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Ten ways to survive a nightmare course provides strategies for dealing with a difficult online learning situation. Problems may develop with any online course, due to causes beyond your control. Some problems include incompatible technology, continual course learning management system (LMS) problems, e-mail problems, or bewildering directions and assignments. Regardless the situation, there are many things you can do to overcome this less than happy experience and turn it a positive outcome.

As we make plans for how we will engage our students in their learning the decisions we make become fundamental to how they will grow to understand the purposes of learning. How our learners approach the curriculum and the disciplines is fundamental to the outcomes we may achieve for them. One path will set them up to view learning as the acquisition of information the other to see it as a process of asking and exploring questions of significance through the many unique lenses.

Competency based learning designs the course around the learning outcomes, not on the time to completion.

The book 'Non Obvious' by Rohit Bhargava present an intriguing exploration of how careful observation and thought can reveal emerging trends and as the subtitle suggest 'predict the future'. For educators the ability to identify the trends which will deliver the best outcomes for our students from the noise of fads is alluring. While the talk of new technologies, of learner centric pedagogies and teaching for lifelong learning play the part of the obvious trends in education identifying the non-obvious trend is a more challenging endeavour. 

Behind the rhetoric and politics, education is about the outcomes it achieves for its learners. More than being about the nuances of technology, learning space design, curriculum structures and pedagogical practices schools should have effective answers to questions that focus on what they hope to achieve for their learners. How we answer this question should then dictate the measures we utilise to achieve these goals and it is to these ends that we must apply our efforts.

There is a debate taking place in the world of education. It is not a new debate but recently it has gathered new energy and the boundary between polite discussion of opposing views and hostility has been stretched. The debate is that between those who are advocates of inquiry based learning and those who believe direct instruction produces the best outcomes. - This article explore how the debate has gone wrong and fails to serve the needs of learners.

As with many things in education, the outcome achieved will be a result of all that we do. Efforts to promote and empower student agency, voice and choice certainly falls into this category. We might have the best of intentions but unless each of our messaging systems align, we are unlikely to achieve success. So where do our efforts go wrong and what else might we change so that student agency is genuinely a part of our learning environment?

Graphic on why the brain learns better when studying more than one subject

"Later this month, the U.S. Department of Education holds its first Games for Learning Summit in New York City, a gathering of educational experts, students, teachers, game publishers and developers. Summit organizers hope to use the event to help break down the barriers that exist between the interests of game developers and needs of educational games. The outcome, organizers hope, will be new ways to make and distribute engaging and educational video games to classrooms."

What does it mean to be a successful science or math teacher? The definition of success is an elusive thing and measured in many ways. Merriam-Webster dictionary defines success as - resulting in or gaining a favorable outcome. This, without a doubt, is your and every other teacher's goal for their students.