Friday, October 18, 2013

Today's Reads, Views, and Links

How to Create Effective Homework

The key here is 'effective' homework.

I recall my step-daughter bringing home history worksheets in junior high.  This was simply busy work.  It might have been well-inteded by the teacher, but KoKo never had an idea of the ideas or practices it was to reinforce.  KoKo just saw it as something she had to get done before she could watch TV or go on social media.

The key - I think - is to try and stress the importance of homework and why it is being assigned.  As teachers, we should always analyze why we assign the work -

Another way teachers can take a good, hard look at homework practices, said Cushman, is to ask themselves a few vital questions: “Does this homework ask each student to practice something that the student hasn’t yet mastered? Does the student clearly see its purpose? When students are asked to repeat or rehearse something, does it require them to focus? Or can they do it without really paying attention?” If the homework meets these criteria, she said, then it falls into the desirable realm of “deliberate practice.”

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Strenosaur

Looking for a free app to help your students draft a novel one tweet at a time?  Or want to incorporate micro-journaling into your class?  This app might be the answer.

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The importance of grit

 

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A really cool way to incorporate blogging into the history classroom.

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Now this is a very noble goal: trying to attain "Wow" moments in class.  If I could only do that on a daily basis!



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We Are Teaching High School Students to Write Terribly

And it isn't just all about the dreaded five-paragraph theme either.  It's about essay evaluators being 'trained' how to quickly score essays (and getting paid more for every extra essay they score) as opposed to really reading them for content.

This study finds that the more kids improvise or make up or plain old bull shit, they better they score on the essay.

You can't score essay.  Montaigne is rolling over in his grave right now.  They aren't written to be scored.  Nothing is.  Writing is written to communicate and to move one's emotions.

To hell with scoring an essay.

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Overcoming obstacles -



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This brought a smile to my face.  I sure bet this thief won't try robbing this story again, especially given that he gets thrown out the window!

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Why are we teaching like it's 1992?

That's an excellent question.  I just head a great quote from Tony Wagner this week: No one care what you know; they only care what you can do with what you know.

Yet, we are still drilling and killing rudimentary information into kids.

He calls for a shift in education.  And he said it happened before.  One hundred years ago almost everyone was a farmer.  Thus, you had the one room school house.  But that needed to change to fit the needs of industrialism and the "new" type of worker that was needed.

Now we need to have another fundamental shit to supply the world with the creative and innovative types of workers in demand today.

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14 books Educators should read . . .

I have ten of these to go.  Several look great though!


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And if this doesn't bring a smile to you face . . .


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