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"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."

Get a new teaching resource every day up to Christmas.

Rebellion from teachers in Mexico who have bought and sold teaching jobs for generations without any national certification. Teachers are striking and bearing crowbars. These are reforms that most agree need to happen, but putting them in place is tough and sadly, it often hurts those we should protect the most... the children. Despite what some say, reforms need to happen in the US as well and this means upheaval here too. It can be challenging to separate the truth from the fabrications but I  hope that wherever the flag of edreform is raised that people will think of children and what is best for them. What is best for teachers is not always the best for children. It might be good in my own eyes to have a job, but if I'm not a good teacher, perhaps it is something that doesn't need to happen. Interesting reading. "The conflict is fueled by the importance of teaching jobs for the poor mountain and coastal villages where the dissident union is strongest. Teaching jobs in Guerrero with lifelong job security, benefits and pension pay about $495 and $1,650 a month, depending on qualifications and tenure, well above average in rural areas, according to teachers and outside experts. They said the price to get such as job can cost as much as $20,000, usually going to the departing teacher, with cuts for union and state officials."

"While I did enjoy David Burgess' Teach Like a Pirate, and the hangout that she shared with us, I'll admit… it made me kind of sad.  Not because of the content itself!  But because of the hard memories it brought up.  I used to teach creatively and encourage innovation in my classroom like that.  When I graduated college, I was chock full of ideas and adored hands-on learning.  But my communication skills was parents was very weak and my administrator was a frustrated man who decided his best way of control was micromanaging.  It's a bit of a long story, but the end result is I was knocked down to stop being creative; to just follow the curriculum and to push worksheets. " Wow. As I read this teacher from Dr. Lee Graham's class (they are in gamifi-ed with my students) I'm so touched by how the teacher helps us feel what is happening to TOO MANY TEACHERS. Too many teachers are being pushed down to teach the wrong way. Worksheet wonders and we wonder why no one loves to learn. This is sad and must change. I hope you'll comment.

The Teach 100 is a ranking of top blogs in education. Many great blogs on this list - many are group blogs but there are also some single blogs (like me). Excited to be on the list.

This press release tells more about Sophia. "Sophia is a social teaching and learning application that makes free, credible academic content available to anyone at anytime. It is a mission-driven organization that aims to break traditional cost and access barriers to post-secondary degree attainment. For more information, go to www.sophia.org."

An online newspaper that collects together the week's news relating to teaching and learning - particularly for those interested in finding resources and inspirational stories about education. Read and subscribe free at: http://paper.li/f-1328546324

An article from Harvard Magazine on the Twilight of the lecture. There are measurable improvements when you move to interactive learning: "Interactive learning triples students' gains in knowledge as measured by the kinds of conceptual tests that had once deflated Mazur's spirits, and by many other assessments as well. It has other salutary effects, like erasing the gender gap between male and female undergraduates. "If you look at incoming scores for our male and female physics students at Harvard, there's a gap," Mazur explains. "If you teach a traditional course, the gap just translates up: men gain, women gain, but the gap remains the same. If you teach interactively, both gain more, but the women gain disproportionately more and close the gap." Though there isn't yet definitive research on what causes this, Mazur speculates that the verbal and collaborative/collegial nature of peer interactions may enhance the learning environment for women students."

An online newspaper that collects together the week's news relating to teaching and learning - particularly for those interested in finding resources and inspirational stories about education. Read and subscribe at: http://paper.li/f-1328546324

An online newspaper that collects together the week's news relating to teaching and learning - particularly for those interested in finding resources and inspirational stories about education.

An online newspaper that collects together the week's news relating to teaching and learning - particularly for those interested in finding resources and inspirational stories about education. Read and subscribe free at:  http://paper.li/f-1328546324

AWS in Education provides a set of programs that enable the worldwide academic community to easily leverage the benefits of Amazon Web Services for teaching and research. With AWS in Education, educators, academic researchers, and students can apply to obtain free usage credits to tap into the on-demand infrastructure of Amazon Web Services to teach advanced courses, tackle research endeavors and explore new projects - tasks that previously would have required expensive up-front and ongoing investments in infrastructure.

Here's our new program page on Facebook.  I am updating this page regularly with information for anyone interested in e-learning and online teaching best practices.  You don't have to be a current or former student to take advantage of the information and connections found here.  I do ask you to 'Like' this page if you find it useful.   (Try it! You'll Like It!)

Do you want to know what a student thinks about genius learning? Read Melina's thoughts about this practice in 12th grad english. ""What are the projects on?"-you might ask. The topic and the project is completely up to us to decide. If we are interested in how to make a good documentary or how to play an instrument, teaching ourselves and researching that topic can be our project. This new way of learning is very peculiar to me, but also very intriguing. For so long I have been told what to know and taught how to know it, but never once did I really felt in control of my learning. It felt like the knowledge went into my brain, stayed their until after my exams, and then was thrown away like a smooth stone into a lake, out of my reach forever. But when you are passionate about something and can lear"

Derek Bruff, assistant director of Vanderbilt University's Center for Teaching, has written a book that reviews the uses of clickers and offers advice for institutions and professors. The book -- Teaching With Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments -- is just out from Jossey-Bass. Bruff responded to e-mail questions about the themes of the book.

This is very true. Online tutorials can only get us so far. This is why I'm learning Scratch and brushing up on Java. I may even have to learn Python before I'm done. We need Computer Science but who will teach it? If we only rely on videos, it would be like asking kids to teach themselves math using Khan Academy without a teacher who knew how to work the problems. "The vast majority of my students do very well on their first hour or two of coding using structured lessons, but when they start to write code for a new problem, or hit the first set of bugs, they get frustrated and need help. Sometimes, all they need is a hint, a pointer to a similar problem, or my assurance that they can solve it. In some cases, they need someone to just re-explain it a little differently."

The use of web based technology is growing by leaps and bounds every day. These online tools are the new set of keys for opening your students' minds. The vast resources on the Internet are making the use traditional methods of teaching and learning obsolete in countless ways.

Sound pedagogical reasons to resist the omnipresence of Blackborg

Great article on US news about initiatives in the US that have started but of special interest is the request that students and educators tweet. The biggest issues I've had with the town hall meetings is that most of them are in the middle of the day when everyone is teaching. On Thursday at 3 pm there is a chat about rural education. It is nice that they're having these meetings but if they REALLY want teachers to participate it will be when teachers are able to focus on the conversation. You can't have teachers teaching and Tweeting. It doesn't work. If you see me tweet during the day, most of the tweets are scheduled or I'm on break or lunch break. "February has been a busy month for K-12 education. On February 1, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan kicked it off by announcing that all U.S. schools should transition to digital textbooks within the next five years. On the 9th, President Obama waived 10 states from No Child Left Behind. And last week, the president proposed a 2013 budget that includes a $1.7 funding increase for education." Although these federal policy decisions may not seem directly connected to day-to-day classroom activities, the Department of Education is using Twitter to encourage teachers, administrators, parents, and students to play a more active role.