This past year, I was privileged to attend the Association for Middle Level Education conference. This is a huge, national conference in which thousands of educators interested in teaching young adolescents come together to share ideas and strategies and stories of life in the middle. One of the best sessions I had the chance to attend was on formative assessment, summative … Read More
The 60% Rule
Do you have a favorite teaching strategy? What is your best approach in the classroom? Do you lecture with passion? Do you involve your students in collaborative groups? Do you have students complete stacks of worksheets? Do you use project-based learning? Do you have students craft personal, creative responses to demonstrate what they have learned? Do you use digital simulations? Do … Read More
What’s Your Homework Policy?
Oh…homework. What shall we do with thee? I wonder, wonder, wonder about the value of homework. At different times in my teaching practice, homework has taken very different roles. Early in my teaching career, I assigned a lot of homework; my middle school math students had an assignment almost every day with a few dozen problems being the norm. Later, … Read More
Teaching the Way They Learn
Throughout my teaching career, I’ve made bold claims about my students and my beliefs about who they are. I’ve often said things like, “I believe my students are unique image-bearers of God, created with individual gifts, talents, strengths, and weaknesses.” Do you believe that about your students? Have you ever made a similar statement about them? But is it enough … Read More
Critical Thinking: A plea for less problem “saying” and more problem “solving”
So much has been written about the realities (positive and negative) of the digital information age. Information is disseminated at increasingly higher speeds, granting the end user unprecedented access to the seemingly most up-to-date information. Social media and blogs create platforms for posting and re-posting ideas, perspectives and opinions. It could be argued that society, in one sense, is more … Read More
The Teacher Effect
There was a motorcar company commercial that ran in our local television market, coining the phrase “The Eide Effect”. According to their website, this meant that their company built a business on the values that takes one beyond the “business as usual” transaction. This company wanted customers to know that they cared about the human connection and that this “Eide … Read More
Content Knowledge
There are countless of quotes floated about attributed to Albert Einstein. I’m sure many of them–probably most of them–are authentic. Some are probably not. To his credit, he did have a lot of good stuff to say about a great many topics beyond physics. I think the above is a good example, and a worthy admonishment for all educators. Of … Read More
Don’t Smile ’til Christmas
Fellow educators: what was your number one growth area during your first years of teaching? I know what mine was: Classroom management. As a beginning teacher, I felt pretty confident in planning lessons. I knew my content. I believed myself to be a competent assessor. But classroom management? Not my strongest suit. To be honest, I had a lot to learn. … Read More
Improving Testing
My students in Introduction to Education recently had their first exam of the semester. Some came in very confident, others very nervous. One student admitted to me, “I just get so anxious every time I have to take a test!” I thought that was an important comment–very honest! Many students are fearful of tests. Test anxiety is a real thing. … Read More
The Not-So-Common Core?
It is difficult to subscribe to any type of education newsfeed without seeing an article, blog post, or political response (for/against) the Common Core State Standards. What began as a seemingly unified attempt to address the United States’ “middle-of-the-pack” performance on international tests (e.g. PISA, TIMSS) as well as create a rigorous set of national standards that would raise achievement … Read More