If school was like Twitter: At first, this ideas sounded intriguing. We would get together in random chats, organizing our thoughts and sharing resources according to shared categories that grow organically. I’d have the permission to speak and to listen, engaging strangers at times and somehow making close friendships in the process. When things got …
I know you’re tired. I know the weight of the school year and the expectations to increase students’ test scores has felt like a an unbearable burden that you weren’t trained to bear. I know that there has been more negative feedback than positive feedback. You are making a difference step by step in your …
There’s a great episode of How I Met Your Mother, where Marshall who always dreamed of being an environmental lawyer tells his wife that he actually likes his job as a corporate lawyer. They are attending an event in the Natural History Museum and she sees the College Marshall and sees that he is extinct. …
I write, more than you probably all want to read, about re-envisioning school and education. You might think me a young idealist, a dreamer and that’s ok, but when I talk to students like I did on Saturday and ask them, “What is school?” and their very first response is “It’s a place where…” I …
Maybe “offshoot” is the best thing that a teacher can hope for: So, suppose knowledge is not the goal of education. Rather, suppose today’s content knowledge is an offshoot of successful ongoing learning in a changing world – in which ‘learning’ means ‘learning to perform in the world.’
Most teachers have to take standardized test for certification purposes, but those aren’t the test scores that decide whether teachers are effective. They are test scores from tests that teachers don’t take: The question of whether teacher evaluations are reliable indicators for teacher effectiveness has long been controversial. But New York City reignited the debate …
Now Ng and Daphne Koller, a Stanford colleague, are launching a company called Coursera to bring more classes from elite universities to students around the world for free online. “By providing what is a truly high-quality educational experience to so many students for free, I think we can really change many, many people’s lives,” Koller says. Free …
It’s powerful to help a student see themselves in a different light with a different ability than he or she saw. It’s powerful when you get to walk with a student through the redefining waters and he or she comes out on the other side more confident and more willing to see the possibilities of …
“Innovation can’t be taught, it must be learned!” It is a rather difficult concept to wrap your mind around if you think about it. How do you teach students, parents and teachers to think creatively? How do you teach outside-the-box ideas? Is this even possible? It seems as though education has decided that this is …
If you walk into a parent teacher conference, are you confused about where to sit? Do you know which one is the teacher ‘s desk and which ones are the students’ desks? How? The face of the classroom hasn’t changed in 100 years. It might bring comfort to you to know your place and to …
