Entries Written By Tim
in Education
Everybody’s Designing
The ability of instructional leaders to identify high quality teaching, hold it up as exemplary, and support all teachers in making incremental progress toward being exemplary remains crucial under the social-distancing regime, but it’s more difficult than ever because everybody’s designing. State boards and their bureaucratic hordes convene in dimly-lit video conferences to conjure the …
in Education
Supporting Your Secondary Students at Home
If parent/caregiver and student have established a workable routine that seems reasonably productive and sustainable, hurry up and do nothing different whatsoever. Parents and caregivers tend to know their students best, and any advice a school or anyone else gives ought to be taken as an offering that can be rejected. On the other hand, …
in Brazil
Could David Foster Wallace’s “Infinite Jest” Help Us Navigate Quarantine?
In the room the women come and go, speaking of Michelangelo Just by way of a few time-stamped data points from one man’s experience: on 22 March at 1130h, a friendly neighborhood sundries store was open and empty, and nine 8.5x11in signs hung near the front indicating the complete absence of alcohol gel and protective …
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 recommend starting there.) Parker does a particularly fine job of demystifying the part of a gathering that most seems like a combination of art, magic, and luck: the ending. The Sense of an Ending Before offering suggestions on how …
Treating Classes Like Gatherings, Part Two: Teaching With Generous Authority
(If you haven’t read part one, about establishing purpose, consider starting there.) After providing solid advice on how to approach a gathering’s “why,” Parker offers guidance on designing the core of the experience and facilitating it effectively. The core of that advice: “Don’t be chill!” A ubiquitous strain of twenty-first-century culture is infecting our gatherings: …
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 how we meet and why it matters, provides key insights into at least three crucial aspects of excellent teaching: establishing purpose, cultivating generous authority, and ending well. Parker’s book’s written for a general reader; anyone who has …
Is Authentic Innovative Education Scaleable?
If she doesn’t zoom out, a chemistry teacher might tell herself that her purpose is to teach chemistry. If, instead, she decides that her purpose is to give the young a lifelong relationship to the organic world, new possibilities emerge. from The Art of Gathering, by Priya Parker HTH Approach to Scale HTH expanded its …
in Education
Innovating on Curriculum
A feature of innovative schools, and probably innovative organizations more generally, is a tendency to under-design from the top*. I’ve worked at two K-12 schools designed to continually innovate, and each takes a slightly different approach to avoid over-fitting theory on praxis. First a note about constant change: One might reasonably think that, yes, the …
in Education
Machine Poets of the Apocalypse
A frontier in machine learning seeks to mimic human learning by assembling computers into teams to solve problems. This type of deep learning, called “reinforcement learning,” allows machines to acquire knowledge, take collective action with that knowledge, and observe the consequences on their world and on their teammates. This machine deep learning environment unsurprisingly mimics …
Links to Deeper Learning
Over the course of several days, fifty teachers established what makes deeper learning for students possible. Three themes emerged: connections, purpose, and intellectual depth. What existing practices and tactics, related to these themes, can we tap into to create a shared infrastructure on which to design and facilitate deeper learning experiences for students? A partial …
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...]