As I speak with students today, issues of free speech are important. Young people do appear to have a libertarian view, but they are not speaking and listening in a marketplace of ideas. The echo chamber is alive and well and severely limiting access to ideas. Further, young people (and those my age as well) Read More
Four elevator pitches in one post: Behaviorist approaches to teaching is appropriate when an instructor knows with certainty what student must transfer. We help students know what steps to follow through worked examples and other “show-and-tell” methods, give them opportunities for practice, and we can evaluate them against clear criteria. Cognitive approaches to teaching help Read More
Three dimensions appear to be relevant in determining how to organize and deliver professional development. First, the primacy of the technology. If participants in the professional development are expected to (and they themselves expect to) leave with the ability to operate hardware or software, then technology of the prime purpose, and organizers approach the activity Read More
One of the common responses when it is suggested that faculty design their courses for deeper learning is, “I will, but they need the basic information first.” While this may seem to be a reasonable response given the fact that many students arrive with little prior knowledge in the field it is an untenable position. Read More
Schools been political institutions, but recent decades have found them increasingly political. This appears to be grounded in the electoral benefits that can be gained by politicians who promise to “fix education.” Other societal factors including demographic changes, calls for accountability, financial influences of publishers and philanthropists, and rapidly-emerging industries have influenced school leaders’ decisions Read More
Everyone who works in or studies education is familiar with the word pedagogy. It comprises the strategies and methods teachers use to teach. Included in pedagogical practices are a wide range of activities that are grounded in behaviorist, cognitive, and connectionists psychologies. The methods are connected by several assumptions, however. Specifically, pedagogy assumes the teacher Read More
If you are like most people, you have distinct memories of each phase of your education from elementary through middle and high school, and perhaps into trade school, college, or employer-based training. It is likely you were somewhat successful in school, otherwise you would be unlikely to be considering or working in a school. I Read More
Schools are also organizations that rely on diverse expertise, and this is especially true in relation to information technology. Early in the history of desktop computing in schools, it was common to find tech-savvy teachers who supported and managed the devices. Even today, there are many tech-savvy educators who have successfully installed consumer grade networks Read More
ON Excuses One of the most important roles for an IT professional in a school to remove perceived barriers to using technology for educationally sound purposes. I use “perceived barriers” as a euphuism for excuses. You will find, there are teachers (and others) who will find a series of excuses to avoid using technology voluntarily. Read More
Consider for a moment clouds. We know they are collections of water (or ice) droplets, and they are “things.” When we look at the sky, we know they are individual things, but when we look out of the airplane window, we see they are less clearly bounded than they appear, and foggy days confirm they Read More