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*...research shows three reliable effects when students are graded: They tend to think less deeply, avoid taking risks, and lose interest in the learning itself. *Rubrics are, above all, a tool to promote standardization, to turn teachers into grading machines or at least allow them to pretend that what they're doing is exact and objective.

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/rubrics.htm downloaded on 7.15.09 *...research shows three reliable effects when students are graded: They tend to think less deeply, avoid taking risks, and lose interest in the learning itself. *Rubrics are, above all, a tool to promote standardization, to turn teachers into grading machines or at least allow them to pretend that what they're doing is exact and objective. *As long as the rubric is only one of several sources, as long as it doesn't drive the instruction, it could conceivably play a constructive role. *students whose attention is relentlessly focused on how well they're doing often become less engaged with what they're doing. *What all this means is that improving the design of rubrics, or inventing our own, won't solve the problem because the problem is inherent to the very idea of rubrics and the goals they serve. *Neither we nor our assessment strategies can be simultaneously devoted to helping all students improve and to sorting them into winners and losers. *We have to reassess the whole enterprise of assessment, the goal being to make sure it's consistent with the reason we decided to go into teaching in the first place.

http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/rubrics.htm downloaded on 7.15.09 *...research shows three reliable effects when students are graded: They tend to think less deeply, avoid taking risks, and lose interest in the learning itself. *Rubrics are, above all, a tool to promote standardization, to turn teachers into grading machines or at least allow them to pretend that what they're doing is exact and objective. *As long as the rubric is only one of several sources, as long as it doesn't drive the instruction, it could conceivably play a constructive role. *students whose attention is relentlessly focused on how well they're doing often become less engaged with what they're doing. *What all this means is that improving the design of rubrics, or inventing our own, won't solve the problem because the problem is inherent to the very idea of rubrics and the goals they serve. *Neither we nor our assessment strategies can be simultaneously devoted to helping all students improve and to sorting them into winners and losers. *We have to reassess the whole enterprise of assessment, the goal being to make sure it's consistent with the reason we decided to go into teaching in the first place.

7.15.09 *We work best/learn best when it matters to us. 15 *Tools do't teach but they can change the way we teach. 22 *The schools we need [are] understanding driven. 40

7.15.09 *We work best/learn best when it matters to us. 15 *Tools don't teach, but they can change the way we teach. 22 *The schools we need [are] understanding driven. 40

1-Technology is only technology to those who were born before it. 2-We need to prepare students for THEIR future not OUR past-Ian Jukes, educator and Futurist. 3-Teachers need to stop saying, "Hand it in," and start saying "Publish It." Alan November 4-We have moved from "know what" learning to "know where" learning. 5-The largest number of podcasts in education are about Podcasts in education.-Marco Torres. 6-Kids DO want to learn, but schools get in the way. 7-Digital Media enables us to build more stages for our kids to express themselves. - Marco Torres 8-What gets us in trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know that just ain't so. Mark Twain. 9-We need to replicate in the classroom the world in which students are living. 10-If we teach today the way we were taught yesterday we aren't preparing students for today or tomorrow.

7.15.09 1-Technology is only technology to those who were born before it. 2-We need to prepare students for THEIR future not OUR past-Ian Jukes, educator and Futurist. 3-Teachers need to stop saying, "Hand it in," and start saying "Publish It." Alan November 4-We have moved from "know what" learning to "know where" learning. 5-The largest number of podcasts in education are about Podcasts in education.-Marco Torres. 6-Kids DO want to learn, but schools get in the way. 7-Digital Media enables us to build more stages for our kids to express themselves. - Marco Torres 8-What gets us in trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know that just ain't so. Mark Twain. 9-We need to replicate in the classroom the world in which students are living. 10-If we teach today the way we were taught yesterday we aren't preparing students for today or tomorrow.

""This is gym; we shouldn't have to teach writing." Mr. Thomas said he replied, "If you want to work at Brockton High, it's your job.""

Do we teach this to our students? Do we use the strategy ourselves? Here's the annotated link: http://diigo.com/0bj1y

Here's the annotated link: http://diigo.com/0bj1y

7.21.09 * The Princeton economist Alan Blinder argues that the crucial distinction in the emerging labor market is not between those with more or less education, but between those whose services can be delivered over a wire and those who must do their work in person or on site. * A gifted young person who chooses to become a mechanic rather than to accumulate academic credentials is viewed as eccentric, if not self-destructive. * As I sat in my K Street office, Fred's life as an independent tradesman gave me an image that I kept coming back to: someone who really knows what he is doing, losing himself in work that is genuinely useful and has a certain integrity to it. * It would probably be impossible to do such work in isolation, without access to a collective historical memory; you have to be embedded in a community of mechanic-antiquarians. * Good diagnosis requires attentiveness to the machine, almost a conversation with it.... * The regularity of the cubicles made me feel I had found a place in the order of things. I was to be a knowledge worker. * A good job requires a field of action where you can put your best capacities to work and see an effect in the world. Academic credentials do not guarantee this. * In the boardrooms of Wall Street and the corridors of Pennsylvania Avenue, I don't think you'll see a yellow sign that says "Think Safety!" as you do on job sites and in many repair shops, no doubt because those who sit on the swivel chairs tend to live remote from the consequences of the decisions they make. * Our peripheral vision is perhaps recovering, allowing us to consider the full range of lives worth choosing. For anyone who feels ill suited by disposition to spend his days sitting in an office, the question of what a good job looks like is now wide open.

As John Maeda recently noted, the missing partner to STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) is IDEA (Intuition, Design, Emotion, Art). As a person who was trained on both sides and now works and plays across STEM and IDEA, I feel strongly that our education programs need to combine both in order to create the T-shaped people that can go out and make a difference in the world (Principle 6).

"What good is a dream house if you haven't got a dream?" -Julius Shulman

""Chaos isn't the problem; how long it takes to find coherence is the real game." -Doc Childre and Bruce Crier"