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
Author: Gary Ackerman
Why We Value Lev Vygotsky
Lev Vygotsky, a man who was born November 5, 1896 and died at 38 years of age. His death at such a young age was due to tuberculosis. Vygotsky attended school in Orsha, which is is north of Moscow, Russia. After he completed his degree at Moscow University in 1917, he taught literature and psychology Read More
Elevator Pitch on The Curse of Knowledge
Humans are learners. Humans are also the products of their environments, and once something from the environment is learned it is very difficult to unlearn it and what we have learned influences what we learn in the future.
On “Returning to Normal”
The “education industry” has been trying to navigate COVID for two years, and it looks like we will continue for the foreseeable future. One of the interesting aspects of this has been the insistence that we return to in-person teaching. I find this to be a puzzling situation. First, it is contrary to the pre-COVID Read More
Educators and Technologists Don’t Speak the Same Language
I once served on a committee hiring a professional who was primarily going to serve as a network administrator. We were in the second interview, so there were fewer questions and more discussions, and the candidate asked, “What can you tell me about the environment?” The superintendent who admitted little knowledge of technology began describing Read More
Elevator Pitch on Virtual Classrooms
Faculty, especially those who teach at multiple institutions, complain about the learning management system. They wonder why they are expected to use an LMS that is not the one they prefer and they wonder why they are expected to use an LMS when they can use web 2.0 tools and email. I argue using an 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.
Conditions for a Teacher’s Return
One of the obvious effects of the pandemic has been the stress on teachers; there is some questions about whether we are really seeing teacher participating in “the great resignation,” but I know some folks have been asking me if I am interested in returning to k-12 teaching. For context, I began teaching in 1988. Read More
What Gould Said About Intelligence
Education is based on a simple idea: we want to make people smart. “Smart” is the general term that we use to describe an individual who has greater than usual skill and knowledge. Smart is approximately aligned with intelligence which is approximately aligned with the ability to think and learn. I am being nebulous here Read More
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