Teaching

Teachers committed to providing efficient instruction and learning will find the newly released Direct Instruction eSuite helpful and time saving. Students and homeschoolers who seek straight forward lessons can now show teachers an alternative to popular hide-and-seek instruction. This decades old, most experimentally researched instruction program comes to the Internet.SRA/McGraw-Hill has launched the Direct Instruction eSuite, a set of online tools that integrate technology...

Shel Leanne analyzes how Barack Obama makes speeches, from his body language as he approaches the podium and his rhetorical style to his unusual use of gestures. She reminds readers of classic rhetorical techniques that anyone can use to make their own speaking better. She offers eight chapters on his style:1, Earning trust and confidence: thorugh body language, intonation, gestures and strong beginnings; 2....

At the core of education rests a commitment to dispel ignorance. Without this commitment, education does not exist. Various forms have emerged over time to implement this commitment. I prefer the classic liberal interpretation that ignorance limits choices a person can exercise. Thus, dispel ignorance with facts. In that light, I renew my new year resolution to dispel ignorance as a touchpoint for teaching....

In the interest of learning content accuracy, teachers will want to join me and others in following this legal action. This action has implications for U.S. middle east foreign policy. I excerpted the following from a press release.Mark MacCarley filed a civil action against the National Archives and Records Administration of the United States seeking documents related to the Armenian Genocide (1914 to 1925)....

Here's an idea for a potential research project by a curious learner. With due respect, I wonder if teachers talk too much in classes. Tablet PCs provide audio recording and speech-to-text features that a researcher can use to collect data that addresses this question.Decades ago, I watched Roger conduct part of a research project for his master's degree in experimental psychology. Roger rigged a...

Schooling and business people share core behavior patterns to complete assignments with limited resources that yield a measured bottom line. I suggest that comparing schooling with business practices provides an external validity check for schooling practices. In turn, teachers can use business practices daily as a way to determine the extent to which their students progress toward minimum state standards/requirements. Here's another example to...

Annette Weeks commented on Tom's blog post "Bail This Out" that teachers should work together to find out what works best for students in their schools. She responded to Tom's discussion about what he sees as difficulties in adapting business procedures to schooling. Annette agreed with Tom's sentiment, and reported that her high school principle told faculty to raise GPSs this year to rival...

Alfie Kohn offers thoughtful comments in his September 10, 2008 post, It's Not What You Teach; It's What They Learn. I added a draft of these comments to his guest book.The title says it all, an easy point for some of us teachers to miss.And, yet, I disagree that the point holds beyond middle school. for most students. It definitely should not hold for...

School starts tomorrow in Prescott (AZ) public school District 1. To all, we wish an academically successful year, including for my grand daughter as she enters high school. My thoughts about new school years grow out of both reflection on contemporary education, shared by many, and a specific kind of reasoning, shared by fewer, especially implications that Tablet and other mobile PCs have for...

Jim Whaley and Gaston Caperton report that Kentridge (WA) mathematics teacher Marguerite Taimi received the top Siemens Award for Advanced Placement teacher in the state of Washington. Over the past dozen years, the Kentridge AP Calculus program has achieved a passing rate of 98 percent. Each spring, math students at Kentridge High School in Kent volunteer to meet and speak with younger students...