I attended my first un-conference yesterday in Philadelphia (EdCampPhilly), and I was thoroughly impressed with the amount of emphasis that was placed on learning as an organic mechanism. This is exactly the type of environment that should exist in every classroom throughout the country. I attended Dr. David D. Timony’s presentation on “Student Expectations of [...]

Big Think is starting a really neat series titled, “Moments in Genius”, and while I am interested in hearing a lot of these ideas, there is a deeper aspect that fascinates me and relates strongly to a problem in education. Take a look and see how many of these “great moments” were accompanied by an [...]

This post will kick around ideas based on one of two questions that I posed yesterday (Simulations In The Classroom- Two Questions). Before we dissect the first question, everyone should check out the links that Bill Chapman left me yesterday and today. He was kind enough to share the following simulations from his website: Classroomtools.com. [...]

In another post I wrote about how assignment structure is detrimental to teaching kids “how” to think and how we are creating a generation of students that are incapable of completing a task without an assignment sheet, rubric, models, or constant guidance. I think it is important we take that one step further and investigate [...]

I support standardized testing and so do you even if you don’t know it or want to admit it. What you don’t support is standardized testing in its current form or for that use that has become synonymous with the term. Imagine if standardized testing was not mentioned in the same sentence as the “No [...]

It is rather intriguing to look around the world of education and listen to the varying beliefs on “what” should be taught in schools. Curriculum is always a favorite target of mine, and many of you who read my work regularly know my feelings on our inflated, overstuffed, irrelevant curricula that emphasize a need to [...]

I can remember my teacher education classes from undergraduate with fair accuracy when it comes to questioning and pedagogy. Many professors emphasize questioning techniques that provide scaffolding and helping students up the ladder of Bloom’s taxonomy. In doing so, future teachers are taught how to ask good questions to students and it is accepted as [...]

I never like to include my own personal experiences on my blog, but today was the type of day that makes teachers grin from ear to ear. This week is midterms and many of you know my feelings on that issue, but this year I was lucky enough to be drawn into a different situation. [...]

Perhaps the biggest problem with advancing online education and people’s attitudes towards online education is a result of their prior knowledge. Please understand that online education of the past will be replaced with a form of hybrid learning that integrates the positives of the physical world and the virtual world. That’s why it is imperative that districts [...]

I would consider myself somewhat of a tech enthusiast who works diligently to constantly ground himself about its application in education. At the same time, I would like to see more technology infused into classrooms. Collins and Halverson1 suggest that there are two arguments that technology enthusiasts make as to why new technologies will revolutionize [...]