But what makes a good teacher? There have been many quests for the one essential trait, and they have all come up empty-handed. Among the factors that do not predict whether a teacher will succeed: a graduate-school degree, a high score on the SAT, an extroverted personality, politeness, confidence, warmth, enthusiasm and having passed the teacher-certification exam on the first try. When Bill Gates announced recently that his foundation was investing millions in a project to improve teaching quality in the United States, he added a rueful caveat. “Unfortunately, it seems the field doesn’t have a clear view of what characterizes good teaching,” Gates said. “I’m personally very curious.”
When Doug Lemov conducted his own search for those magical ingredients, he noticed something about most successful teachers that he hadn’t expected to find: what looked like natural-born genius was often deliberate technique in disguise. “Stand still when you’re giving directions,” a teacher at a Boston school told him. In other words, don’t do two things at once. Lemov tried it, and suddenly, he had to ask students to take out their homework only once.
The iPad is a natural for these kinds of books and activities. This is a mock up of some ideas for interactive books and learning tools for the iPad. Great stuff.
The user activity monitoring piece is not exactly an important limitation IMHO. I mean, the iPad isn’t an “integrated learning system” and if it were it would never appeal to it’s target audience: people who want to independently and easily get work done.
English teacher Sabrina Broadbent leads a masterclass on Shakespeare, using her expertise to engage a group of Year 10 students.
Let me state up front, I’m a poor reader, was a poor student, hated Shakespeare, and at this point in my life I’m as cynical as ever about education.
But, I have to say, Sabrina Broadbent knows how to engage students and make Shakespeare come alive and if you watch this video my guess is you’ll agree. It takes some time but it’s well worth it.
This is one more example of the old adage: a good teacher can make any subject come alive. Sabrina Broadbent is a great teacher.
Granted, her students are more than educable, they are excellent students with excellent memories but my guess is a teacher like Sabrina could and would find ways to make Shakespeare accessible and exciting to people like me with language disabilities.
Learning to play a musical instrument could help to improve children’s reading and their ability to listen in noisy classrooms, according to new research.
“Our eyes and ears take in millions of bits of information every second and it is not possible for the brain to process all of that, so the sensory systems in our brains are primed to tune into regularities or patterns in the signals it receives.
“People who are musically trained are better at picking up these patterns because they learn to recognise notes and pitches within melodies and harmonies.
“The better you are at picking up these patterns in music, the better reader you are. This makes sense as letters and words on a page are really just patterns.”
This is an excellent piece by New York Times writer Dave Itzkoff.
Andrea Fay Friedman has her act together as does Gail Williamson, executive director of the Down Syndrome Association of Los Angeles:
“Within ‘Family Guy,’ the character was fully included, well-rounded, dynamic, not dealing with stereotypical Down syndrome issues,” Ms. Williamson said. She added: “Am I a fan of that kind of humor? Eh. It’s beside the point.”
“If we’re asking for full inclusion in the schools and full inclusion in the world,” she said, “ we should appreciate full inclusion with other genres. Even if those genres are not what we appreciate.”
The unfortunate part of this situation is that most people are not clued in to the more nuanced issues here which Gail Williamson speak to. The way Palin speaks of her son Trig and has complained that Family Guy crossed a line isn’t really “PC” (politically correct), it’s knee jerk professional victim/sympathy vote stuff. Friedman speak to this:
“My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.”
In the same sense that many thought the country was “post racial” with Obama’s election, it seems that some might think the country is “post disability” as more people with disabilities are fully included. Like the race issue, this issue is complex and has high profile people like Palin who are skilled at playing the victim card for her son and for herself.
Andrea Fay Friedman has her act together as does Gail Williamson, executive director of the Down Syndrome Association of Los Angeles:
“Within ‘Family Guy,’ the character was fully included, well-rounded, dynamic, not dealing with stereotypical Down syndrome issues,” Ms. Williamson said. She added: “Am I a fan of that kind of humor? Eh. It’s beside the point.”
“If we’re asking for full inclusion in the schools and full inclusion in the world,” she said, “ we should appreciate full inclusion with other genres. Even if those genres are not what we appreciate.”
The unfortunate part of this situation is that most people are not clued in to the more nuanced issues here which Gail Williamson speak to. The way Palin speaks of her son Trig and has complained that Family Guy crossed a line isn’t really “PC” (politically correct), it’s knee jerk professional victim/sympathy vote stuff. Friedman speak to this:
“My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.”
In the same sense that many thought the country was “post racial” with Obama’s election, it seems that some might think the country is “post disability” as more people with disabilities are fully included. Like the race issue, this issue is complex and has high profile people like Palin who are skilled at playing the victim card for her son and for herself.
Lesley Alderman at The New York Times has done an excellent job of taking readers through the process of identifying learning disabilities and getting help. This piece should be required reading for everyone in the LD world.
Steven Strogatz has a great column in The New York times on arranging rocks (or any objects) in patterns to better visualize arithmetic.
I’ve been coming back to this particular column the past week and enjoying scanning and rescanning it. I’m still a mathaphobe but I do like patterns so thinking of arithmetic this way helps.
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