86% That’s an ‘A’ for us here in my district. But what does it mean? As a Math teacher I’ve boosted an 84% up two points to hand out the often elusive ‘A’, and I’ve also adamantly refused to move an 85% up to that plateau. Because to me the mark should represent a level of comprehension […]
Tag: pairadimes
The Road Less Traveled
Sometimes you can’t just take baby steps, and you’ve got to commit fully to experience something… I’m leaving my job, my home, and my country. I have just accepted a Principal’s position in Dalian China for September. My wife will be teaching at the school and my daughters will be attending it. We weren’t actually […]
Hargreaves and the 4th Way [Part 2]
I first wrote about Andy Hargreaves and the 4th Way back in October, (with an important update added to the bottom of the post in early November). The pyramid below is updated from that post, taking feedback from Hargreaves himself. Administrators from our district met and discussed The 4th Way last Thursday and we were […]
A Gr8Tweet-ing Experience
Educators new to twitter, here is a little walk down memory lane… Remember your first days of university? You weren’t sure what to expect and you had to put yourself ‘out there’ to connect to new people? Do you remember going to a class and not knowing anyone? Imagine for a moment that you enter, […]
My blog is my PhD
My Learning Yesterday marked 3 years of being a blogger. What a wonderful journey it has been! I may be over exaggerating when saying my blog is my Phd, after all people like Stephen Downes have done this much work and still don’t have one. Furthermore, the focus and intent of my writing has been […]
Is the tool an obstacle or an opportunity?
[Updated version] By datruss | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon by datruss This has been floating around in my head for a while, but Scott McLeod’s ‘Banning Student Computers’ slide and Sonya’s ‘The New Teacher’ inspired me to finally express it visually. The last time he was in town, Alan […]
Students Today
This was written on a scrap piece of paper while doing some ‘big thinking’ with Heidi Hass Gable. I’m sharing it exactly as it was written, but adding links to some of my other posts to liven it up a bit… Feedback, as always, is appreciated. – – – – – Students Today -> relate […]
Best Practice is still Practice
I spent most of my teaching career teaching at least one subject daily that I delivered to two different classes: The same lesson, repeated back-to-back. Many times the second class got the better deal. I tweaked, I edited, I improved what I did, and sometimes I even tried something completely different. But sometimes, things went […]
Students, Information and Schools
A couple days ago Heidi Hass Gable shared this with me: This is from her 10 year old daughter who said, “Mom, I have mostly the same homework as yesterday, so I just circled it, wrote copy, then wrote paste on today’s page.” Last week my 9 year old asked me a question. My answer […]
An Open Letter to the Fraser Institute
Dear Fraser Institute, You SUCK! In fairness I am telling you this on the basis of a single observation. One salient point. That’s all I need. I am basing this judgement on my own narrow area of interest, but it is one that is important to me, and it is one that is way too […]