I decided my “first choice” college was not good fit for me within a few days of arriving on campus. I had some goals while I was there, and I got a “D” in chemistry my first semester, so I arrived back there for the spring semester so that I could improve my second semester Read More
Month: July 2020
School “Improvement”
Schools are also organizations that are always seeking to improve. “Quality” is a difficult concept to define, but there is a large industry that is dedicated to helping organizations improve the quality of their work and “continuous improvement” is a goal that articulated in the mission and vision statements of many schools and educational organizations. Read More
What Larry Cuban Wrote About Technology
In 1986, Larry Cuban, a professor of education at Stanford University, reviewed the history of radio, movies, and television in schools and he observed a common pattern. First, advocates argued the technology could be used to make teaching more efficient and more effective. Second, dubious research (frequently supported by the manufacturers of the technologies) was Read More
Wikis: A Different Form of Interaction in Online Courses
In education, interaction matters. If you want your students to remember what they are supposed to learn and if you want them to be able to use what you teach them in other situation, then they must think about it with you and with other students. This idea has been featured in this blog previously. Read More
Thinking about Online Discussions
Discussions in online classrooms are a different experience for both teachers and students compared to discussions in traditional classrooms. Traditional discussions are synchronous, so they can be guided in real-time. I often compare it to driving a car. Instructors can change the direction, speed up, slow down, or even stop in response to the input Read More