Group items tagged

"n the previous literacy post I identified a few take-away questions and related issues from my recent research on comprehension, and looked at some tips related to the 1st question: Do students understand the real point of academic reading? Do students understand that the aim of instruction is transfer of learning? Am I using the right texts for making clear the value of strategies? Do students understand the difference between self-monitoring understanding and knowing what they might do when understanding does not occur? Am I attending to the fewest, most powerful comprehension strategies for academic literacy? Am I helping them build a flexible repertoire instead of teaching strategies in isolation? Do students have sufficient general understanding of the strategies (which is key to transfer)? Am I doing enough ongoing formal assessment of student comprehension, strategy use, and tolerance of ambiguity?"

"Whenever a college student asks me, a veteran high-school English educator, about the prospects of becoming a public-school teacher, I never think it's enough to say that the role is shifting from "content expert" to "curriculum facilitator." Instead, I describe what I think the public-school classroom will look like in 20 years, with a large, fantastic computer screen at the front, streaming one of the nation's most engaging, informative lessons available on a particular topic. The "virtual class" will be introduced, guided, and curated by one of the country's best teachers (a.k.a. a "super-teacher"), and it will include professionally produced footage of current events, relevant excerpts from powerful TedTalks, interactive games students can play against other students nationwide, and a formal assessment that the computer will immediately score and record. "

"The term curriculum refers to the lessons and academic content taught in a school or in a specific course or program. In dictionaries, curriculum is often defined as the courses offered by a school, but it is rarely used in such a general sense in schools. Depending on how broadly educators define or employ the term, curriculum typically refers to the knowledge and skills students are expected to learn, which includes the learning standards or learning objectives they are expected to meet; the units and lessons that teachers teach; the assignments and projects given to students; the books, materials, videos, presentations, and readings used in a course; and the tests, assessments, and other methods used to evaluate student learning. An individual teacher's curriculum, for example, would be the specific learning standards, , lessons, assignments, and materials used to organize and teach a particular course."

"The stone statues on Easter Island (Diamond, 2005) have a lot to teach us about education. The hundreds of stone statues on Easter Island have been one of the greatest mysteries on earth."