Teachers

What Now wrote last summer about her experiences attending a Bard College 'Institute for Writing and Thinking week-long course (e.g. see here), and I was intrigued. I teach and research in a STEM discipline, but down at the muddy, compl...
What Now wrote last summer about her experiences attending a Bard College 'Institute for Writing and Thinking week-long course (e.g. see here), and I was intrigued. I teach and research in a STEM discipline, but down at the muddy, complicated end where a lot of undergraduate work is in the form of essays, projects and other sorts of writing rather than problem sheets and cleanly structured laboratory reports, so the ability to communicate well through writing makes a big difference to my students' success. The bigger problems of the world around us that my science can be linked to (the 'impact' we need to hang our grants off these days) are mostly about the complexity of interactions between the natural environment and society and economics, rather than about producing new drugs or better materials to make things with - like the beaches we study, our 'relevance' is liminal, dynamic, and complex. Writing effectively and writing in different styles matters, as does being able to think about complicated, nebulous, intrinsically chaotic ideas, ideas where there isn't a clear right or wrong, as well as about the scientific understandings where there often is indeed a correct answer (especially at undergrad level).Also, I like to write. No, make that I love to write, although I don't always remember that, and need to push harder to get writing back into my life more. I process best using pen and ink, both as external RAM and as a filter for the emotion-rich, essentially inarticulate feelings of the responses of my brain to the world - if I can find the words to articulate my feelings and lay them out on the page, I make discoveries about myself, about situations I'm in, and about science and the conversations we all try to have with the outer world. As a kid, I spent my pocket money on stationary as well as candy - a nice notebook and a new pen give me great pleasure and a heady sense of possibility even now.The basic pedagogical structure and the reasonings What Now laid out made sense to me, appealed to me at quite a deep level - they chimed with how I want some of my classrooms to be, even though my subject material is STEM. All of which is to say, I tried it out a little in one of my classes, thought that it worked well - I liked the difference in atmosphere in the class, and the way that everyone was seriously engaged with the material and having their say for at least some of the time - and yesterday I finally got around to processing the instant feedback sheets from that group (the formal evaluation instruments don't allow us to focus on particular issues or developmental concerns in our modules). I was pleased to find out that the students seem to have liked it too - in fact, there was not one negative comment, although one or two chose not to respond to that question at all,I've just ordered the book produced by the IWT, and I'm thinking about how I might extend this approach into another class which needs some reworking. Definitely a good addition to my classroom tool-kit - thanks WN!
about 1 hour ago
Anyone who saw my last post will know that I'll probably be checking in late and without much success to report this week! But 'not much' isn't the same as 'none' - at 17:40 this evening I was just shutting things down at the office and...
Anyone who saw my last post will know that I'll probably be checking in late and without much success to report this week! But 'not much' isn't the same as 'none' - at 17:40 this evening I was just shutting things down at the office and feeling grumpy about my unproductive week, then decided to write one bad paragraph on the paper that I was particularly aware of having neglected. That took about fifteen minutes, and being written at that time means it truly deserves to be called bad, but bad words are better than no words in a draft - they're progress! Elizabeth Anne Mitchell asked last week for advice on how to keep right side (urgent) things from stealing all the resources away from top left things - and I'd love to hear your tips too!I'll start: my tip is do SOMETHING, however teeny tiny, on the TLQ thing before you let the urgent thing have the rest of your day. Even a couple of minutes contact with it, a new line of data entered or few words translated or reference formatted or downloaded, keeps it alive in your mind... Now I just have to learn to take my own advice...Roll call: Normal 0 false false false EN-GB X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;} Amanda: (1) Read 4 papers this week, (2) Put corkboard up on the wall in my office (I’ve had this on my to do list for a long time now) (3) Plan schedule daily (4) Spend 15 mins a day tidying up in the evenings. Contingent Cassandra: spend at least 50% of time on restful/rejuvenating activities (basically, recreational reading on paper, walking, or gardening). Spend rest of time on loose-end-tying, planning, and working on the beginnings of some household/financial tasks. Daisy: More revision, have to get into the figures and tables part of it and make that go away Elizabeth Anne Mitchell: List what needs to be done on each project, and put them in order of best/quickest returns. JaneB: a) continue to collect data for the interim report. b) Look at the last report and outline this one. c) rough draft the intro and discussion of DCP 2 (without restructuring it) - that's 15 paragraphs. d) a minimum of 30 minutes on at least three days tidying and rearranging upstairs Jodi A Campbell: get through 4 ILL books and write 2500 words luolin88: next report in week 5 Matilda: make a practical weekly plan, record my activity, not too much into details. metheist: go through 2 ILL books that are due soon; outline chapter 4; write 1500 good words. Cook 3 days; go to the gym 2 days. Propter Doc: 2 blog posts, plan data analysis for project A. think about project B. Plan the summer a little more theorydave: try to sort out the glaring inconsistences in paper one (part way through writing it I found a whole tranche of papers that made some of the introduction wrong and analysis incomplete). Sort out outstanding figure and references. Meet with paper two coauthor.
