The Educator's Notebook

“What is College For? Rethinking…Purpose And Pedagogy”
Inside Higher Ed - 8/24/20

“These books decry the generational chauvinism that assumes that today’s educational system is superior to all that came before, that the kind of courses and pedagogies we offer are the best imaginable, and that our current curriculum -- which combines excessive requirements without a clearly defined sense of what a graduate should know or do -- is satisfactory. It isn’t.”
Sal Khan On What Makes Good Online Learning
New York Times - 8/13/20

“To ensure that kids keep progressing on both the academic and social-emotional fronts, it’s critical that educators provide live teacher-led video conference sessions. These need to optimize both academic coverage and social interaction. A baseline would be two or three 30-to-45 minute sessions in each of the core academic subjects each week… These sessions need to drive conversations between students and teachers and among the students themselves. Teachers should do cold calling to ensure students are on their toes and to pull them out of their screens. Teachers need to constantly ask students to work on questions together and share their thinking. Ideally, virtual breakout sessions will allow students to debate and help each other.”

Derek Bok’s “Radical” Redesign Of What Colleges Should Do
Inside Higher Ed - 8/19/20

“To prepare students to participate in a globally interdependent world, Bok identifies several bodies of knowledge that student need to acquire: in global problems, international relations, foreign languages and literature, and comparative and regional studies. His advice is rather than mandating a particular course or two, institutions might require students develop genuine competence in one of those areas. As for helping students develop stronger moral character, Bok suggests that colleges strengthen enforcement of academic honesty policies, offer courses in moral reasoning aligned with particular majors or professions, and embed ethical problems in courses across the curriculum.”

Jill Lepore: On Reading Habits
New York Times - 8/28/20

“Reading for teaching is a little like eating a meal and trying, afterward, to write up a recipe for each dish.”
“The Problem With ‘Show Me The Research’ In Teaching Reading”
Radical Scholarship - 8/17/20

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