Category: assessment
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Kozol on NCLB and the struggles of real teachers
Salon.com’s August 30th article “Teachers: Be subversive” features a wonderful interview with Jonathan Kozol. Kozol has recently published “Letters to a Young Teacher,” which reminds me thematically and stylistically to Paulo Freire’s books “Letters to Cristina” and “Teachers As Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare Teach.” Kozol’s book “The Shame of the Nation: The…
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Measuring engagement
Engagement is vital for authentic learning. Without engagement, learners are unlikely to experience “transfer” of ideas, images, and skills from a lesson into their long term memory and schema. On Friday I recorded and shared some thoughts about the implications of the “attention economy” for teaching and learning in the 21st century. One of the…
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Unstructured practice can be a key to excellence
The June 2007 issue of Wired Magazine includes some great articles. The cover article “Elon Musk Is Betting His Fortune on a Mission Beyond Earth’s Orbit,” suggests our present age may be an even more exciting one for true rocket scientists (and those aspiring to rocket science) than the space race decade of the 1960s.…
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Could the SYSTEM be to blame instead of teachers and principals?
Wednesday’s AP article, “Thousands of failing schools face major overhaul,” reveals many of the challenges involved with school change and high stakes accountability. Instructional challenges and opportunities for students really are the key. As one principal quoted in the article notes: The instruction wasn’t happening,” [Denise] Hallett said, offering an explanation for poor test scores,…
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Podcast162: Martin Levin on Changing the Face of Our Educational Practice Using Web 2.0 Technologies
This podcast features a presentation by Martin Levin at EduComm 2007 in Anaheim, California on June 20, 2007. Martin Is The Technology Director Of The Armidale School In Australia. The official description of this session was: Why not take advantage of a 1:1 laptop deployment and get kids to publish their work in a Web2.0…
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Web cam proctor? Give me a break!
I may be in the minority with this view, but I find the facts and assumptions contained in yesterday’s CNN article “Web cam exam proctors are latest cheating deterrent” ridiculous and sad. The gist of the article is that some universities are requiring students to buy a special web cam which verifies they are not…
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Tests scores are up, what does that mean?
Tuesday’s AP article, “Report: Math and reading scores up since NCLB” observes many U.S. states are reporting better student performance on mandated K-12 student tests: Moderate to large gains were found in 37 of the 41 states with trend data on the percentage of kids hitting the proficient mark on elementary-school math tests. None of…
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Podcast158: Digitally Informed School Leadership for the 21st Century
This podcast was created and recorded on June 6, 2007, during a workshop with school principals and assistant principals in Humble ISD, near Houston, Texas. In the first section, administrators share instructional advice for new teachers. After a brief personal reflection, the podcast includes the culminating discussion between administrators who had read ideas from Doug…
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Reflections on risk, complexity, choice and engagement
I read an excellent article this evening titled “Raising the Bar” by Wayne Curtis in the summer issue of Wondertime magazine, which unfortunately is NOT available electronically for free. The article is about the historical and contemporary evolution of playground equipment for kids, but I found several of Curtis’ comments to be insightful about learning…
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Teaching in May: The best of days, the worst of days
It is relatively easy to do some things poorly, including TEACHING and LEADING. For master teachers in the classroom who remain (despite the pressures of high-stakes testing and the accountability movement) creative artists of learning and student engagement, the month of May (in North America where I live) can be the best month of the…