For all of the rhetoric around being data driven for the last few decades, educators are generally woeful users of data when it comes to making classroom decisions. In my opinion, this is due to the fact that data (quantitative date that is) can only be meaningfully be applied to large data set. We might Read More
Author: Gary Ackerman
Small Teaching Online
The stream of “how to teach online” books and materials to support those faculty who are teaching online. I enjoy these. They are increasingly aligned with what we know about learning (and we know much more than my teachers did… we know more than any teachers did even 10 years ago). One of the great Read More
Education and Science Are Political… and That is A Good Thing
My social media feeds recently have been filled with calls that “you” not be political. I am included in the “you” because I am an educator (retired from almost 30 years in K-12 and continuing to teach and support teachers in community colleges). I am also included in the “you” as I have a background Read More
ADA Compliance & Inclusivity
In recent months, I’ve been working with faculty who have been asked to make the resources in their online courses accessible…. make sure alt-tex is available, use colors that exceed 4.5:1 for a color contrast ratio, run accessibility checkers before releasing files, closed caption videos, and provide transcripts. These are all steps they should have Read More
Lessons from Remote Teaching
In the months since “remote” teaching became a “thing,” the tension between educators and technology professionals seems to have become more obvious. I believe this arises in port form the fact that many who were successfully avoiding technology in their teaching no longer have that option. This hassled me to revisit the “technology planning cycle” Read More
Chess: A Story of Teaching and Learning
In my first teaching position in a middle school in rural Vermont, my team had a daily “exploratory” period scheduled. Teachers were responsible for supervising an activity that was supposed to allow students to explore an interest without the traditional limits of academic classes. One of the exploratory activities that I offered which proved to Read More
Case-Based Learning
Case based learning is similar to problem-based learning, but the cases that introduce problems into the curriculum tend to be more pragmatic. When introducing case-based learning, faculty will often define a situation in which the students are likely to find themselves applying what they are studying in the real world. Case-based learning can be implemented Read More
A Lesson on Integration
As a high school senior, I was encouraged to enroll in one of two classes to fill a mid-day opening in my schedule. Either a “build your vocabulary” course or an “improve your writing” course. Both had been added to the catalog out of concern that students from my high school were unprepared for college. Read More
A Rant on One-Size Fits All Education
I believe that schools are becoming irrelevant in the lives of young people. Adults are trying to improve schools by looking towards their past; “what worked for me will work for them,” is their misguided reasoning. We (and this pronoun includes educators and all other adults who care about our children’s future) must reinvent our Read More
Education Needs More Cynics
Some have said that I am more than a skeptic with regard to educational reforms. “Cynic” has been used to describe me. In response to some proposals by school leaders, I have been quite accurately called a “tick-off cynic.” I continue to be cynical about much that is presented as education, especially by outsiders. I Read More