Tag: education

  • Writing Essential Understandings in Alg2 part 2

    When I last left this topic, I had a rather different arrangement of the Essential Understandings based on a theme of graphing, algebraic arithmetic and solving. We took this to our department head, and had a discussion with her about these. Her very valid concern with that arrangement was that the learners may not see…

  • Using Essential Understanding to drive lesson planning

    Okay, I have to admit, I haven’t really designed my own curriculum for algebra 2 before. I just looked at the district blueprint, saw what chapters they expected me to cover, and did that. Sometimes I figured out homework assignments the morning of. Sometimes I had homework planned out weeks in advance. But I had…

  • Learners or Students?

    Back when I was in grad school working on my M.Ed., I had to do one of those philosophy papers on my personal teaching philosophy. All my classmates whined and groaned, but as someone with a philosophy degree, I take that kind of assignment very seriously. In the end, I decided one thing for sure…

  • Reviewing for AP Exams II

    The FRQ review that I did last class was fairly successful. The learners worked their problems, thought about how to teach that problem, and gave good presentations to the class. The one thing I was very disappointed in was the lack of questions on how to do the problems the class was teaching. They all said, “yup,…

  • When did teachers become the enemy?

    I was having a conversation the other day with a recent graduate of my high school. This person was shocked at how bad education is, because they are in college and doing well. All the things they hear in the media was creating a huge cloud over their head because they had a great high…

  • Defending knowledge and facts against ignorance

    I kind of reached a breaking point last week. No, wait. I did reach a breaking point last week. I will no longer sit by when I hear people say obviously wrong things.  You know, the kind of wrong things about teaching and what affects teaching you hear every day if you watched Faux News.…

  • 53 Free Android Apps for Education

    The other day, this article popped up in my reader (really! I think they were recycling their content). It is from August 2009, and it is a list of 100 iPhone apps for education. It got me thinking, because I don’t use an iPhone. I really have nothing for or against iPhones. I use Verizon…