about 20 hours ago
With the Summer school break quickly approaching, now's the perfect time to add some fresh titles to your child's bookshelf. To help, we asked moms who have also been teachers to share some of their favorite children's stories. Whether y...
With the Summer school break quickly approaching, now's the perfect time to add some fresh titles to your child's bookshelf. To help, we asked moms who have also been teachers to share some of their favorite children's stories. Whether you have a color-loving toddler, a beginning reader needing practice, or a preteen looking for an exciting plot, there's something in here for kids of all ages.
1 day ago
While there is little doubt that excellent early education sets students up for long-term academic success, the definition of "excellent" varies along with communities' diverse needs. This is nowhere truer than with dual language learner...
While there is little doubt that excellent early education sets students up for long-term academic success, the definition of "excellent" varies along with communities' diverse needs. This is nowhere truer than with dual language learners. Great early education for these students requires reorienting educational and developmental perspectives away from unduly "monolingual perspectives" in favor of research-based metrics that take this core difference into account. While English proficiency is enormously important for students' academic careers, social mobility, and economic opportunities along the course of their lives, it is a grievous mistake to stress it at the cost of other critical developmental goals.
1 day ago
Once upon a time, the Big Bad Wolf was a mighty fearsome fellow. In the folkloric tales of Aesop and the Grimms, he terrorized small children and other helpless critters. He blew down houses in Disney's "Three Little Pigs," and in "The T...
Once upon a time, the Big Bad Wolf was a mighty fearsome fellow. In the folkloric tales of Aesop and the Grimms, he terrorized small children and other helpless critters. He blew down houses in Disney's "Three Little Pigs," and in "The Three Little Wolves," a somewhat sinister Silly Symphony cartoon from 1936, after the Nazi ascent to power, he is saddled with a German accent.
1 day ago
Downtown Silver Spring isn't exactly Hollywood, but for Montgomery County middle school students, it was transformed into a scene as thrilling as any L.A. movie premiere Wednesday. Silver Spring International Middle School students fille...
Downtown Silver Spring isn't exactly Hollywood, but for Montgomery County middle school students, it was transformed into a scene as thrilling as any L.A. movie premiere Wednesday. Silver Spring International Middle School students filled the seats of the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center to see their documentaries and films roll on the big screen, part of a two-day film festival that continues Thursday morning. The event is the culmination of the school's "Lights, Camera, Literacy!" classes, designed to teach middle school students about storytelling and the elements of literature through movies and other visual media.
1 day ago
The Idaho elementary school is unsure if or how it will continue to issue tablets to students next year. Students in Ashley Johnson's fifth-grade class have been using individually issued iPads to produce video papers on matter, volcanoe...
The Idaho elementary school is unsure if or how it will continue to issue tablets to students next year. Students in Ashley Johnson's fifth-grade class have been using individually issued iPads to produce video papers on matter, volcanoes and the pros and cons of school uniforms. But when these fifth-graders leave Paul Elementary School for West Minico Middle School in the fall, they will go to a school with fewer devices than students.
