April 2012
1 post
keys
This idea, and many of the keys, came from a colleague of mine. Here’s how it worked: I got enough keys for all my students, and then made a tag for each key with a single, made-up line from a story.
I threw the keys in a jar, and each student got to pick out a key. The assignment was simple: tell a story that makes that line make sense.
The story lines:
* She gave me the key, then...
February 2012
3 posts
“Basically, here’s how it works: Students are given a weekly grid and must select...”
– the kind of homework that should be assigned
This has something to do with teaching (pt.11)
“Soon it became clear to me that quietly and en masse, French parents were achieving outcomes that created a whole different atmosphere for family life. When American families visited our home, the parents usually spent much of the visit refereeing their kids’ spats, helping their toddlers do laps around the kitchen island, or getting down on the floor to build Lego villages. When...
this has something to do with teaching (pt. 10)
“What it means to be human is to bring up your children in safety, educate them, keep them healthy, teach them how to care for themselves and others, allow them to develop in their own way among adults who are sane and responsible, who know the value of the world and not its economic potential. It means art, it means time, it means all the invisibles never counted by the GDP and the census...
January 2012
1 post
playing with blocks (or how to teach the writing...
October 2011
1 post
The hard lessons learned by KIPP, and what we can... →
September 2011
1 post
did a professor plagiarize a professor who was...
This has next to absolutely nothing to do with the theme or thesis of this little tumblr, but, well, I needed somewhere to put it. So, here it is.
Let’s call this a plagiarism activity.
Let’s lead with this question: did a professor plagiarize an already plagiarized sentence? Did something more complicated than that happen?
I was just doing some reading and noticed how a few...
June 2011
3 posts
Teaching the Boston Celtics Way
I live outside of Portland, so I like the Blazers. And I really like them. It’s easy to be a Blazers fan, despite their struggles. But, if I had to pick a different team, not the local team, I’d have to go with the Boston Celtics. I like the Celtics, their creativity and grit and chemistry (some of this could be a confirmation bias with The Association providing the details that I can...
This has something to do with teaching (pt.9)
Matt Frost comments on a thought from Alan Jacobs (by way of Tim Carmody):
Now, handing cigarettes to high school students might not be the best choice, but allowing for, encouraging, and structuring “directed fidgeting” sounds like the answer to a few problems in traditional classrooms (traditional = teacher giving direct instruction).
May 2011
23 posts
“Education must measure its efficiency not in terms of so many promotions per...”
– A teacher writing in The American Teacher, 1912 (via Linda Darling-Hammond)
This has something to do with teaching (pt.8)
Conan O’Brien on creativity via Rush The Iceberg:
My formula has always been I’m big on preparing. Prepare like crazy. But then just as you’re heading out, half an hour beforehand, forget all of it. It’s there. It’s in your reptile brain. Go out but feel loose enough to grab opportunities as they come up. Don’t just stick to the plan if you see an opportunity....
This has something to do with teaching (pt.7)
When journalist Steve Silberman explains his interview process, it sounds a lot like what I’d recommend to a teacher interested in doing class in a squishy way. He also references Star Trek: The Next Generation:
I run on lots of research beforehand, and then intuition in the moment. At the same time that I’m trying to get the facts that I need from a source, I’m also “scanning” them like...
I just found this toy
A few days ago I ditched my lesson plans and showed my freshman something I had discovered online the day before. I thought this resource was amazing and fit perfectly into the larger objectives of the course. I started class by pulling it up on the screen and just exuding excitement about it and how I had just found it and knew very little about it. We soon found a video explaining it and watched...
try this: spinning top writing
Buy or find a top.
Have students think about an answer to a question or prompt.
Spin the top.
Have them write their answer while the top spins.
The top spins.
They write.
The top stops.
They stop.
They share their responses.
Writers use all kinds of strange methods to trick their brains into writing sentences. Some of these tricks help students to do the hard work of writing sentences...
this has something to do with teaching (pt. 6)
E.O. Wilson:
If there is a heaven, and I am allowed entrance, I will ask for no more than an endless living world to walk through and explore. I will carry with me an inexhaustible supply of notebooks, from which I can send back reports to the more sedentary spirits…
If students are taking notes in class, it should be more explorer field notes and less courtroom stenographer.
