Seriously teachers. Stop tweeting pictures of students. — Dr. Gary Ackerman (@GaryAckermanPhD) November 11, 2021 I recently had a tweet go “viral” in the non-celebrity sense… something like 80,000 impressions in a day which I attribute to the likes, replies, and retweets. In this post, I dig a little deeper into my rationale for the Read More
Category: Teachers
Thoughts on Grading
The ungrading community has been busy on Twitter this fall. These folks have taken grades (in the traditional sense) out of their courses, and (according to this posts) have generally been happy with the results. Students are doing work; they are learning. Some suggest students are more engaged and learning more. I have not taken Read More
Lesson Design (Rather than Planning)
When I was an undergraduate student studying to become an educator, my peers and I took great pride in our lesson planning. When I was a graduate student (I completed my masters degree at the end of my 12th year as a teacher), my peers who had yet to teach wrote lesson plans with great care. When I was teaching Read More
Four Approaches to Teaching
To outsiders looking in, teaching seems a relatively simple endeavor. Even to some insiders who do not step back and try to understand what they are doing, teaching can be perceived to be a simple endeavor. The reality is that teaching should vary depending on the nature of the curriculum, the purpose of the teaching, Read More
On Teacher Preparation
Education is an endeavor characterized by myths; we believe certain things about the work we do, but those are not based in observation or even reason. When I was an undergraduate student, I believed one could be taught how to teach. After more than 30 years in education, I am almost certain that most of Read More
On “Teaching Computers”
When I first started in education, computers were a marginal tool. Literally, they were in a back corner of the classroom and used for special purposes. Over time, they became more central to the curriculum and in the teaching spaces. The question that has interested me recently is “Who is responsible for teaching students how Read More
Essence and Variation
The word “essential” is interesting. It describes that which we cannot do without. Food, water, and oxygen (in the right concentration) is essential to human life. It also describes the fundamental character. When we remove the unimportant or marginal parts of something we are left with its essence; removing anything more changes what it is. Read More
On Not Being Taught How to Teach
I left high school as a 17-year-old (yes, I am old enough that they let me start school a few weeks before my fifth birthday) who knew that he wanted to become a science teacher. My path to my undergraduate as not as circuitous as many, so five years later I was a middle school Read More
Is This Part of a Greater Pattern?
I started my career in education in the late 1980’s. To increase my salary, I enrolled in graduate courses and the I could take a purchase order from the school when I enrolled. My principal or department head needed to “approve” the course, but it was informal. When I started I was in control of Read More
On Instruction
While some associate instruction with the leaners as a passive recipient of information, Burton, Moore, and Magliaro (2004) suggest this is an inaccurate conclusion, and they suggest instruction can provide a structure for approaching a complex body of knowledge and also for maintaining knowledge. Reif (2008) identified several factors that make instruction effective including articulating Read More