Syllabus, By Design
Honestly, I never really gave much thought to writing syllabi. At least, not in an architectural/design sort of way. But, this particular syllabus really got me thinking: Is there really a better way to present information to students? More importantly, does it really matter, anyway? Yes, on both counts. Furthermore, it seems that post-secondary education [...]
Race Talk When Diversity Equals One | Teaching Tolerance
Race Talk When Diversity Equals One | Teaching Tolerance. The aforementioned breaks it down better than I ever could. Mad props to Teaching Tolerance.
Matt Damon is My Hero…
nothing more to be said. Check out the video.
Web-Based Portfolios
The first time I read this post, which was about a year ago, I said to myself, “You’ve got to be kidding.” Since that time, however, I have revisited the blog post in question; in fact, most recently, last evening. Not only did I re-read the initial post, but I also read the three subsequent [...]
Decompressing
A teacher colleague re-tweeted this. Got me thinking about how important it is for teachers to de-compress from the year. In fact, a bit of pre-decompression before the year’s grading, comment writing, and year-end meetings are complete, is perhaps necessary and important as well. I have 3/4 of my grading completed. Which means that I [...]
How Many States Are There? or, Why American Students Are Ignorant
My Dear Brother and I, during our weekly dinner out together, had an engaging conversation about teaching and learning. Specifically, we discussed something that a colleague of mine had tweeted the night before. The tweet concerned the fact that the majority of his students didn’t know exactly how many states there are in the United [...]
Guilting the Already Guilt-Ridden
Let’s just say that I have experienced more than my share of administrators guilting and shaming their underlings into doing things. The classic tagline? Bringing up the name of another colleague who, in their estimation, is doing more than anyone else. Listen, administrators: Each and every one of us teachers is doing far more this [...]
Nothing Motivates Like Motivation?
For as long as I can remember, motivation has been a hot topic in the field of education. In fact, I began to think in earnest about motivation, and its relationship to teaching and learning, back in 1994, and I wasn’t even teaching at the time. I was, however, a graduate student working on my [...]
*Hold Up, Wait a Minute…
There is a very good discussion taking place on what has become one of my favorite new blogs. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of New-Age, post-modern, self-righteous indignation derailing what I think are logical and well-articulated points being made by the blog’s author. Here are my views on learning and expectation: Learning is a combination of [...]
Rethinking Student Accountability
After reading the following blog post, I began to reflect more earnestly about the ways in which I hold my students accountable for their learning. The truth of the matter is, I don’t hold them nearly as accountable to the degree that I should. When my students don’t complete assignments, I register the grade in [...]
