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Steve Ransom

Stephen Krashen Pulls the Rug Out From Under the Standards Movement - Living in Dialogu... - 3 views

  • ur average scores are respectable but unspectacular because, as Farhi notes, we have such a high percentage of children living in poverty, the highest of all industrialized countries. Only four percent of children in high-scoring Finland, for example, live in poverty. Our rate of poverty is over 21%.
  • It means that the "problem" of American education is not ineffective teaching, not teachers' unions, not lack of national standards and tests, and not schools of education: It is poverty.
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    "It means that the "problem" of American education is not ineffective teaching, not teachers' unions, not lack of national standards and tests, and not schools of education: It is poverty." Sarah's comment is heartbreaking
Jason Schmidt

School Would Be Great If It Weren't for the Damn Kids - 95 views

  • It simply doesn’t make sense to try to “purge ‘ineffective’ teachers and principals.”  His listener, almost giddy with gratitude now, prepares to chime in, as Samuelson, without pausing, delivers the punch line:  That’s right, it’s time to stop blaming teachers and start . . . blaming students!
  • His focus is not on students’ achievements (the intellectual accomplishments of individual kids) but only on “student achievement” (the aggregate results of standardized tests)
  • As I’ve noted elsewhere, we have reason to worry when schooling is discussed primarily in the context of “global competitiveness” rather than in terms of what children need or what contributes to a democratic culture
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  • Upon hearing someone castigate students for being insufficiently motivated, a noneconomist might be inclined to ask two questions.  The first is:  “Motivated to do what, exactly”?  Anything they’re told, no matter how unengaging, inappropriate, or, well, demotivating? 
  • Whenever I see students made to cram facts into their short-term memories for a test, practice a series of decontextualized skills on yet another worksheet, listen passively to a lecture, or inch their way through the insipid prose of a corporate-produced textbook, I find myself thinking of a comment made by Frederick Herzberg, a critic of traditional workplace management:  “Idleness, indifference, and irresponsibility,” he said, “are healthy responses to absurd work.”
  • The more you reward people for doing something, or for doing it well, the less interest they typically come to have in whatever they had to do to get the reward. 
  • People who blame students for not being “motivated” tend to think educational success mean little more than higher scores on bad tests and they’re apt to see education itself as a means to making sure our corporations will beat their corporations.  The sort of schooling that results is the type almost guaranteed to . . . kill students’ motivation.
  • one thing that’s happened is a concatenation of rewards and punishments, including grades, which teach students that learning is just a means to an end.
  • Another thing that’s happened is teaching that’s meant primarily to raise test scores.
  • inner-city kids get the worst of the sort of schooling that’s not about exploring and discovering and questioning but only about working hard (often at rote tasks) and being nice (read: obedient).
  • “Motivation is weak because more students…don't like school, don't work hard and don't do well.”  But why don’t they like school (which is the key to understanding why, assuming his premise is correct, they don’t succeed)?  What has happened to their desire to figure out how things work, the hunger to make sense of things, with which all children start out? 
  • if you want to see (intrinsically) motivated kids, you need to visit classrooms or schools that take a nontraditional approach to education, places where students are more likely to be absorbed and frequently delighted, where what they’re doing is not merely “rigorous” (a word often applied to very difficult busywork) but meaningful.
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    Alfie Kohn's commentary on an article written by Robert J. Samuelson. Samuelson argues in his article that the problem with education reform is not the usual suspects like ineffective teachers, but kids who are lazy and unmotivated. Interesting read with thoughtful information about student motivation.
Randolph Hollingsworth

Career and Technical Education: Five Ways That Pay Along the Way to the B.A. - 1 views

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    New report from Center on Education and the Workforce, Georgetown University, September 2012, by Anthony P. Carnevale, Tamara Jayasundera, Andrew R. Hanson - Daniela Fairchild of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute writes in The Education Gadfly Weekly: "At 31 percent, the United States currently ranks second among OECD nations-behind Norway-for the percentage of its workforce with a four-year college education. That's the good news. The bad news is that we rank sixteenth for the percentage of our workforce with a sub-baccalaureate education (think: postsecondary and industry-based certificates, associate's degrees). Yet a swath of jobs in America calls for just that sort of preparation, which often begins in high school. Dubbed "middle jobs" in this report by the Center on Education and the Workforce, these employment opportunities pay at least $35,000 a year and are divided among white- and blue-collar work. Yet they are largely ignored in our era of "college for all." In two parts, this report delineates five major categories of career and technical education (CTE), then lists specific occupations that require this type of education. It's full of facts and figures and an excellent resource for those looking to expand rigorous CTE in the U.S. Most importantly, it presents this imperative: Collect data on students who emerge from these programs. By tracking their job placements and wage earnings, we can begin to rate CTE programs, shutter those that are ineffective, and scale up those that are successful. If CTE is ever to gain traction in the U.S.-and shed the stigma of being low-level voc-tech education for kids who can't quite make it academically-this will be a necessary first step."
anonymous

