turkey's Solar Entrepreneurs Wait Out in the Cold
Hawaiian Utility Fights Solar Industry Over Private Installations


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Essendon-ASADA trial likely for August
Matt Thompson Jun 25, 2014 6:33PM
DOCUMENTS lodged with the Federal Court ahead of Friday's hearing involving Essendon, James Hird and the Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority point towards a possible August trial.
Essendon and Hird are challenging the legality of the anti-doping authority's joint investigation conducted with the AFL last year.
The primary purpose of Friday morning's directions hearing in Melbourne is to establish a timeframe.
All parties are in agreement that the case should be expedited.
It's suggested the trial could last one to two days in August, although there's no agreement on specific dates.
Essendon is also seeking an injunction to stop ASADA from proceeding with any action on players until the matter before the court is concluded.
It follows ASADA's decision to issue 34 show-cause notices to present and past Essendon players in relation to the club's 2012 supplements program.
Initially ASADA conducted a joint investigation with the AFL, which lead to an interim report and sanctions against Essendon and Hird last August.
The anti-doping body has been continuing it's own inquires since.
Justice John Middleton has permitted the ABC to have a camera in the courtroom for Friday's hearing, meaning pictures from the hearing are set to be beamed all over Australia.