For some decades, I advocated for “technology-rich” schools. My work was supporting IT infrastructure and teaching teachers to use technology. At the time, we were all concerned with the “digital divide,” the fact that schools in affluent communities had plenty of devices and connections compared to the scant digital resources in schools located in poor Read More
Category: Schools
Should Educators Judge Initiatives?
At several times during my career I have found myself in a rather uncomfortable situation: I was philosophically opposed to initiatives being undertaken by the school leaders. Specific situations I remember include: The decision to replace good middle school practice with a junior high school model; The decision to replace coding, video games design, and Read More
Why Standardized Testing Flopped
In the fall of 2018, an article appeared in my news feed multiple times. Peter Greene, a contributor to Forbes magazine posed the question “Is The Big Standardized Test A Big Standardized Flop?” in the title of his article. No educator (or parent, or higher education professional, or employer) is going to be surprised to Read More
A Disturbing Observation
I recently visited a classroom in which there were two activities planned for the day. First, students were gathering data that is to be used to answer the question “Is anyone average?” Second, the students were completing some standardized tests which are part of the school’s assessment plan. While the measuring was intended to be Read More
Experts and “Expertiness” in Education
In the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, an American comedian coined the term “truthiness” to capture an idea that individual or groups held as true although there was little evidence of the truth. That comedian applied this term to political situations and the satire was biting. I believe we can apply Read More
Education and the Study of Education
In recent decades, scholars have recognized that education is influenced by diverse factors and those factors exert complex and previously unknown influences. Shasha Barab, a scholar from Indiana University, Bloomington, and Kurt Squire, a scholar from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, reasoned that “learning, cognition, knowing, and context are irreducib[ly] co-constructed and cannot be treated Read More
Is #edtech Speeding Back to the 1960’s?
By the early 1960s the price of mainframe computers had decreased to the point where sales to educational markets were possible. At about the same time the potential of using computers in schools was recognized, but some cynics have suggested that the educational applications of computing were invented so that sales could be made to Read More
Emerging Models of Schooling
As educators recognize they need to prepare students for a far different future than they ever imagined, they are beginning to recognize that the traditional models of “offering a course” or “teaching a lesson” to fill the gaps in students’ preparation is untenable. We cannot possibly provide all of the knowledge, skills, habits, and experiences Read More
Education as the “Recitation Script’
Ronald Gallimore and Roland Tharp (1992) educational psychologists who studied conditions in classrooms that influence learning, referred to this type of teaching as a recitation script and observed, “the predominant experience of American school children. Sitting silently, students read assigned texts, complete ‘ditto’ sheets, and take tests. On those rare occasions when they are encouraged Read More
Why Theory Matters in Education
In many educational communities, existing practice exerts strong influence on the practices deemed acceptable, so attempts to define new goals are met with strong resistance. In this situation, many educators adopt a stance that Paulo Friere, the Brazilian educational philosopher, suggested resembled Aristotle’s concept of doxa, which is practice supported by opinion alone. Friere (1974) Read More