What are the Disadvantages of Online Schooling for Higher Education? - 18 views

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    "hat Are the Disadvantages of Online Schooling for Higher Education? Today, online schooling for higher education is prevalent across many fields. While there are several benefits to online schooling, such as flexibility and convenience, there are also real and perceived disadvantages. Explore some of the potential drawbacks of online learning. View 10 Popular Schools » Online Schooling In 2012, about a quarter of undergraduate college students were enrolled in distance education courses as part -- if not all -- of their studies, according to a 2014 report from the National Center for Education Statistics. That same data found that 29.8% of graduate students in this country are enrolled in some or all distance learning classes as well. A 2013 report from Babson Survey Research Group and Quahog Research Group, LLC, pointed out that approximately 86.5% of higher education institutions offer distance learning classes. Clearly, online schooling is commonplace. Disadvantages: Student Perspective Despite advantages, online schooling is not the right fit for every student. Taking online courses is generally believed to require more self-discipline than completing a degree on campus, a belief that is supported by SCHEV -- the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. Because online schooling options often allow students to complete much of the coursework at their own pace, students must be motivated to stay on schedule and manage their time accordingly. Other potential disadvantages from a student's viewpoint may include the following: Less Instructional Support Although instructors are available to students via e-mail, telephone, Web discussion boards and other online means, some students may see the lack of face-to-face interaction and one-on-one instruction as a challenge. A lack of communication or miscommunication between instructors and students may frustrate students who are struggling with course materials. That could be exacerbated by the casual nature
Roland Gesthuizen

Schools must alter 'bystander' strategy as bullies scare off onlookers | News.com.au - 20 views

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    "SCHOOLS are still using ineffective anti-bullying strategies and some aren't putting their policies into practice, experts warn, as the rate of bullying in Queensland playgrounds continues to climb. Experts say schools need to be more effective not work harder."
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    Suggests that there is an important and passive role for bystanders.
Lauren Rosen

How to Make the Most of the Flipped Classroom -- Campus Technology - 50 views

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    Focuses on University adaptation. While it isn't about language course flipping there are some good ideas of using class time and understanding effective and ineffective flipped approaches.
Gloria Maristany

Motivating the Child with Attention Deficit Disorder - 3 views

  • live very much in the present. Therefore, long-term goals and rewards (e.g., grades and report cards) are often ineffective motivators.
    • Gloria Maristany
       
      Reason for immediate rewards/consequences.
  • basically two time frames — now and not now.
  • This Now/Not Now worldview causes great frustration for the child, his teachers, and his parents, and must be seriously considered when designing activities and approaches for motivating the child with ADD.
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  • respond more positively to a curriculum that allows him choices and options. He will also be more likely to participate actively in tasks when there is a degree of creativity and novelty
  • the presentation should be creative, colorful, multimodal, and enjoyable.
  • pervasive and complex disorder that impacts nearly all of the child's activities and interactions.
  • The child's impulsivity ("Ready, fire, aim!") can present serious safety concerns; his distractibility makes it extraordinarily difficult for him to understand and follow instructions; his memory difficulties make even rote learning troublesome; his executive processing problems (ability to plan and prioritize) present great challenges when he attempts to plan simple daily activities; his organizational deficiencies cause him tremendous problems with homework, household tasks, and long-term projects.
  • two most important words when dealing with these special children: "support" and "challenge."
  • The adult should continually challenge the child by presenting him with activities designed to improve his behavior and his learning, while simultaneously providing him with the support that he requires to meet these goals. Support without challenge is meaningless. Challenge without support is equally ineffective.
  • Among the specific teaching strategies that may foster the child's motivation are:
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    Good description of the limitations they have and how it affects them in school.
Paul Bogush

