Teachers complain. They complain a lot. No, really. You can’t imagine the things teachers say about students, colleagues, administrators, parents, and everyone else. After more than three decades of hearing it, I may nod, but it is like white noise to me; with one exception. When I hear, “I taught it, but they didn’t learn Read More
Category: Teaching & Learning
Can You? Really?
I have started and restarted and restarted my third book several times… It finally is becoming clear what I want to say. I happened to be telling a former colleague about it, including the theme of “deeper learning” and how we teach for deeper learning. She expressed some interest and suggested that elements of my Read More
Training vs. Education
It is important for instructors to understand the difference between training in workplace settings and teaching in community college classrooms. Training is organized and delivered to meet very specific goals. New equipment may have been delivered, new software installed, new procedures adopted, or new regulations that the organization must follow. In each of these situations, Read More
Inert Knowledge
Alfred North Whitehead was a British philosopher and mathematician who worked in the early decades of the 20th century. He is best-remembered among educators by an essay entitled “The Aims of Education” in which he introduced the idea of inert learning. He criticized schools that focused on teaching in a manner that developed “’inert ideas’—that Read More
Some Thoughts on Online Learning
Cleaning out some files, I found one that contained a post for a blog for which I used to write. This was in my “to post” folder when I stopped blogging for the organization that sponsored the blog. I earned my Master of Arts in Education in 2000 at the local state college, and I Read More
Technology in Support of Diverse Assessment
Cleaning up some files recently, I discovered I had left this off my CV. Ackerman, G. (2017). Technology in support of diverse assessment. In M. Simonson & D. Seepersaud (Eds.). Proceedings of the 40th Association for Educational Communications and Technology. Paper presented at AECT Conference, Jacksonville, FL.
What We Can Learn from George
I heard this week of the passing of one more of the teachers who taught in my junior high school. When I was a student, George taught industrial arts. In seventh grade the curriculum was mechanical drawing and woodshop and in 8th grade it was ceramics and metal shop. He was one of three full-time Read More
For a Friend
I learned this morning of the passing of one of my middle school (but we called it junior high school back then) teacher who later became a colleague and mentor. He brought me in to the work I do now and advanced my career and work in ways I won’t forget. One of the projects Read More
Thinking About Jerome Bruner Again
This is an extended version of a previous post. In describing education as a social invention, Jerome Bruner observed, “each generation must define afresh the nature, direction, and aims of education to assure [that] freedom and rationality can be attained for a future generation” (1966, 22). He went on to detail how new discoveries in Read More
Thinking About Social Justice Education
Social justice education is an idea that has captured the attention of teachers, scholars, leaders, and other in recent years. I have tried to find just what it means for me for some time. For context, I am a white, heterosexual male with grey hair; while I was raised in a weakly-practicing Protestant family, I Read More