The Educator's Notebook

PD: More Teacher Choice Or More Shared Expectations?
Education Dive - 3/25/19

“Isolated examples of professional learning based on individual educator needs are a poor substitute for engaging teachers in ongoing collaborative learning that draws on their expertise to examine student data and design learning agendas that benefit everyone in the school… when teachers or schools have too much control over PD decisions, there tends to not be a shared vision of quality teaching and learning across the district.”
“Why Do Colleges Die?” - An Analysis
Inside Higher Ed - 3/20/19

“Practically speaking, high dependence on tuition -- as high as 80 to 90 percent -- is a good sign that an institution will not likely survive for long… Colleges and universities that are under threat of closure “have a full range of bad choices to make,” she noted: they can lower standards, defer maintenance, create new programs to generate new students or cut unpopular programs that aren't attracting enough students. All of these, she suggested, are terrible ways to save money or bring in new revenue.”

What Is Procrastination, And How Can We Overcome It? Forgiveness.
New York Times - 3/25/19

“People engage in this irrational cycle of chronic procrastination because of an inability to manage negative moods around a task… To rewire any habit… In the case of procrastination, we have to find a better reward than avoidance — one that can relieve our challenging feelings in the present moment without causing harm to our future selves.”
And Then There's PRE-Crastination: Doing Things Too Soon
New York Times - 3/25/19

Content Matters; It Isn’t Just About Skills
Hechinger Report - 3/28/19

“Students need background knowledge about a topic to be able to understand a text about it, and the more background knowledge they have, research has shown, the more likely it is that they will be able to demonstrate the skills that U.S. schools assess. If students have never heard of the game polo, for example, a passage about polo on a test will likely confuse them so much that they flounder when asked to summarize the passage, even if they know how to summarize.”

What Shakespeare Left Out
The Mary Sue - 3/22/19

“Though his oeuvre explores the depths and heights of human existence, here are a few of the major elements curiously absent from the canon of one of the world’s greatest writers… Successful rebellion… Independent women (who stay that way)… Moms… Healthy relationships…”
On Charlotte Perkins Gilman And ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’
Literary Hub - 3/21/19
“Teaching the “Odyssey” With The New York Times”
New York Times - 3/21/19

“Below, five lesson ideas that draw on Times resources to help students navigate the wine-dark seas and discover how the “Odyssey” might speak to their own lives and the world around them.”
[FIXED LINK] Museums Reconsider Dioramas And Other Exhibits About Colonial Times
New York Times - 3/20/19
New Biography Of Frederick Douglass
Times Literary Supplement - 3/19/19

A Case Study Of A School Focused On Intrinsic Motivation
Hechinger Report - 3/27/19

“Students don’t do particularly well on standardized tests at The Met… School leaders, though, don’t pay much attention to test scores. Nancy Diaz Bain, a co-director, said she and her colleagues prefer to keep track of state survey data about student engagement, parent feedback about their children’s progress, student behavior, graduation rates and student performance in college courses. When students from The Met take and pass college courses in high school – which all of them do – they not only prove they can handle advanced coursework, they save money on an eventual degree, Diaz Bain said. And the other metrics about student engagement and success persuade school leaders that the model works.”

Against Active Shooter Drills In Schools
Medium - 5/25/18

“The number one safety precaution is a classroom door that can be locked from the inside, and there is little evidence that students going through realistic drills... have any additional benefits.”

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