Laziness Does Not Exist - Human Parts - 16 views

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    "People do not choose to fail or disappoint. No one wants to feel incapable, apathetic, or ineffective. If you look at a person's action (or inaction) and see only laziness, you are missing key details. There is always an explanation. There are always barriers. Just because you can't see them, or don't view them as legitimate, doesn't mean they're not there. Look harder."
anonymous

Taylor & Francis Online :: Supervision and scholarly writing: writing to learn-learning... - 0 views

  • students’ difficulties with the academic genre should be considered to be the norm, rather than the exception.
    • anonymous
       
      Step away from problematising writing and toward it being normal to seek help
  • mechanical errors r
  • errors in the microstructure of writing
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  • inconsistencies in writin
  • macrostructure of writing
  • quality and clarity of purpose
  • substantive general writing errors
  • publication, authorship, training and fairness
  • plagiarism
  • formal writing courses and reading lists, writing activities, and peer writing groups
  • Ideally, the supervisor provides a writing role mode
  • fallacious to assume that supervisors are necessarily scholarly writers
    • anonymous
       
      relying on spvrs to be writing mentors does not always work, may have own issues with writing/lack of confidence
  • apprenticeship model can be ineffective
  • a passive role in improving their writing
  • tudents and supervisors need to master a range of writing task
  • benefit of naming what will be attended to and framing its context accrues through the process of planning, action and reflection
  • implicit contractual relationship between my students and me
  • supervisor
  • provide feedback
  • conceptu
  • methodological
  • I conceived postgraduate students’ writing as similar to that of an academic co‐author.
    • anonymous
       
      assumed they were more developed as writers than they actually were
  • initially corrected all errors
  • ttle emphasis to these errors in subsequent interactions
  • explored whether these were careless errors or whether the students had difficulty with particular aspects of writin
  • students assumed some responsibility for proofreading
  • cholarly writing in a thesis involves much more than a set of discrete writing tasks
  • heightened awareness of individual differences in students as writers
  • dependent writer
  • ‘writer’s block’ that could be overcome by breaking writing down into subtasks
  • copious notes
  • detailed note‐taking limited her interaction
  • brief summary of the key points on my written response to her drafts
  • action plan
  • writing block initially posed a major ethical dilemma for me because the ethical guidelines of authorship restrict the writing that should be undertaken by a superviso
  • not writing per se that underpinned Denise’s writing block but a lack of knowledge about the content and organization of a particular writing task.
    • anonymous
       
      Writers block can come from lack of knowledge/confidence in the writing process, rather than lack of subject knowledge
  • confident writer
  • published during his doctoral studies
  • nadvertently engaged in unethical writing behaviour by including me as a co‐author without my permission
  • difficulties with all aspects of the macrostructur
  • epeat sections of writing from earlier chapters
  • replace repeated text with concise summaries or use cross‐referencing
  • tendency to rush through corrections, which often resulted in many issues identified on a previous draft remaining unresolved
  • writing was often submitted and returned electronically using the ‘comments’ and ‘track changes’ tools in Microsoft Word.
    • anonymous
       
      use of technology to produce tracked drafts/version control
  • resistant writer
  • acknowledged herself to be a poor write
  • writing supp
  • oral and written feedback
  • email guidance, sessions where writing was modeled and her writing scaffolded, and handouts on writing style.
  • specialist assistance
  • r lack of commitment to improving the quality of subsequent drafts
  • argumentative stance towards writing feedback
  • my colleague and I decided that we were no longer prepared to supervise Rita.
  • imited writing progress
  • , Rita had failed to adequately demonstrate her writing capability as a doctoral candidat
  • sporadic writer
  • repeatedly failed to meet negotiated deadlines
  • supervisor, it was difficult to maintain interest in and respond to Sherry’s work because of the time lag between each piece of writing
  • enlisted an experienced supervisor to act as my mentor
  • forewarned
  • Sherry’s approach to writing was likely to result in a lengthy completion time and she needed to accept the responsibility for managing her writing tasks.
  • emotional excitement of writing up a thesis and the ensuing motivation
  • lacked
  • This trail of documentation
  • importance of
  • highlighted student‐centred writing issues
  • dentified broader issues that also needed to be accommodated in supervision
  • confidence in writing does not necessarily equate with capability.
  • uture directions
  • upport students
  • ncouraging them to participate in activities designed to support scholarly writing,
  • community of support for each othe
    • anonymous
       
      rationale for peer support groups
  • Technology
  • virtual community of student writers
  • Ethical writing
  • cant attention in postgraduate training to ethical practices in writing
  • explore the ethical standards that are in operation in our local academic community.
  • underpinned by a performance‐orientation
  • ssues of concern related to students’ scholarly writing were identified.
  • eper understanding of the breadth of issues related to the supervision of postgraduate writing
dmassicg

