Thoughtful Teaching

An award-winning English and Social Studies teacher at Luther Burbank High School in Sacramento, Calif., Larry Ferlazzo is the author of Helping Students Motivate Themselves: Practical Answers To Classroom Challenges, The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival...

Advice, evaluation, grades—none of these provide the descriptive information that students need to reach their goals. What is true feedback—and how can it improve learning?

Technology is not evidence of 21st century learning. You can embed tech into every aspect of instruction and still have a completely teacher-centered classroom.

Judy Willis, a neurologist & middle grades teacher, says adolescent brains learn more through interactive, interdependent group work.

Within the last few years, research studies from around the world have shown that assessment can help students learn science, as well as measure how much science they have learned (Black & Wiliam, 1998; Wiliam, Lee, Harrison, & Black, 2004). Research has also suggested that the use of formative assessment, or assessment for learning, can double the rate of student learning (Wiliam & Thompson, in press). Perhaps more remarkable, such improvements have occurred even when achievement is measured using standardized tests.

Why Should Techies Care About (20th Century) Education Theory?
Debates about education are by no means new: What’s the best way to teach? What’s the best way to learn? What should the curriculum be? Who should have access to specialized knowledge and specialized training? How does technology impact all of these questions?

What happens when students are offered tiered choices of challenge within diverse classroom communities?

DRIVING QUESTION: Does Project Based Learning Teach Critical Thinking?

The value of coaching, especially for high-performing professionals (like teachers!)

A cognitive scientist and artifical intelligence theorist argues that our push for more STEM education is off base. Why?

 

NOTE: I'm not necessarily endorsing the views espoused in this article (or any other article I share). I thought it was an interesting article though, and good food for thought. And thought is always good!

What students are really motivated by are opportunities to be social — to interact around challenging concepts in powerful conversations with their peers. They are motivated by issues connected to fairness and justice. They are motivated by the important people in their lives, by the opportunity to wrestle with the big ideas rolling around in their minds, and by the often-troubling changes they see happening in the world around them.

One grading practice that is gaining popularity is standards-based grading, which involves measuring students' proficiency on well-defined course objectives (Tomlinson & McTighe, 2006). Although many districts adopt standards-based grading in addition to traditional grades, standards-based grading can and should replace traditional point-based grades.

 

Strategy number one is simply to focus -- like a laser beam -- on a few key, high-priority standards to teach really well.

"Neuroscience should be required for all students [of education] . . . to familiarize them with the orienting concepts [of] the field, the culture of scientific inquiry, and the special demands of what qualifies as scientifically based education research." - Eisenhart & DeHaan, 2005