The Educator's Notebook

“What Makes A High Quality Professional Development Program”
K12 Dive - 5/11/21

“Based on an examination of research, the report finds four common prevailing features in high-quality professional development, regardless of whether it's focused on in-person, hybrid or virtual models: a focus on content, support for collaboration, the provision of feedback and reflection, and personalized coaching and support.”
Can Teachers Measure Student Engagement? Here Is An Excellent Summary.
Middle Web - 5/11/21

“While various theories of motivation and engagement have gained – and lost – traction over the years, one of the most widely accepted is the theory proposed by Fredricks, Blumenfeld, and Paris in 2004. It presents engagement as a mash-up of behavioral, emotional, and cognitive factors.”

“What Does It Mean To Decolonize The Curriculum”
CIS - 5/3/21

“Decolonising the curriculum does not mean, as detractors might suggest, rather disingenuously, a superficial and rushed replacement of authors on book lists or merely throwing the Western canon out the window for the sake of doing it. The project has been slow in the making—even if it is something of a bandwagon today—and reposes on those central goals of education, which are to think deeply, to consider multiple perspectives, and to situate knowledge in time, power and politics.”

SNHU Continues To Draw Online Degree Students
Higher Ed Dive - 5/14/21
Should Economic Mobility Be An Explicit Goal Of Higher Ed?
Inside Higher Ed - 5/12/21

“Gates Foundation issues report calling for a new definition of value, and for clear ways for students to identify it. The emphasis is on promoting economic mobility for all.”

“What Honest Abe Learned From Geometry” - On The Power Of Argument
Wall Street Journal - 5/22/21

“In Euclid, Lincoln found a language in which it’s very hard to dissimulate, cheat or dodge the question. Geometry is a form of honesty. The ultimate reason for young people to learn how to write a proof is that the world is full of bad logic, and we need to know the difference. Geometry teaches us to be skeptical when someone says they’re “just being logical.””
“Deepfake Lips Are Coming To Dubbed Films”
Gizmodo - 5/6/21
What ‘Oumuamua, The (Maybe) Alien Passerby, Tells Us About Science
New Yorker - 1/18/21

“In publishing his theory, Loeb has certainly risked (and suffered) ridicule. It seems a good deal more likely that “Extraterrestrial” will be ranked with von Däniken’s work than with Galileo’s. Still, as Serling notes toward the end of “In Search of Ancient Astronauts,” it’s thrilling to imagine the possibilities: “Look up into the sky some clear, starlit night and allow yourself the freedom to wonder.””