stumbling toward clarity, balance, and insight
Posted in Educational on Jun 17th, 2008
[I realize this post is long. If you'd rather read this post as black text on white background, you can use the "Print This" link to view the post in that format without actually having to print.]
In an earlier post, Humanities and the DY/DAN Method, I linked to Dan Meyer’s blog and his take on [...]
Posted in Educational on May 26th, 2008
Poverty crouches on one end of the “education problem,” and on the other end perch ridiculously over-priced professions. One example: the models on Deal or No Deal:
While several of the models said they could live just on what they earn from the show, it shoots only two or three days every three weeks. [Deal or [...]
Posted in Educational on May 22nd, 2008
So TMAO’s post about his decision to leave teaching has made some waves on various blogs. I’d like to offer some personal perspectives (which he’s not asking for), but I’m not interested in second-guessing his reasons. I’m pulling some quotes from his post as a jumping-off point to respond to a few of his comments [...]
Posted in Educational on May 18th, 2008
Dan Meyer has a famously-interesting perspective on grading and homework. In a recent post, he offers a scenario of a student (Aaron) who has only attended 20% of the classes but whose grade is a C+. This is possible in Dan’s class because he’s only concerned with assessing a student’s comprehension. In his words:
I chase [...]
Posted in Educational on Apr 16th, 2008
Mike Petrilli, in a recent post on the Flypaper blog, comments on a study in Philadelphia that measured the impact of a “healthy-eating” initiative in schools. Petrilli’s argument is that, since the study found that school intervention in students’ diets measurably decreased the incidence of obesity in those students, schools can have a “big [...]
Posted in Educational on Apr 16th, 2008
Uma Thurman, in an interview for NPR’s “Fresh Air,”1 on learning martial arts for Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and 2:
It’s difficult to learn. We forget when we get into our adult lives … we avoid as much stress as we can. We learn how to avoid places where we struggle. And when you [...]
Posted in Cultural, Educational on Apr 15th, 2008
I’ve been reading the “Bridging Differences” blog for a few months now and love it. These are two really smart, well-informed, thoughtful, and passionate educators engaged in one of the best examples of extended civil debate I’ve found online … and the hyperbole is justified.
A few days ago, Deborah Meier posted “Let’s Play with [...]
Posted in Educational on Mar 4th, 2008
I added a post on this topic to the TeachEng.us blog. Here’s the teaser:
… if I were in the classroom right now, and had students with consistent Internet access, I think I’d ask them to keep a few different writing spaces: a private journal, a public journal, a blog “notebook” or two, and a [...]
Posted in Educational on Feb 15th, 2008
I delivered a presentation last night to teachers who work in a county that only allows them to use Blackboard. Given that, I saw no point to going in and talking about the possibilities that other tools and services make available, or complaining about the limitations of Blackboard.1 That’s a presentation for the administration. Instead, [...]
Posted in Educational on Feb 13th, 2008
I mentioned the notebook/textbook approach in my previous post, so I thought I’d take a minute here to explain it further. The idea is pretty basic, and something a lot of people already do without necessarily calling it that. To me, it’s just an approach to these tools that integrates blogs and wikis [...]
