I question the value of most homework. Example: A math teacher teaches a concept to 30 students, then assigns 40 questions in the text. Here is a typical breakdown of student experiences… Group A+: These 3 students knew the concept before it was even taught, not a single of the 40 questions are remotely helpful […]
Tag: Science Alive!
An Authentic Audience Matters
Bringing Science Alive! Total visitors since 15 Mar 2007: 100,190. In the last 4 years, a little Science Wiki that I created with a couple Grade 8 classes has been viewed over 100,000 times. Wow! Here is what I tried to do with the wiki: Let’s bring Science Alive! What do you want to […]
Shifting Learning
When I wrote Shifting Education, I had already outlined this post in my head. It was going to be a diatribe on how learning needs to shift away from the front of the room, the teacher, and into the hands and the minds of the learner. But I’ve written time & again & again about […]
More than one face to Cyberbullying in the classroom
I apologize in advance for the clinical nature of my description below… these are students currently in my class, and this blog is open for anyone to read. Background: Student 1 is male; Students 2 & 3 are female. Student 1 and 2 ‘dated’ earlier in the year. Student 1 and 3 are good friends… […]
“Some Assembly Required”
I thought I was going to spend the long weekend reading my book for our book club, but I had a Whole New challenge instead: Putting together a million piece puzzle for my kids to play on in our back yard…. swings, monkey bars, slide, fort, climbing wall, and picnic bench all neatly packed in […]
WOW: Bringing Science Alive! (wiki)
What happens when you: Allow students to determine what they need to learn, and then enable students to manage their own learning activities? I recently started a wiki space for my Grade 8 Science classes called Science Alive! The concept is to let students choose their own topic to explore, and then demonstrate learning on […]
on being a blogger…
How is a post inspired? Where do the seeds of thought that blossom into these very words come from? The seeds • I have a student in my class that is currently on a very unhealthy diet. I know that I cannot convince her to get off of it without replacing it in some way. […]