In cleaning out decades’ worth of journals, letters, and reflections including those stored on both bits and bytes, I have identified several types of situations encountered over and over in my professional life. In this post, I describe one of them that I call the “You Had Better Save Yourself.” The title is grounded in Read More
Author: Gary Ackerman
A Response to Standard Education
Education has broad and diverse goals in our society; *free* and *appropriate* education is to be available for *all* learners. We educate learners who have many different needs and goals. We educate for society that recognizes many different needs and goals. Despite this, a generation of students and teachers have heard that education is grounded Read More
The Nature of Learning and Education Policy
My email response to a leader seems to deserve a place on this blog: The purpose of education is to help people learn. Learning is a natural physiological process of the human brain. Nature, then, defines the rules within which educators (and education policy makers) must play. While it might be convenient for policy makers Read More
What Benkler Wrote About Networks
Yochai Benkler, a professor at Harvard Law School (2006) observed “the change brought about by the networked information environment is deep. It is structural. It goes to the very foundations of how liberal markets and liberal democracies have coevolved for almost two centuries” (p. 1). Reference Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks: How social Read More
Planning and Goals
A short excerpt of a school leader’s comments on goals and the valuable planning methods she had discovered. All of the leaders articulated the expectation that they follow prescribed planning methods. Carol indicated the expectation had been formalized in her school district. “Once the state department of education started taking about SMART goals, we were Read More
On Facts
Research depends on “facts.” In the vernacular, fact typically means information that is true and accurate; implicit also is the assumption that the fact is objectively defined so that every observer will agree on the both reality of the fact and the meaning of the fact. A more sophisticated view of facts recognizes the role Read More
ePortfolios: What? Why?
ePortfolios: What? & Why? © 2014 Dr. Gary L. Ackerman Portfolios are a tool whereby learners can demonstrate their abilities. They document complex skills, knowledge, and habits for learners and other audiences. In the 21st century, there appears to me a growing schism in education based on the nature of educative experiences. The extreme focus Read More
Paradigms
The concept of the paradigm shift was introduced in the 1960’s and revised in 1970 by Thomas S. Kuhn in his influential book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Kuhn 1970). Kuhn was the first to publish this account of how knowledge in science advances: Scientists conduct experiments and carry out their observations to study unanswered Read More
Types of Data
Different problems require different methods, and all education researchers must understand the nature of the problems they study and the nature of the methods available so that data can be ethically gathered and reliable conclusions can be drawn. In general, education researchers may use either quantitative research methods or qualitative research methods. Quantitative methods are Read More
Vygotsky was Right
Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who lived from 1896-1934. He was relatively unknown to educators until the 1960’s and 1970’s when his work was rediscovered and interpreted. (Many believe the difficulty with reading Vygotsky’s work arose from the little editing he did during his end-of-life brain dump during which he recorded as many of Read More