I have had this long term struggle going on in my head this year that we really don’t do a good job making connections between material in our classes, and that lack of connection is one reason why “transfer” (ala. Grant Wiggins and Understanding by Design) doesn’t occur as frequently as I would like. Well, [...]
This month, Grant Wiggins wrote an article on the correlation between SES and academic achievement. There is a strong correlation between SAT scores and the families income and there is not a single data point out of place in the table. Here is the full 2012 report. Look at the scores climb as the family [...]
I have been thinking and struggling with these ideas for a week now. I read Dave’s post summarizing the study about repeating Algebra 1 and the lack of success in CA, and I really felt I needed to dive deeper in this topic. So I read many link and downloaded almost every article that was [...]
A little background before I explain what was said to me. I was part of an IREX grant program that brings teachers from other countries to the US to learn about education, etc. My part of this was to host a teacher from Jordan for 6 weeks in my classroom 2 times per week, and [...]
I will preface this by saying I am tired. Yes, tired. The faculty play is kicking my butt major hard core (1 more week to go before we go live, thank goodness), I have been at school for 12 hour days more than I can count in the last 3 weeks, and I just spent [...]
It was the best of conversations, it was the worst of conversations, but in the end, it was an educational conversation for my cousins and I. Okay, enough with the Dickens reference. During the summer I take a little motorcycle trip. Okay, not so little. I do around 2500 miles from Nevada to Montana and [...]
I admit it, I read the funny pages first thing on Sunday morning. Okay, maybe I should first admit that I have a daily subscription to the newspaper and read it cover to cover every day. But, on Sundays, I read the comics first. Yesterday’s Doonesbury was an instant classic in my mind, worthy of [...]
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. [...]
I don’t often post political issues here, but I was doing a bit of reading this morning and felt the need to consolidate some of the posts as well as express some opinions on the issues. Of course, we all read the news, and know of the constant and abusive attacks on teachers and education [...]