The idea of digital badges has been kicking around for a few years. The microcredentials are exactly what the names suggest: Badges are credentials; they are awarded when a learner has completed some experience that leads the awarder to believe the learners can do things now that they couldn’t do previously. Badges are micro-credentials; they Read More
Category: Teaching & Learning
Discussions for Deeper Processing
“What is it weakest part of your online or blended course?” is a question I have posed to faculty who teach online. A synopsis of one of the most commonly encountered answers is: I’m afraid my students feel the same about my discussions as I do. They post and respond, and I tell them “say Read More
Can We Agree We are Wrong?
There is so many ideas about teaching and learning that are kicking around in the literature, the blogosphere, and the popular culture that some of them must be incorrect–we know this is true because many of these are contradictory. Let’s clarify that we are wrong about three of these… and these are three that are Read More
Conceptualizing Technology in Education
As information and computer technology (ICT) has become more deeply embedded in curriculum and instruction, technology planning has become an essential part of school leadership. School leaders are expected to take steps to ensure students use technology for diverse learning activities, so infrastructure must be installed and managed, and teachers must be trained in its Read More
How Will This Turn Out?
I write this in the midst of the pandemic. What the coming weeks and moths hold are unknown. All I can hope is that we are nearing the end of this rather than the beginning. For several days, I have been working with faculty to figure out how to teach online. We are preparing for Read More
An Elevator Pitch on Education Outcomes
Education is a technology that is built upon the natural phenomena of the human brain. It is only though changing the structure and function of this organ that we learn. Some experiences change the brain quickly and permanently; some experiences change the brain slowly and reversibly. Regardless of the outcomes a teacher plans, the results Read More
On Psychology
What educators believe about how human brains function and what causes brains to change is one of the most important factors that determines how they organize curriculum and deliver instruction. Even those educators who claim to be unaffected by psychology or learning theory (in my experience a large majority of teachers eschew theory), their teaching Read More
Education for Information-Rich Fields
We all know the teacher who insists, “but my field is content-rich. I need to cover all of this, so that students are ready for next year.” This attitude is grounded in a sincere interest that students “know” what they should know. It also results in the teacher adopting the “fill their brains” with information approach to teaching. What is becoming Read More
Elevators Pitch on Scaffolding
Scaffolding is an approach that can be used to teaching for deeper learning. This is especially useful when an instructor wants to approach a problem from the whole task, but it is too complicate for the students to complete independently. In this case, the teacher introduces scaffolds so to problem enters the students’ zone of proximal development. With scaffolds, Read More
Carving Out Time for Authentic Learning
Are Twitter followers colleagues? My answer is yes, based on the number of times threads have led me to think about what I really mean in these short posts. Also based on the number of times Tweets cause me to look back at things that I recall as being effective in the past and I Read More