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Debra Spear

Dan Meyer: Math class needs a makeover | Video on TED.com - 49 views

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    Excellent summary of the realities of teaching a subject like mathematics or physics, with some tips on how to overcome the hurdles. Equally applies to CS.
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    entertaining and short. Great video to share with peers who teach all subjects - not just math. Works well with CCSS prof. dev.
D. S. Koelling

Views: What's High School For? - Inside Higher Ed - 35 views

  • In theory, dual enrollment enables high school students to accrue college credits for very little cost and imbues them with a sense of confidence that they can complete college work. If students can succeed in college classes while still in high school, conventional wisdom holds, they will be more likely to matriculate at the postsecondary level.
  • In reality, though, dual enrollment may do more harm than good.
  • The problem is that high school is not college and completion of a dual enrollment high school class is not always a guarantee that students have learned the material.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • As a result, classes that used to be termed “college-prep” are now seen as college proper.
  • In practice, however, courses covered in a high school setting on a high school calendar are often vastly different in practice.
  • This is not a criticism of high school teachers. Many are excellent educators and care deeply about students. But they often teach more classes than college faculty do, have myriad extracurricular responsibilities, and lack the requisite training that enables college faculty to introduce best practices in the field. In contrast, college faculty members expect a higher level of work from students, including having them study independently, write in the discipline and be exposed to the latest research. They are less likely to offer extra credit, or evaluate students based on an inflated high school norm.
  • High school students, especially sophomores and juniors, are not like college students. A collection of 15-, 16-, and 17-year-olds are normally at a different stage of intellectual and moral development than are college students. Treating a high school student like a college student does not always do them a favor.
  • This student, as a sophomore in high school, earned a “C” in a “college” English course, which exempts her from our basic English 111 College Writing class. Even though her ACT score indicates her writing skills are deficient, we are limited in what we can do. Like many students who have already passed a “college” class, she thinks she already has the necessary writing skills to be successful in college. We know she very likely does not. Our willingness to increase student access by accepting transfer credit means that, without taking this student’s credits away, we cannot help her with her writing. Instead, by virtue of an average performance as a high school sophomore, this student will be placed into college classes for which she is unprepared.
  • Most colleges willingly accept credits from like institutions because we trust that our courses are equivalent and that our faculty are credentialed. I doubt that same trust applies to high schools. The best service a high school can provide is to prepare students for college, not substitute for it.
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    High school dual enrollment programs may not be helping students succeed in college.
Stan Golanka

Reading and the Web - Texts Without Context - NYTimes.com - 49 views

  • It’s also a question, as Mr. Lanier, 49, astutely points out in his new book, “You Are Not a Gadget,” of how online collectivism, social networking and popular software designs are changing the way people think and process information, a question of what becomes of originality and imagination in a world that prizes “metaness” and regards the mash-up as “more important than the sources who were mashed.”
    • Stan Golanka
       
      Core discussion topic? From this, I see a few discussion issues: 1. Do we prize "mash-ups" more than original work? Who is "we" in this? 2. If the answer to #1 is "yes," then the next question is: is this good or bad? 3. Finally, if the answer is "bad" to #2, what place do "mash-ups" have, and how do we help our students see the value in original work?
  • Web 2.0 is creating a “digital forest of mediocrity” and substituting ill-informed speculation for genuine expertise;
    • Stan Golanka
       
      How do teachers help students rise above this "digital forest of mediocrity"?
  • Mr. Johnson added that the book’s migration to the digital realm will turn the solitary act of reading — “a direct exchange between author and reader” — into something far more social and suggested that as online chatter about books grows, “the unity of the book will disperse into a multitude of pages and paragraphs vying for Google’s attention.”
    • Stan Golanka
       
      If Johnson's predictions are true, is this necessarily bad? How much of this concern is "nostalgia"? What would be lost from an academic p.o.v, and what migh be gained?
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  • Instead of reading an entire news article, watching an entire television show or listening to an entire speech, growing numbers of people are happy to jump to the summary, the video clip, the sound bite — never mind if context and nuance are lost in the process; never mind if it’s our emotions, more than our sense of reason, that are engaged; never mind if statements haven’t been properly vetted and sourced.
    • Stan Golanka
       
