'teacher research' Category
Classroom Operating Manual
There is no way to tell everyone on the first day of school - or even the first few days - everything they need to know about “operating” the classroom. I pick the most basic things, managing supplies, using the hall pass, getting lunch, knowing what to do when you come in the room, what [...]
Classroom Fieldnotes Wiki
Last year I began thinking about how, after so many years of teaching, I should have the beginning of the year figured out. But I don’t. Each year I dig around looking for a file that I call “first week of school” or something. It has informational letters to parents, and it also has beginning [...]
The Illiteracy Lie
USAToday published an opinion column written by Colorado’s commissioner of education in which he bashed schools and teachers for causing an “illiteracy crisis” that puts “the fate of our nation in serious peril.” Citing scaredy-cat luminaries Rudolf Flesch and E. D. Hirsch, Commissioner Moloney predicted that the sky will fall on our once-great nation because [...]
Community Plumbing and Literacy Lessons
A home repair project has me thinking about literacy lessons, student blogging technology, and the pros and cons of do-it-yourself design. The do-it-yourself method has always been my approach to practical problems.
A great thing about living in rural Alaska is that construction permits are not required unless you’re financing with a bank. This is obvious [...]Effective Teaching
What is it that makes a teacher great?
An article from The Age, Learning from the Best attempts to answer that question. The article references an Australian government-funded study, In Teachers’ Hands: Effective Teaching Practices in The Early Years of Schooling (2005).
Given equal preparation and background knowledge, what are the qualities of a teacher who [...]Loose Change
It’s Friday afternoon, and I’m sitting at work with a pile (no, it’s bit bigger than that) of things to plow through, that promise little satisfaction other than moving them off of my desk. I have a kid to pick up in a couple of hours, so I’m finding things to do to keep [...]
The Problem in Vocabulary Instruction
Common sense tells us that reading vocabulary and comprehension are linked. Using word definitions, though, doesn’t work as an instructional approach for improving reading comprehension. Effective vocabulary instruction should include metacognitive reading strategies such as determining the significance of particular words to the overall meaning of the text, assessing prior knowledge about a word and [...]
Rethinking Curriculum
Early last summer I began getting professionally developed as a science educator. What I developed was an appreciation for the power of inquiry to stimulate thinking. In the spirit of becoming an inquirer, I began wondering what inquiry might look like in the context of reading instruction. I wondered what process skills for literacy might [...]
Recursion
Today, clearing off the workbench, I found my old maul. To be precise, I found the maul head (the heavy wedge-shaped part) and the maul handle (wooden) that I bought to replace the one that broke in September when it started getting cold this fall and we began splitting wood again. The other [...]
Models of Education: Overview
In an effort to gain some clarity for myself, I’m going to explore some of the issues that surround the models of education that we’ve been offered and maybe find a comfortable place to stand within the overall discourse. I found an entry point for this inquiry in a book chapter, “Whole Language Within a Broader Perspective” from Constance Weaver’s, Understanding Whole Language: From Principles to Practice.