180 Technology Tips - HOME PAGE - 6 views

  • 180TechTips.com offers 15 hours of free computer training in 180 easy to follow 5 minute lessons.  This isn't a boring 15 hour lecture.  We aren't going to lock you in a computer lab for 2 days of ineffective staff development training that leaves you more confused than you were when you started.  This is the kind of relevant and uncomplicated computer training everyone needs.
Sarah Schaller Welsh

Freakonomics » Evaluating Teachers: What About Doing it the Old-Fashioned Way? - 88 views

  • A substantial literature documents large variation in teacher effectiveness at raising student achievement, providing motivation to identify highly effective and ineffective teachers early in their careers. Using data from New York City public schools, we estimate whether subjective evaluations of teacher effectiveness have predictive power for the achievement gains made by teachers’ future students. We find that these subjective evaluations have substantial power, comparable with and complementary to objective measures of teacher effectiveness taken from a teacher’s first year in the classroom.
Roland Gesthuizen

The Risks of Rewards - 54 views

  • Control, whether by threats or bribes, amounts to doing things to children rather than working with them. This ultimately frays relationships
  • The alternative to bribes and threats is to work toward creating a caring community whose members solve problems collaboratively and decide together how they want their classroom to be
  • grades in particular have been found to have a detrimental effect on creative thinking, long-term retention, interest in learning, and preference for challenging tasks
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  • good values have to be grown from the inside out. Attempts to short-circuit this process by dangling rewards in front of children are at best ineffective, and at worst counterproductive
  • Children are likely to become enthusiastic, lifelong learners as a result of being provided with an engaging curriculum; a safe, caring community in which to discover and create; and a significant degree of choice about what (and how and why) they are learning
  • Unfortunately, carrots turn out to be no more effective than sticks at helping children to become caring, responsible people or lifelong, self-directed learners
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    "Many educators are acutely aware that punishment and threats are counterproductive. Making children suffer in order to alter their future behavior can often elicit temporary compliance, but this strategy is unlikely to help children become ethical, compassionate decision makers. Punishment, even if referred to euphemistically as "consequences," tends to generate anger, defiance, and a desire for revenge. Moreover, it models the use of power rather than reason and ruptures the important relationship between adult and child."
Roland Gesthuizen

City Teacher Data Reports Are Released - SchoolBook - 36 views

  • The rankings stem from a desire by policy makers to find an objective way to distinguish between effective and ineffective teachers, untainted by the subjective judgment of individual evaluators, like school principals.
  • Critics also say there are aspects of a child’s life — or distractions on test day — that the numbers cannot capture: supportive parents, a talented principal, the help of a tutor, allergies or a relentlessly barking dog outside the classroom.
  • there are schools where students are taught by multiple teachers, making it difficult to figure out the weight of their individual contributions
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  • The union has warned that the result will be sweeping, with good teachers steering clear of grades that have standardized tests, parents’ attempts to switch their children to other classrooms, low morale among teachers and worse.
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    After a long legal battle and amid much anguish by teachers and other educators, the New York City Education Department released individual performance rankings of 18,000 public school teachers on Friday, while admonishing the news media not to use the scores to label or pillory teachers.
Daryl Bambic