12 paradoxes of education
I recently read a list by Adrian Shaughnessy called “the 12 paradoxes of graphic design.” Here’s his list:
There’s no such thing as bad clients. Only bad designers.
The best way to become a better graphic designer is to become a client.
If we want to educate our clients about design we must first educate our self about our clients.
If we want to make money as a graphic designer we must...
This has something to do with teaching (pt.5)
from “Brad Pitt on Christianity and ‘Tree of Life’” by Anthony Kaufman:
‘The best moments were not preconceived,’ explained Pitt, who likened Malick’s looser, improvisational process to someone carrying around a butterfly net and trying to catch moments rather than direct them. ‘I’ve tried to go more in that direction,’ said Pitt, ‘Making an intense study when you go into it, but then let it go...
This has something to do with teaching (pt.4)
a description of how Frank Lloyd Wright made houses for who people would be in the future:
During my time at Taliesin, I was able to talk to many owners of Usonians. They talked about their environments with unreserved passion. It was from one, Mrs. Pew, that I learned the true secret of Mr. Wright’s genius and success. She described how, at first she hated the house. She felt that Mr. Wright...
something worth looking into
assessments of learning need to account for maximum performance vs. typical performance
This has something to do with teaching (pt.3)
Bill Simmons on the Heat vs. the Celtics:
One more thing: I was looking forward to a Celtics-Heat playoff series for so many reasons, but mainly because it was a battle for everything I ever believed about basketball. Hell, it was the premise of my entire NBA book: that there was more to basketball than just a bunch of individually talented dudes playing together, that the concept of...
The Two Howards: Patron Saints of Squishy Teaching
The two Howards, Howard Moskowitz and Howard Gardner — one working in market research and psychophysics, one in psychology and education — offer a vision of what should be: individualized, personalized and unique instruction for each student, every day.
Howard Moskowitz was made famous by Malcolm Gladwell in a TED Talk about how Moskowitz revolutionized the food industry by giving...
Tim Carmody on Squishy > Slick*
Tim Carmody chimes in with an appropriate analogy from the world of automated weapons:
I sometimes think of this as AK-47 > M-16. Because the AK’s parts fit together loosely and it could be endlessly modified, it worked in any conditions and could be used by anyone. The M-16 was precision-manufactured for professional soldiers and (especially early on) was prone to jam if it got wet or...
potential future assignment
In the future, I want to assign WITs to my students. W.I.T. = write interesting things. I doubt there would be many guidelines beyond the title of the assignment.
This has something to do with teaching (pt.2)
What Sarcasymptote said:
this is squishy: visual literacy, Delonte West &...
(Part of a student’s response to this prompt. Note the note on the bottom.)
Delonte West had an English teacher who let him doodle:
Dunbar, West’s sophomore year English teacher, took an interest in his drawings. She encouraged the student-athlete to continue developing his talent. “I like to see students express themselves the best they can and if it means in an unconventional way at...
countdown
Studio 60 is on Netflix, which means I’ve glutted on it lately. The show is about an SNL-type sketch show with most of the drama centering around the head writer and his struggles to get the sketches written on time. One of the recurring things on the show is a clock that he has in his office. Every week it counts down to the start of the show. It’s a great device for showing the...
This has something to do with teaching (pt.1)
Damien Rice on busking:
One time I was busking in Elgin in Scotland 10 or 11 years ago. I played and played and nothing came in, not a penny, people just walked by. Just as I was starting to doubt myself, it started to rain. I pulled my stuff in from the path and put the amp and mic under a window ledge for shelter and sat there a little depressed after what felt like a wasted hour or so in the...
Squishy Not Slick
Frank Chimero gave a talk in Portland last year. During the talk, he shared this slide:
He talked about how squishy design is better than slick design. Squishy not slick. This seemed right. I heard this and realized that it encapsulated much of my thinking about what makes good teaching. Good teaching is squishy not slick. I started compiling a list of contrasting ideas from education that...