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
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
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
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.
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
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
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
In his 2013 book, Social: Why Our Brains are Wired to Learn, Matthew Lieberman described research from late in the 20th century that determined the default areas of brain activity. When a person stops trying to do something else, and the rest of the brain goes quite, the default areas are active. If one begins Read More
Collaboration has become a buzzword in education; it has become something that is to be valued, and so any initiative or endeavor undertaken by educators is described as a project that “requires collaboration.” In many cases, advocates for the initiative conflate working together with collaboration. Other endeavors are truly collaborative as seen in several characteristics: Read More
Research is difficult, but highly engaging, work. By having students ask questions, and answer those through their research, the purpose of the work becomes more clear and the work is more interesting. Allowing students to define problems and refine questions make this difficult work more engaging. Research requires one to follow recognized protocols that make Read More