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On the Teaching Professor blog, the author starts with: "In May I finished a second edition of my Learner-Centered Teaching book. Revising it gave me the chance to revisit my thinking about the topic and look at work done since publication of the first edition ten years ago. It is a subject about which there is still considerable interest." And that it is. Check out the five characteristics of Learner-Centered Teaching helped me to think about my own thoughts of Learner-Centered engagement as a Tech. Coordinator who loves teachers and teaching.

A new startup social networking site focusing on teaching and learning.

Sophia hosts free online learning content in multimedia "packets" tied to MN K-12 standards. A blend of Facebook, Wikipedia, Atomic Learning, and Hippocampus.

Some people describe Sophia as a mash up of Wikipedia, YouTube, and Facebook - focused solely on teaching and learning. It's where you can teach what you know and learn what you don't. Whether you're a high school student, college student, teacher, professor, tutor or parent, Sophia makes knowledge easier to share, easier to find, and easier to organize. And it's free.

"In his new book, Professor Keith Taber reassures practicing and training science teachers, as he explores a range of issues faced by secondary school educators and discusses strategies for teaching the nature of scientific knowledge, making practical work effective and challenging young scientists. Throughout the academic prose, Professor Taber reflects on the nature of scientific knowledge in science education encouraging creating narratives, challenging misconceptions, and exploring principles of constructive teaching. The book continues with exploring specific challenges, such as teaching electrical circuits to lower secondary school students, along with a chapter dedicated to supporting gifted students who excel at the subjects."

Our students have changed radically. Today's students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach.

Student academic preparedness is something that we build as professors into our students.

"10 Things Every College Professor Hates"

Editorial about a recommendation by the AFT Pres to develop a professional certification for teachers.  It's about time...

Mark & Michelle, thank you for your comments. When I posted this I knew the words "standardized test" would be a flashpoint. It is for me too. With nearly 40 years in the classroom, teaching a creative art (music) to all different levels (kindergarten through college and well beyond), I have often railed against reducing any education, any student, to a number. Very little in what I have taught can be measured with a pencil-and-paper test. What I see here is different than this. It is the union that she is saying should be the "gate-keeper" to our profession, rather than some generic government standard test. Yes, tests would be a part of the certification, but from what I read, so would much more, including actual classroom work. The certification would be similar to the AMA for physicians or the Bar for attorneys. These are certifications designed and administered by the profession - not the government - and validate a candidate's readiness to practice. Yes, I too am strongly against the government, or any organization outside of our profession, to certify, to validate, a teacher's ability to do the job. But we have to admit there is a problem with teacher certification and validation. There are people who simply should not be in the classroom (haven't we all seen them?). It is very difficult to remove folks who are dragging the respect for our profession down. Yes, there is remediation. Yes, it should be a difficult process to remove someone in order to protect against administrative abuses. But what is talked about here is the profession policing itself - something that the teacher's unions, in general, have steadfastly refused to do. What the AFT Pres is suggesting is that the best thing we can do to raise the status of teaching as a profession is to take action ourselves to make it happen. Really, if we in the profession do not do this, then it will be imposed from those outside who do not know what we do, how we do it and why we do it.

You are still talking about a standardized test. Let's face it--doctors have to have specific knowledge to do their job. Whether or not they are creative or engaging is not as important as their knowledge base. The same with lawyers--knowledge of the law is essential, and everything else is secondary. However, in teaching, although educational theory and knowledge of their subject area is important (and already tested, by the way) the most essential aspect of teaching is how you can creatively engage students, interact with parents and peers, and stay organized and motivated. These things CAN'T BE TESTED. Right now, teachers already go through extensive training, evaluation, and continuing education. Do you REALLY think that a standardized test will really improve teaching? I know a lot of university professors who can easily pass a test, but few of them can teach worth beans.

Counter to "posit that college professors do not work hard enough" and by extension the lack of teaching/teachers below this echelon

To summarize the findings: because they didn't teach to the test, the professors who instilled the deepest learning in their students came out looking the worst in terms of student evaluations and initial exam performance. To me, these results were staggering, and I don't say that lightly.

"The group that only saw social tweets ended up rating that professor higher in credibility than the group that saw only scholarly tweets. Researchers also said there was an especially significant difference in ratings when it came to whether a professor was "caring" or not. "These results support previous research that shows revealing personal information can increase a professor's perceived credibility," says the paper. "[I]t was interesting to note that the scholarly tweets did not significantly raise competence ratings in the groups that saw the scholarly posts. This could be an indication that caring, not competence, is the most important dimension when it comes to assessing perceived credibility on social networking sites." Not all students felt good about the social tweets, though. The researchers found that older students tended to rate the professors lower in credibility after having viewed their Twitter accounts. These students were also more likely to think it was a bad idea for profes"

Note the limitation of the study: (fake) professors were all female. Also, younger and older students responded differently.

The author reflects on student evaluations, citing a study that asked students what they expect from their professors (also talks about how it applies to K-12 schools)

So many issues here to deal with. Good read.

"It's a challenging process, and it requires experienced educators and technologists to find value in the data. For that reason, Duke University's Randy Riddle has been working with professors and other faculty for more the last 13 years, honing his expertise and delivering tools that boost engagement and learning. "

"The professors are much better prepared for a single class so that they can give much more individualized instruction," Lui said. "The practical effectiveness of this means that teachers are now able to use their time more efficiently to hone in on the things that are most troublesome or useful for different groups of students. You're not teaching to the mean or bottom quartile."

"Are You Scared of Your Students? A professor wonders whether the classroom has become an unsafe space for the faculty."