1 day ago
A fun project for nature studies is to find out what edible plants grow in your neighborhood. I love this project from homeschooling mom Rebecca Angel, who explains how to make delicious color-changing tea using violets from your yard --...
A fun project for nature studies is to find out what edible plants grow in your neighborhood. I love this project from homeschooling mom Rebecca Angel, who explains how to make delicious color-changing tea using violets from your yard -- complete with an explanation of the chemistry behind it....Read Full Post
1 day ago
HOW is it Friday?? Where did the week go?? I'm meant to be getting stuff done now teaching ended (even if exams and grading are dripped tediously all over the next month) but it's Friday and I haven't and... oh, it would have been so nic...
HOW is it Friday?? Where did the week go?? I'm meant to be getting stuff done now teaching ended (even if exams and grading are dripped tediously all over the next month) but it's Friday and I haven't and... oh, it would have been so nice to stay in bed this morning.
1 day ago
Blog: Confessions of a Community College DeanThe New York Times reports that instructional spending at research universities has risen much more quickly over the last decade than at community colleges. In 2009, community colleges ...
Blog: Confessions of a Community College DeanThe New York Times reports that instructional spending at research universities has risen much more quickly over the last decade than at community colleges. In 2009, community colleges spent $9,300 per student on educational resources, virtually unchanged from 1999 once inflation was taken into account. Public research universities spent $16,700, up 11 percent from 1999, and private research universities spent $41,000, an increase of 31 percent. Community colleges often receive substantially less money per student than elementary or high schools, said Sara Goldrick-Rab, a University of Wisconsin professor who served on the 22-member committee that wrote the report. By an absolutely astonishing coincidence, the more expensive settings are just about as white as they ever were, and more affluent than they’ve been. Meanwhile, community colleges are far more diverse, and their students more economically downscale, than ever. Between 1994 and 2006, the white share of the community college population plummeted from 73 percent to 58 percent, while black and Hispanic representation grew from 21 percent to 33 percent, in part reflecting growing diversity in the population as a whole. By contrast, the change was much less dramatic at the most selective four-year colleges during this time period, when the white share dipped just three percentage points (from 78 percent to 75 percent) and the black and Hispanic shares barely moved (from 11 percent to 12 percent). Funny how that happens. --- A few months ago, Tressie McMillan Cottom did a post about the sorting function of different tiers of American higher education, in which she quoted some students at a fairly elite place saying that for-profits were “not for people like them.” (I did a response piece here.) It reminded me of a piece I read in the late, lamented Ann Arbor News in the summer of 1990. The Detroit Pistons were in their glory at that point, but tickets to games were expensive and hard to come by. So the Pistons broadcast their away games to their home arena and sold tickets to those, well, screenings, for three bucks. The idea was to give fans from Detroit (as opposed to its suburbs) a chance to have the experience of rooting for the team in a crowd. The article quoted a vendor at the arena who wasn’t happy about the broadcast attracting the wrong element. The line has stayed with me since then. “When you sell three dollar tickets,” he sniffed, “you get three dollar people.” And the three dollar people could see their team, but only when the team wasn’t there. --- Technology has changed since 1990, with paradoxical effects on cost. Now the very wealthiest institutions are tripping over each other to give away their teaching for free. As with the 1990 Pistons, the great unwashed finally get to see the stars, except that the stars aren’t actually there. If you want presence, you go to your local community college. America has a long history of valuing institutions or programs based on the people they serve. That’s how we could “end welfare as we knew it” in 1996, and yet have transfer payments occupy an ever-larger share of the federal budget; in the American mind, transfers to “deserving” people don’t count as welfare. Section 8 rent subsidies are politically suspect, but the mortgage interest tax deduction is sacred. Food stamps are questionable, but farm subsidies are beyond dispute. Flagship research universities -- and their football teams and alumni associations -- get respect in its most concrete form. Community colleges are told to keep doing ever more with ever less. --- This isn’t a new story, of course. But it isn’t inevitable, either. We’ve had periods in American history in which the economic classes got clo
1 day ago