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"In short, I'm constantly nudging students to think more deeply, but I never really challenge the dogmas of the Church of the Right Answer. I'm a good, rule-abiding cop, in a city where the rules are sometimes grossly unfair. That doesn't always satisfy me. Some days I don't want to nibble at the edges. I crave a more radical assault: a reformation, a new religion. Some days, I want a Church of Learning." For use in a faculty meeting/at a PD. This would be a great activity for IB schools when discussing how best to implement/discuss IB grades. - In HCPS/at Moody do we "worship" at the Church of the Right answer or the Church of Learning? What structures are in place at the school/county level that helped you generate your answer? - Are Moody's students and parents more likely to "worship" at the Church of the Right answer of the Church of learning? What evidence do you see to support you opinion? - What structures can we implement in individual classrooms/at a school level in order to preach the Church of Learning vs. The church of the Right answer.

"Set up a surprise, such that resolution of that becomes the lesson that you intended. Anything that makes students ask the question that you plan to answer in the lesson is good, because answering questions that haven't been asked is inherently uninteresting." This article discusses how to create lessons that provoke student interest and prime them for your lesson. We all know that it is important to have a good introduction or a "hook" for a lesson, but this concept goes one step further. A hook that provides too much information leads to waning engagement. The goal is not just to get the student interested, but to make them curious and ask questions that we plan to answer on that day. Although this particular blog post and the examples within are math related, this technique can be implented in any content area.

This seems like a fun and interesting way to discuss/learn several different math topics. Here's a sample lesson plan that popped into my head when I saw this post: 1. Show to students a GoogleMap/GoogleEarth image similar to the one on the website, but more meaningful to you/them. For example, several different grocery stores around your house. 2. Ask the students, "Which one should I go to?" Have the students justify their answers using the image and mathematical topics that they have learned up to this point. 3. With appropriate questioning you could work in several mathematical topics here (I know I'm missing others as well…) a. Overlay a grid on the GoogleMaps and have the students give each of the locations points on an x,y axis. Use this information to determine distance. Have a conversation if this is the best way to determine which location is easiest to access. When students start to bring up the fact that even though some points are technically closer, but could be slower to get to, bring in… b. Rates, ratios, etc. Discuss how fast you could possibly travel on each route according to number of stop signs, streetlights, speed limit etc. Have students use this information to calculate the appropriate answer.

A friend shared this with me and it's a good read. It also summarizes the way that many of our teachers think, and could be an interesting article to share with a teacher and have a discussion about. Ultimate, I have a huge problem with the assumptions and conclusions that are being made here: "Now I'm not calling for abuse; I'd be the first to complain if a teacher called my kids names. But the latest evidence backs up my modest proposal. Studies have now shown, among other things, the benefits of moderate childhood stress; how praise kills kids' self-esteem; and why grit is a better predictor of success than SAT scores. All of which flies in the face of the kinder, gentler philosophy that has dominated American education over the past few decades. The conventional wisdom holds that teachers are supposed to tease knowledge out of students, rather than pound it into their heads. Projects and collaborative learning are applauded; traditional methods like lecturing and memorization-derided as "drill and kill"-are frowned upon, dismissed as a surefire way to suck young minds dry of creativity and motivation. But the conventional wisdom is wrong. And the following eight principles-a manifesto if you will, a battle cry inspired by my old teacher and buttressed by new research-explain why." Why are these seen as two completely different and opposing philosophies of education? That's my question. From my experience, teasing knowledge and understanding out of children stresses the hell out of them. They struggle to give you an answer initially, but when when you are unwilling to spoon feed them or provide them with a "drill and kill" answer, they finally make a connection. In doing so you show the students that their grit and determination has helped them gather a better understanding of the material and become a better student and learner in process.

I may write a decent response to this. She plays just about every false argument card in the book. It needs this treatment - http://www.al.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/10/huntsville_teacher_common_core.html

This take down of Gladwell's dyslexia chapter http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=8123 makes for a similar parallel.

"Solving a math problem means unfolding a mystery, enjoying the pleasure of discovery. But in every geometry lesson that year, I blundered along and blurted out the secret. With a few sentences, I'd manage to ruin the puzzle, ending the feast before it began, as definitively as if I'd spat in my students' soup. Math is a story, and I was giving my kids spoilers." This post speaks directly to math, but can be applied to any content. When we provide students with the answers rather than developing lessons that let the students ask (and answer questions), we take the fun out of learning.

This article answers a question I have had since 10th grade English - "Is it possible to make Jane Eyre interesting?" I watched the Hamlet video and was thoroughly entertained. I could see these videos being used in 8th grade and high school English classes, especially if you edited one or two short segments (he says a** and b****, but other curse words are bleeped out within the video). These clips could be really useful when discussing the topic of "audience." As a culmination to a unit/lesson on audience, I could see students making their own version of "Thug Notes" or "rewriting" a book to some extent and adapt the work for a specific culture/group of people.

