Entries Written By Tim
To Reduce Plagiarism, Increase Joy, and Create Conditions for Learning that Sticks: Ask Students to Transform Content
Schools suited for the 21st century do not ask students to regurgitate content, but, instead, to transform it. What exactly does this mean? It means that students combine what they learn with their perspective, or their personality, or their aesthetics, or their creativity, or all of these, to produce something that has not existed before. …
in Education
Three Features of Innovative Education That Are Not Bugs
When creating a school that’s different from the mental model many parents, teachers, administrators, citizens (and some students) hold in their heads, key critiques arise that, when not addressed appropriately, result in confusion, wasted effort, hand-wringing, and disillusionment. And these emotions can in turn compel innovators to revert to the traditional, broken, inequitable systems and …
in Education
The Four Horsemen of the Learning Apocalypse
Outlined against a blue-gray fluorescent sky, the Four Horsemen ride again. In dramatic lore they’re known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Inauthenticity, Complexity, Comfort, and Sterility. They form the crest of the apocalypse, before which another classroom is swept over the precipice. Inauthenticity The teenage nose …
in Education
6 Topics to Address with Students Who Want to Use Social Media for School Projects
In schools where students learn by doing authentic work, there’s an understandable desire to have them use “real world” tools. To build houses and stairways to nowhere, they’ll wield circular saws, hammers, and socket wrenches. To create robots, they’ll use soldering irons, wrestle with Arduinos, and code with Javascript. And to build brands, they’ll capture …
Chaos or Community: Student Contribution to Racial Justice
Inspire by the resources created and curated by BlackLivesMatteratSchool.com to help teachers engage students in action and work related to racial justice, what follows is an explication of a powerful interdisciplinary student project focused on race relations and police brutality, offered with the hope that it will empower some teachers to design projects related to …
in Education
This Class Is Being Interrupted for a Special Pandemic
Questions addressed in this post: Why are classrooms such rowdy places? Why is teaching so hard? Why does professional development not make bad teachers good? What can we do about all this? Here’s a learning environment as described by one Veronique Mintz: Talking out of turn. Destroying classroom materials. Disrespecting teachers. Blurting out answers during …
in Teaching
Using Purpose to Encourage Student Engagement
One advantage of online learning from an instructional coaching perspective is it’s easier to get a sense of a student’s experience. From home offices, we can visit the documents, videos, and pages designed to lead students through lessons, tasks, and projects and put ourselves in the digital shoes of a 6th, or 9th, or 11th …
in Teaching
Teaching Students with Disabilities as Transformative Learning
When the virus first broke, some schools initially deposited the whole idea of online instruction in the too-hard pile, hesitating to offer classes for any students rather than attempting to fulfill their legal and ethical obligations to serve all students, especially those with disabilities. Clearly, if educators fail to attempt in good faith and to …
Priorities for Flexible Learning
With students geographically dispersed, school schedules disrupted, and standardized tests delayed or cancelled, teachers have opportunities to explore creative paths for designing meaningful student learning experiences. With limited emotional and material resources, what ought they prioritize during this time?* Here are three teaching and learning priorities to consider: Building community Integrating student interests into the …
in Education
With Universal Basic Income, what might be possible for public schools?
This week, Twitter and Square founder Jack Dorsey pledged $1 billion for the purpose of addressing immediate coronavirus needs and then, longer term, supporting initiatives related to girls’ health and education and universal basic income (UBI). He’s tracking the donations on this public Google spreadsheet, which, at the time of this writing, 67 people are …
Treating Classes Like Gatherings, Part Three: Ending Well(If you haven’t read part one, on establishing purpose, or part two, on facilitating well, I’d [keep reading...]
Treating Classes Like Gatherings, Part Two: Teaching With Generous Authority(If you haven’t read part one, about establishing purpose, consider starting there.) After [keep reading...]
Why Teachers Should Consider Their Classes “Gatherings”Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering, a book that, as the subtitle suggests, takes up the subject of [keep reading...]