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Trevor Haddock

Open Education for a Global Economy - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    An article about ALISON which collects vocational training courses for free delivery similar to what Khan Academy provides for academic courses.
djplaner

The End of 'Genius' - NYTimes.com - 0 views

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    Or perhaps an explanation of why genius never really existed. It's all about the connections. @gsiemens tweeted this article with the comment "The essence of networked learning "one entity helping to inspire another" Am thinking seriously of setting this as one of the core readings in the coming week or two. Mainly trying to really challenge the common conception that learning is all in your head and not in the connections.
anonymous

Imagining Successful Schools - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • This system has infuriated and shamed teachers, and is a lot of the reason that teacher turnover is so high, causing even many of the best teachers to abandon the ranks.
    • anonymous
       
      This was always a topical conversation and was the reason some of my colleagues left. I saw engineers go from somebody with pride in themselves to saying that they had to leave because they did not like what was happening to them.
  • in order to meet the demands of a global economy, our educational system needs to be re-engineered for much higher performance.
  • No other country believes that you can get to a high quality educational system simply by instituting an accountability system,” he says.
    • anonymous
       
      Accountability is not the answer because it creates an "tick and flick" control mechanism, meaning more of the same.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • test-based accountability is “doing untold damage to the profession of teaching.”
  • The main thing that works is treating teaching as a profession, and teachers as professionals.
    • anonymous
       
      Oh gosh, how I wished this was so when I was in there. You do sometimes feel like the proverbial "glorified baby sitter." 
  • That means that teachers are as well paid as other professionals, that they have a career ladder, that they go to elite schools where they learn their craft, and that they are among the top quartile of college graduates instead of the bottom quartile.
    • anonymous
       
      Wow, I'm so with this, as a professional tutor my rate is less than 25% of what a lawyer or accountant would get for the same time.
  • When I suggested that American cities couldn’t afford to pay teachers the way we pay engineers or lawyers, Tucker scoffed. With rare exception, he said, the cost per pupil in the places with the best educational systems is less than the American system, even though their teachers are far better paid. “They are not spending more money; they are spending money differently,” he said.
    • anonymous
       
      When an individual is treated like a professional they raise the bar. I have seen this in all my encounters with students. How they are treated is how they behave.
  • Tucker would not abolish tests, but he would have fewer of them.
    • anonymous
       
      This is great! I don't think we should do away with assessment completely but we should be using them as more of a tool for innovation.
  • And they would have a different purpose: In the high-performing countries, the tests exist to hold the students accountable, rather than the teachers.
    • anonymous
       
      This is what I thought would happen when wanting to become a teacher but then I felt that the teachers were criticised if students did not perform. As a senior English teacher this is definitely the prevailing discourse.
  • When a school falls short, instead of looking to fire teachers, the high-performing countries “use the data to decide which schools will receive visits from teams of expert school inspectors. These inspectors are highly regarded educators.”
    • anonymous
       
      Back to the inspectors, or I would rather say more like advisors who work with teachers improving their craft. I loved the idea of team teaching but a lot of teachers were not open to it, mostly I think due to the fear of being judged but for others it was a control issue too, "no one can teach like I do"mantra, which happens because of a perceived threat to ego that makes individuals more fearful.
  • Tucker envisions the same kind of accountability for teachers as exists for, say, lawyers in a firm — where it is peers holding each other accountable rather than some outside force. People who don’t pull their own weight are asked to leave. The ethos is that people help each other to become better for the good of the firm. Those who successfully rise through the ranks are rewarded with higher pay and status.
    • anonymous
       
      I am wondering whether this only works in private organisations. In public institutions as there is a lack of the profit motif, there is much more of an inclination to remove individuals perceived as a threat to one's status or worldview rather than how they are performing for the company. 
  • Would the teachers’ unions go along with such a scheme? The unions would certainly have to shed some of the things they now have, such as control of work rules.
    • anonymous
       
      This points illustrates something fundamental - you never hear of lawyer or accountant unions, only teacher unions. Why?
  • fixation with test-based accountability
    • anonymous
       
      There is certainly this happening.
  • every other successful country has
    • anonymous
       
      Is this a blanket statement, or a the grass is greener on the other side of the fence or is it true? 
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    There are quite a few of us who are thinking a lot about the future of schooling. What do you think of his recent article?
Charmian LORD

Why It's Too Easy To Dismiss Technology Critics: Or, The Fallacies Leading A Reviewer T... - 0 views

  • One recurring strategy to invalidate a technology critic’s observations is to frame an issue in terms of overly simplistic comparisons. Then, all you need to do is allege the critic is blind to obvious advantages and makes a mountain out of a molehill by dramatizing small problems.
  • If you’re not taking deep pause to consider what’s lost if drones create material conditions that lead to moral hazards, whether sufficient oversight will ensure robotic cars can make appropriate moral decisions, and if banging the security drum too loudly unfairly stacks the deck against privacy, then you’re looking past significant issues.
djplaner

The Singular Mind of Terry Tao - The New York Times - 1 views

  • ‘Terry is what a great 21st-­century mathematician looks like,’’ Jordan Ellenberg, a mathematician at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who has collaborated with Tao, told me. He is ‘‘part of a network, always communicating, always connecting what he is doing with what other people are doing.’
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    The greatest mathematician of his generation is characteristed by his participation in a network
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