""What's the sine of π/2?" I asked my first-ever trigonometry class. "One!" they replied in unison. "We learned that last year." So I skipped ahead, later to realize that they didn't really know what "sine" even meant. They'd simply memorized that fact. To them, math wasn't a process of logical discovery and thoughtful exploration. It was a call-and-response game. Trigonometry was just a collection of non-rhyming lyrics to the lamest sing-along ever. Some things are worth memorizing--addresses, PINs, your parents' birthdays. The sine of π/2 is not among them. It's a fact that matters only insofar as it connects to other ideas. To learn it in isolation is like learning the sentence "Hamlet kills Claudius" without the faintest idea of who either gentleman is--or, for what matter, of what "kill" means. Memorization is a frontage road: It runs parallel to the best parts of learning, never intersecting. It's a detour around all the action, a way of knowing without learning, of answering without understanding."

"Mark talked about the idea of using Evidence-Based Arguments as a starting point. Every historical investigation needs to begin with a great question. Then they asked kids to do research and create videos. But what they got was disappointing. What they got was basically text with pictures, a script with a background. It wasn't a story, it wasn't engaging, and it often didn't really answer the question.  They begin to realize that they needed to learn more about how to create high-quality documentaries, how to use images and video to actually tell a story. And eventually they came up with a Four Step Process that students work through to create high-quality documentaries:" 4 Step Process for creating HST videos. I don't necessarily agree with the author's thought that tech should not be introduced until step #4, as tech can enhance 1-3 just as well. The teacher just needs to model good behavior and help students develop structures for the work in these phases for it to be successful.

"Mathsframe has more than 170 free interactive maths games. All resources are designed, by an experienced KS2 teacher, to help children to visualise numbers, patterns and numerical relationships and to develop their mathematical thinking. New games are added most weeks." Some of these seem more appropriate for elementary school, but there are definitely some that could serve as quick review for our 6th-8th graders. You could have students use these games for several minutes individually in the class, or have students use a Promethean board/slate to interact with the game in front of the class and discuss their reasoning for the answers they select. This could be a great informal feedback tool that would take very little prep time.

"If teachers don't have enough time to ask, answer, reflect on, and revise their thoughts about the questions above, then we shouldn't be filling their time with things other people get paid to do, like writing curriculum, writing fancy-schmancy benchmark tests, looking at data that's not useful on the individual student level, or discussing which minutes of the day the bathrooms will be open to students." So many things going on in this article...Personally, I found this statement to be the main standout. I agree with this completely - instruction comes first and all the rest is secondary. If you do a great job with instruction, many of the other time eaters/wasters should fall into place and take care of themselves naturally.

"As brilliant reader John D. asked, how many miles does Mario have to travel before he finally gets to Princess Peach?" This could be a great lesson starter for ratio, proportion, and estimation. Show your students one of the levels, ask them to predict, and then have the students create a process in order to answer the question. Reveal the article after students have made their calculations.

ThatQuiz is a free testing service for teachers to use with their classes. Multiple choice tests and math tests can be administered to students using this website. All grades are immediately reported to the students. Teachers receive complete record keeping of test results, including all grades and wrong answers. Teachers can create math assessments with images and video. Students login with a username & password and a code for each assessment. There are some ready-made activities as well.

ThatQuiz is a free testing service for teachers to use with their classes. Multiple choice tests and math tests can be administered to students using this website. All grades are immediately reported to the students. Teachers receive complete record keeping of test results, including all grades and wrong answers. Teachers can create math assessments with images and video. Students login with a username & password and a code for each assessment. There are some ready-made activities as well.

"Ever wonder why we are made up of the particular ratio of elements that we happen to be made up of? The answer may be very simple. Perhaps we are that way because the universe is that way." This infographic reminded me of this H21 lesson (http://blogs.henrico.k12.va.us/21/?s=element+survivor&x=-1067&y=-38) and could provide a neat extension/summary for the lesson. After the students create their products and justify their choices, the teacher could show the infographic on this page and have the students compare and contrast their choices to the infographic and discuss "Why do you believe the human body contains these proportions of the listed elements?" Then, after an appropriate amount of time for the discussion, go for the big reveal and show the graphic that displays the abundance of each element in the universe.

"Students asking questions and then exploring the answers. That's something any good teacher lives for. And at the heart of it all is curiosity."

"This resonates strongly. I shared a lesson with fellow teachers, and realized I had no good way to communicate what actually made the lesson powerful, and how charging in with the usual assumptions of being the explainer in chief could totally ruin it." Couldn't say it any better than this...Personally, this is one of the reasons I've tried to get video of classroom action and student reflections over the past several years for H21. We can write all we want about what makes a lesson powerful, but it's much more obvious and useful when we see it/hear it ourselves.

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