Be the Change. Listen. Follow-up » Edurati Review - 42 views

  • 1. Be the change. Leaders of professional development seem to forget that they’re actually teaching, and that part of teaching is modeling the activity you hope to see adopted. A session devoted to equipping teachers to implement more collaborative learning that is presented via “death by PowerPoint” is an oxymoron, a term originating from a Greek word appropriately meaning “pointedly foolish.” As one teacher recently expressed it, “Why does the worst teaching often happen in sessions on how to improve teaching?” Why, indeed? Modeling is a powerful teaching technique. In addition to communicating that the suggested new approach promotes learning, demonstration taps into some of the brain’s natural learning systems: This may be because demonstration actually encourages the brain to engage. Specialized neurons known as mirror neurons make practicing “in the head” possible…When a teacher repeatedly performs a sequence of steps, her students’ mirror neurons may enable their own preliminary practice of the same steps. In other words, as a teacher demonstrates a skill, students mentally rehearse it.1
  • Though we’ve been invited to lead professional development, we do not have all the answers. Professional development involves merging new research findings with current personnel—i.e., bringing ideas and people together. One way I’ve tried to do more of this recently is to ask teachers if any of them have tried something similar to a new approach I’ve explained. If any have, I invite them to share their experience. This invites elaboration, a critical cognitive process for constructing understanding. If the teacher’s experience was positive, we discuss why the approach was successful. If the teacher’s experience was frustrating, we often find together the reason for it and develop a plan for structuring it better the next time. This give-and-take values everyone, respects the experience present in the session, and allows the leader to be a colleague rather than an aloof expert.
  • 2. Listen. I have a tendency to get preoccupied with my preparation and forget that I’ll actually have people in the professional development session. Not just people but colleagues!
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  • 3. Follow up. I’ve written previously about the importance of coaching and the characteristics of an effective coach. A one-time information flood is ineffective, no matter how engaging the session’s leader may be. Teachers need support as they begin to implement new ideas, methods, and approaches. Note that support, not judgement, is needed. Showing up with an evaluation form is a certain way to kill any benefit professional development might yield. Teachers are learners, and we need the time and space to try, to reflect, to try again, to get helpful feedback, and to truly master implementation. We need the opportunity to learn. Coaching provides this opportunity, along with the encouragement and feedback necessary for success.
Steve Ransom

How Not to Use Computers to Teach Kids on Vimeo - 107 views

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    Watch this very typical example of how computer technologies are often used to trivialize learning and mask poor teaching.
Mary Beth  Messner

Creating a Sense of Time in Online Courses | Faculty Focus - 62 views

  • While we all agree that the five-year-old unnarrated PowerPoint is a dangerous and ineffective piece of content in an online course, we would also all agree that we can’t redo each narrated piece of content each semester. How do we strike a balance between creating content that is fresh (more on that in a moment) and being able to reuse content that is valuable?
    • Amy Cohen
       
      Addressing issues in reusing online course content
  • For teachers it makes them participate in the content, revisit the content they created in the past, and make it delivered in a “present” time for the students. For students it tells them that the teacher “was just here,” and that this stuff is happening now. It makes the content seem more relevant, and helps build a sense of community in the course.
  • Lastly, keep the flowers fresh.
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  • By creating content that has elements of real time associated with it, instructors can generate a sense of presence and freshness that are often missing in online courses.
  • A sense of time is created in discussion boards because they have only that week to complete the work and there is an understanding that the conversations happen in time. But often asynchronous discussions have wide gaps of time between student interactions. One way to bring time closer to the students is to allow them to subscribe to forum threads they are involved in. You can do this in most LMS solutions. Students get an email alerting them to activity in the thread they are active in and it brings them closer “in real time” to the events happening in the class. While this can be overwhelming in larger courses, in a class of 20 or 30 students it usually does not amount to an unreasonable amount of email notifications. One of the most effective ways to bring timeliness to an online course is do a quick recap of previous week, as well as provide a preview of what is expected for the current week. Using screen capture software to go through the course and set expectations is a great way to not only share a bit of yourself with students, but it is a pre-emptive way to answer questions students commonly ask.
Matt Renwick

Education Week: School Leaders: Don't Let Your Teachers Lose Heart - 51 views

  • Survey teachers. In the spring, as you consider programs for the following year (or years), send out a survey to teachers asking them to rate the areas where they need help. Pick your programs accordingly. You won't please everyone, but this is a chance to address your teachers' real concerns.
    • Matt Renwick
       
      I like this idea. It will help set our goals for the next three years.
  • Take something off the table. Teachers are being asked to do more without letting go of something else. Surprise your teachers before school next year and strike a program that was assessed to be ineffective. Your teachers will love you for easing their load.
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    • Matt Renwick
       
      What would we take off?
Martin Burrett

Study finds popular 'growth mindset' educational interventions aren't very effective - 29 views

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    "A new study co-authored by researchers at Michigan State University and Case Western Reserve University found that "growth mindset interventions," or programmes that teach students they can improve their intelligence with effort - and therefore improve grades and test scores - don't work for students in most circumstances."
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