In recent decades, scholars have rediscovered the very effective learning that happens outside of classrooms. Because it is so difficult for “school learning” to displace the concepts learned outside of classrooms seems to confirm the strength of what is learned outside of school. As cognitive and neuroscientists have illuminated the changes in human bodies and Read More
Category: Teaching & Learning
Elevator Pitch on Censorship
Educated individuals value the free expression of ideas, yet we recognize some ideas are distasteful, others harmful, and some are likely promoted by quacks. It is through our capacity to critically analyze ideas to decide which deserve our attention, which should be seriously considered, and which dismissed. Our human nature and our professional ethics lead us to Read More
Epistemology Matters
Consider my friend and former colleague Mrs. D. Until recently, she was a first and second grade students teaching for decades. She knows the students that arrive in her classroom are diverse; some are readers and writers, some some are still trying to learn the alphabet. Mrs. D. is always looking for the next thing Read More
Elevator Pitch on Tests
If tests are presented as a measure of professional knowledge, and if students and teachers prepare for the tests in the manner that professionals do, then there is a greater likelihood that students will both develop a healthier relationship with tests and they will perceive them as a serious measure of their skills and knowledge.
Deconstructing Correct Answers
Multiple choice test questions and students’ answers to them seem perhaps the simplest data we encounter as teachers. We pose a question. Students read it. Students give the correct answer or the incorrect answer. Tally the correct answers to measure each student’s understanding. We can deconstruct the process into three components. We assume students: Understood Read More
Elevator Pitch on Collaboration
Collaboration has become a buzzword in education; it has become something that is to be valued, and so any initiative or endeavor undertaken by educators is described as a project that “requires collaboration.” In many cases, advocates for the initiative conflate working together with collaboration. Other endeavors are truly collaborative as seen in several characteristics: Read More
On Comprehensive Education
A comprehensive higher education comprises: Declarative knowledge—those facts that can be stated as well as the concepts that organizes them. English students will be able to identify important works and also to place them in the context of time and place to demonstrate declarative knowledge of their importance. Procedural knowledge—those skills that students know how Read More
A Rationale for Social Learning
Intelligence has been perceived to be a cognitive activity originating the brains of an individual for generations. While there is surely a cognitive component, learning science is telling us that human brains evolved to learn from and with other brains. While methods that find students learning together continue to be contentious, it is clear that Read More
An Instructional Video Rubric
Teachers talking over slides (or images or diagrams or animations) has become an important teaching strategy during the pandemic. It is likely to continue to be a staple of teachers not just because it will make the pivot to remote teaching easier when it becomes necessary, but because it allows for alternative method of teaching Read More
Some Thought on Grading
In my 30+ years working in education, few aspects of the work cause more consternation than grading. Students, their parents, and teachers all find grades to be a stress-inducing aspect of school. In most cases, grading is marginal to education. When we are measuring what students know, talking or thinking about how to figure out Read More