After looking back at previous posts about community engagement, curriculum, teaching, and grading and assessment, I want to publish a short to do list for myself this year as a way of holding myself accountable for continued change in my classroom practice. To complement the list, I’ll maintain a Google Doc score card shared with [...]
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Posted 13 August 2010
† Chad
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Also tagged: Accountability, Assessment, Community engagement, Expert mentors, Grading and reporting, Kristen Wray, Looping, Negotiating curriculum, Our Journey of Learning, Parent engagement, Peer feedback, Publishing student work, School development, Self-assessment, Teacher feedback
This week I read around the Washington Post’s “Top Secret America” portal. You can read about its methodology and see the project’s credits here.
I started with this article: “National Security Inc.” On page 10, the article describes the work of Ken Pohill, an employee of General Dynamics, a defense contractor serving multiple roles in the [...]
I do seem to remember a process where you people ask me questions and I give you answers, and then I ask you questions and you give me answers, and that’s the way we find out things. I think I read that in a manual somewhere.
-Dr. Heywood Floyd,
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Posted 14 June 2010
† Chad
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Also tagged: Authentic assessment, Authentic engagement, Authentic learning, Authentic work, Choice Theory, Democratic learning, Instructional technology, Parent involvement, Relationships, Relevance, Self-directed learning, Student blogging, Student portfolios
My wife, Bethany Nowviskie (@nowviskie), has posted on the University of California’s moves to boycott Nature Publishing Group. Essentially, the publishing group takes the work of professors – authors and peer reviewers – and then sells subscriptions back to the professors’ institutions at exorbitant rates that force further cuts in library systems already savaged by [...]
[An original contribution to Hacking the Academy.]
The academy should hack itself to transform public education. Here’s how:
1. Stop complaining about public education.
Since Sputnik, American schools have been anxiety-driven to produce “college-ready” students. Standardized testing, A Nation at Risk, the No Child Left Behind act, the Race to the Top Initiative, and the upcoming Elementary [...]
I have been thinking a lot about democratic education since starting work on the collaborative blog CoöpCatalyst. If you haven’t yet considered blogging or blogging with an audience of peers dedicated to improving teaching and learning for kids, I urge you to start.
The following represents my best thinking so far about growing democratic education within [...]
It doesn’t surprise me that iPods are popular, or that I like them as much as my students do. Our iPods are our 1:1 music devices, customizable reflections of our interests and emotions. They are our 1:1 identity, expression, and need-fulfillment devices. When we need to feel big, we find big music. [...]
This past week I rediscovered the UVA Young Writers Workshop. I’ve been looking around for out-of-school learning opportunities that could replace parts of the traditional school day to bring more authentic work into schools without diluting the power or appeal of the programs. Too Quixotic?
Margo Figgins, an associate professor with the university’s Curry School [...]
Scary Thoughts
Schools wound kids and adults. Our answer: more of the same.
Executive power over schools is expanding without checks and balances from teachers, parents, or students. Democracy is virtually extinct within schools outside of civics and government standards. It’s not impossible that scripted instruction and instructional designs from virtual and F2F content providers will [...]
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Posted 08 April 2010
† Chad
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Also tagged: #rea, #revolutioned, Ad-hoc schools, Charter schools, Collaborate with the competition, Democracy, Democratic education, DIY schools, Education innovation, Home-schooling, Maker, Open-source education, Project-based learning, RttT, Service learning, Student entrepreneurship, The Race Back Home Initiative, Unschooling, Virtual schools, Wounded By School
Last night we hosted our first Expo Night. Our students did a great job of self-selecting quality work to share with their parents. We’ve been open for a year and a half. I think it’s taken that long to re-engage students with the kind of pride and effort they put into sharing their [...]
