How important is it to ask what students think of their education? It’s vitally important for us to ask this of our students even though we may not be satisfied with what they say about their classroom experiences. Bruce and I are discussing this concept today, along with my recent eye-opening visit to a school […]
#43: Be Careful What You Ask For Read More »
What is the role of the single teacher in a classroom in a world where millions of potential teachers are now a few keystrokes away on a laptop or phone? To ask that question seriously, you have to buy into the premise of “millions of teachers” (if not billions) being within reach online. You have
From Traditional Teacher to “Modern Learning Advisor” Read More »
How much of what we do every day is part of a routine, habit, or in some cases almost a ritual? I know that for most of us the getting out of bed, shower, teeth thing certainly is, but when it comes to our work the context of the question shifts, and maybe it’s a
Bells and Cells and other Big Fat Myths Read More »
“How much of our “progress” as teachers has been spurred by fear of failure, of punishment, of low test scores, of a poor evaluation?” That’s a question that has me thinking this morning, asked in an interesting blog post by Arthur Chiaravalli on Medium. It’s especially compelling considering my recent trip to Finland (summarized in our
What If We Stopped Evaluating Teachers? Read More »
Seems like not a day goes by that I read some education related article or post that leads to this question: “Why the heck do we do that?” Today’s candidate is an article by Jay Matthews in the Washington Post which laments the dire reality of writing instruction in the Common Core era, teased by
The Powers That Be Read More »
As a journalism major and a long-time English teacher, I have a deep interest in words and the way that they are used. If you’ve been following along here for a while, you know that I struggle mightily with many of the words and phrases that we bandy about in education because I find many
Word of the Day: Heutagogy Read More »
I was talking recently with a prominent Regional Director (aka Superintendent) who said currently her biggest challenge across her 85 schools (75k students) was variability. She said that while parents and the media focused on outputs such as test scores and ‘league tables’, her attention was on inputs, namely the consistency of the quality of
Variability and Inequity Read More »
The concept of “improvement” is an interesting one. It’s one of those words that gets thrown around when we talk about “school improvement,” “improving test scores” and the like, but it’s also a word that can carry many hidden meanings. Improving test scores inevitably means higher scores, but it can also be used in reference
We may talk about the importance of learning, but for the most part we do not practice it. Let’s start with schools. Schools tend to focus on weaknesses instead of strengths. They also focus too much on content dissemination. Our institutions have failed to foster the love of learning, and do not motivate students to
Barriers to Social Learning Read More »
If you asked my students, they would probably tell you that my classroom has been a seriously miserable place over the past week. We are currently grinding through a unit on ecosystems – and while studying the natural world should be interesting and exciting, our required curriculum is loaded with trivia. Students are expected to
Tacit Expertise vs. Explicit Knowledge Read More »
Of all of the changes that are taking place in the world right now, the one that I find most fascinating and daunting at the same time is the powerful shift that new technologies are bringing to the way we think about jobs and work, not just in the future but in the present as well. To
“The Rise of the Robots” Read More »
As the insignificance of much of the ‘21st Century-mania’ becomes more and more evident, many educational leaders are now looking beyond the superficial appeal of the cliché’s and asking what their real focus should be. While there has been obvious value in the broader conversations that have been generated around collaboration, critical thinking and however
Testing Assumptions About Self-Directedness Read More »
Despite appearances to the contrary, technology and education have always gone hand-in-hand. After all, books, pencils, and paper are technological inventions. Before home computers were ubiquitous, schools housed rows of DOS computers that printed—quite loudly—to dot matrix printers. Before touch technology exploded in the consumer market with the smartphone, many schools were using interactive whiteboards.
What Qualifies as Transformative Technology in Education? Read More »
The debate about standardized testing has hit the mainstream. Or at least, it hit HBO last weekend, when John Oliver offered a segment on the topic on his comedy news show Last Week Tonight. Oliver talked about the policies that mandate increasingly pervasive standardized testing in the US, along with the companies that profit from
Testing: Moving Beyond the Public Relations Battle Read More »
One of my favorite thinker-writer-authors observing and reporting on the larger shifts around learning in the world right now is John Seely Brown. Without question, A New Culture of Learning is a must read for anyone interested in building a modern context for thinking about and discussing change in schools at the systems level. Where
The Changing Nature of Knowledge Read More »