      Should teachers "fight" this, or embrace it? Can summaries/sound bites ever be appropriate for academic discussions?
  • And online research enables scholars to power-search for nuggets of information that might support their theses, saving them the time of wading through stacks of material that might prove marginal but that might have also prompted them to reconsider or refine their original thinking.
  • Digital insiders like Mr. Lanier and Paulina Borsook, the author of the book “Cyberselfish,” have noted the easily distracted, adolescent quality of much of cyberculture. Ms. Borsook describes tech-heads as having “an angry adolescent view of all authority as the Pig Parent,” writing that even older digerati want to think of themselves as “having an Inner Bike Messenger.”
    • Stan Golanka
       
      Can teachers moderate this attitude? Does our (adults) use/non-use of technology help breed this attitude?
  • authors “will increasingly tailor their work to a milieu that the writer Caleb Crain describes as ‘groupiness,’ where people read mainly ‘for the sake of a feeling of belonging’ rather than for personal enlightenment or amusement. As social concerns override literary ones, writers seem fated to eschew virtuosity and experimentation in favor of a bland but immediately accessible style.
    • Stan Golanka
       
      Does this ring true to educators? Are social concerns and literary conerns opposites? How does web publishing affect "literary" publishing, as opposed to "non-literary" publishing?
  • However impossible it is to think of “Jon & Kate Plus Eight” or “Jersey Shore” as art, reality shows have taken over wide swaths of television,
Tamara Connors

Digitally Speaking / FrontPage - 43 views

  • Our kids’ futures will require them to be: Networked–They’ll need an “outboard brain.” More collaborative–They are going to need to work closely with people to co-create information. More globally aware–Those collaborators may be anywhere in the world. Less dependent on paper–Right now, we are still paper training our kids. More active–In just about every sense of the word. Physically. Socially. Politically. Fluent in creating and consuming hypertext–Basic reading and writing skills will not suffice. More connected–To their communities, to their environments, to the world. Editors of information–Something we should have been teaching them all along but is even more important now.
  • are today's teachers prepared for the significant changes that must happen before this new vision of an educated citizen becomes a reality?
Seth Mitchell

The Flipped Class: Myths vs. Reality - THE DAILY RIFF - Be Smarter. About Education. - 148 views

  • The traditional definition of a flipped class is:Where videos take the place of direct instructionThis then allows students to get individual time in class to work with their teacher on key learning activities.It is called the flipped class because what used to be classwork (the "lecture" is done at home via teacher-created videos and what used to be homework (assigned problems) is now done in class.
    • trisha_poole
       
      Providing blended learning experiences for internal students.
  • The Flipped Classroom is NOT:
    • trisha_poole
       
      Great! It's not an "easy" way out of teaching or reducing the workload - it's all about engaging the learners in the process of learning and providing more opportunities (affordances) for this learning to occur.
  • The Flipped Classroom IS:
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  • A blending of direct instruction with constructivist learning.
    • Seth Mitchell
       
      This is often overlooked.  The content should serve authentic application of skills, not itself.
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    A good post about what a flipped classroom is and what it can be. It outlines what it is not, as well. Good basic introduction to flipped classrooms.
Martin Burrett

Using Online Maps in your teaching - 92 views

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    Great set of tools and ideas for using maps to take students to places there may never visit in reality.
jojomitty

New tool helps districts compare bandwidth pricing | eSchool News - 4 views

    • jojomitty
       
      Our bandwidth use during school hours is always an issue. It would be very beneficial to know we are getting the best deal!
  • Every student should have the opportunity to take advantage of digital learning, and one of the ways to help make that a reality is through transparency. We want every school district to see how much bandwidth they can get for their budget.”
  • 500 percent more bandwidth for only 15 percent more cost
Thane Magelky

5 Innovative Classroom Management Tools for Teachers - 264 views

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    "Few teachers are drawn to the profession for its administrative duties. But the reality of attendance taking, lesson planning, grading and parental communications is that they're a big part of the job. These tasks, however, need not take over. With help from the many online services and mobile apps designed for teachers, it can be easy to efficiently organize and complete classroom management responsibilities. Here are five of our favorite virtual tools for tackling some of the most common classroom chores."
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