Category: Uncategorized
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"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times"
Charles Dickens set Tale of Two Cities in the days of the French Revolution, when human energy was at a very high level and expressed itself in opposite and extreme ways. On one hand, it was the “best of times.” Oppressive lords and clerics were being overthrown, slaves were being emancipated, women were beginning to…
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One thing CUC's EDU 6500 has helped me with
is in helping re-framing my understanding of the educational enterprise. The change that my exposure to the progressive and mastery-learning theories has had can be illustrated in the change in metaphors that I have undergone. In an early assignment, Dr. Tagaris had us each imagine our metaphor for education. Mine was illustrative of a results-…
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"Mastery Learning" is alright with me
“Mastery Learning” is a new notion to me, but one I see informing the practice of my young colleagues in the department I work in, who have implemented certain changes that are moving our practice (operational curriculum) in this direction. It has apparently been around a while (testament to my professional ignorance borne out of…
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Elliott Eisner on the value of arts education
Why do we under-value art in schools, under-funding it, cutting it out in lean times, not testing for it, etc.? It must be that we don’t as a society recognize its effect on students’ cognitive development.http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docid=-2754433793634835877&hl=en&fs=true In this extremely irritating video (because of the avaricious host and the slow, affect-less delivery of the guest), the…
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What's the difference between goals, mission, strategies, objectives, and values?
Well, values come first. I mean, they are all essential to a well-designed curriculum, where a curriculum is what Elliot J. Eisner calls it, “a means” to “addressing the aims [a community] values.” But chronologically and logically, of the five, “values” come first. Those designing curricula have certain worldviews, based on particular sets of values.…
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My learning styles and theirs
I want to encourage my readers to take the learning style inventories Dr. Angela Tagaris assigned to her class this week (here is one from the North Carolina State University, and here is one from a commercial outfit. Doing so will reveal how you learn and allow you to adjust the biases that are thereby…
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"Long live rock!" sang the Who in 1972
when rock music was starting to take over the popular culture. Now, in 2009 as internet-based social networks are starting to take over the global culture, I want to sing “Long live the Web!” and champion the connected, cooperative future of mankind possible therein–socially-produced content and a collaborative spirit that transcends nationality and holds promise…
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Among his other "firsts," Obama can point to a more wireless democracy
We all know how his Facebook page (where he’s my friend), twitter posts, youtube videos and coordinated email-mobilizing got him elected. The same tools have begun making government more instantly available to the people–the people it is supposed to serve. Hail to the chief for that, at least. This article by Anil Dash in the…
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An argument for cell phones in schools, starting now!
Thanks to fellow Google teacher Juliette LaMontagne, who posted this down-to-earth rationale for adopting cell phones asap. One of the things I trust about her approach is its stress on practicality, on dealing with the learning tools already in the hands of students. Why wait to develop this nearly ubiquitous “portal to learning”? She writes,…
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In Iowa, a high school sees the function in Facebook
An enlightened view that I have suggested in this blog–that instead of banning it and fleeing from it, we might use the communication tools already in our teens’ hands, and look at it less suspiciously.
The Wikiness 