Blog posts

<p class="articletext">Researchers have found three consistent effects of using – and especially, emphasizing the importance of – letter or number grades:</p> <p class="articletext">1.&nbsp; Grades tend to reduce students’ interest in the learning itself.&nbsp;</p>

2.&nbsp; Grades tend to reduce students’ preference for challenging tasks.

3.&nbsp; Grades tend to reduce the quality of students’ thinking.

I suspect that we will see, in retrospect, that there are biological and neurological changes occurring due to technological changes, but it’s not really important. The remonstrations about the evidence remind me of scientists concluding that bumblebees can’t fly and philosophers concluding that there is no physical reality. Like Berkeley, I refute you thus, with the students I teach every term… but I will refrain from kicking them as proof!

The analogy I came up with a few days ago was that of eating. People eat very differently in times of abundance than scarcity. Their biology doesn’t significantly change (though it does some), but it would be foolish to look around and argue that people aren’t really eating differently, it’s just a change in their food context. It would be wiser to recognize that the socioeconomic context is an important factor to consider when it comes to nutrition and try to teach proper eating habits in an environment that is not just no longer one of hunting and gathering, but one that is very different for most of us from even 50 years ago.

O'Connor believes that America's youth aren't learning enough about civics, and thinks that the educational power of videogames is just the thing to change that.

The game "lets students engage in real issues and real problems," O'Connor said. It will allow them to "step into the shoes of a judge, a legislator, an executive -- teach them how to think through and analyze problems, take action and voice opinions to their elected representatives."

Professional designers should not feel threatened by this proliferation of content created by enthusiastic amateurs - the more experience people have with creating content for themselves, the more they will appreciate the skills the professionals bring to bear.

Too often, school boards and districts, teachers, and parents use the Ostrich Safety Method: block everything and don’t talk about it. This is not a sound educational method.

"A wealth of scholarship reveals that students seem to learn as well in abbreviated courses as they do in longer ones, but we wanted to see which format students rate as more effective. We looked at effectiveness, as indicated by course instructor surveys, and found that intensive nine- and 11-week classes garnered significantly higher overall course ratings, even after controlling for class size, probable grade in course and workload."

<p>And before they set foot in a classroom, student teachers must examine their own cultural identity – race, gender, social class, even sexual orientation – so they are aware of the bias they may bring to a classroom.</p><p>"Our research shows who you are impacts how you deal with children, so the worst thing is to act colour-blind," said Solomon, whose urban diversity program has graduated more than 1,000 teachers over the past 14 years, many of whom have gone on to school leadership positions in the field of equity.</p>

"Teachers need to know more than the 3 R's; if you don't know the community your students live in – the social, the racial dynamics – you won't be as effective," said Solomon.