On his self-named blog, Mathew K. Tabor posted his response to a quotation by David Warlick. Mr. Warlick suggested that administrators might ask prospective teachers what blogs they read and students in schools of education might ask their instructors a like question. In his post—Don’t Ask This Question, Part I (18 August 2007)—Mr. Tabor took exception to this question and argued that too many blogs about education are untrustworthy and he’d rather have educators who promote mastery of content.
There are two issues here - I’ll address in this article the insignificance of the blog medium given this context and in Part II the reasons why asking this question in this way is inappropriate.
Warlick’s question rests on the assumption that education blogs are a necessary and irreplaceable part of education curricula. Simply put, they aren’t.
I agree that there are too few good blogs related to education, but there are some. I think many are represented in the blogroll for Teach Effectively! I also agree with Mr. Tabor that instructors can (and should) teach to mastery; this is true whether the instructors read or write blogs.
Educators’ blogs can—and do—provide valuable content. To the extent that blogs are based on empirical data, go beyond case studies and personal opinion, they provide a valuable service. To the extent that blogs communicate news and other current developments in education, they can help readers be informed.
link to Mr. Tabor’s post and a link to Mr. Warlick’s original article that started Mr. Tabor on his response. Of course, I hope teachers (practicing and prospective), administrators, and others will find useful information on Teach Effectively!
If I had to pick one educational group with whom I’d like to have conversations about teaching effectively, it would be administrators. I regularly think that administrators who understood the principles of effective instruction (e.g., given choices among methods, go with those methods that produce better outcomes for students) would be able to help their faculties to move in what I consider the right directions. Having never been a school administrator, I might be mistaken about this assumption, but I humor myself by thinking that administrators might be able to cause substantial change in education.
Teachers (and I was one, still sorta am one) have some autonomy, so they can influence effectiveness in their classrooms. However, they’re constrained in their capacity to do things. By whom might they be constrained? Well…administrators.
So I was kinda disappointed in the results of the little poll about readers. Thanks to all who responded (yes, I was sad that Teach Effectively has so few responding readers), but where were the administrators? I guess this drivel only makes its way to non-administrators.
I’m sure that there’s key combination somewhere on this keyboard that makes a discouraged face.
Thanks to the top referrers for Teach Effectively!
The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), an initiative of the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences that is currently under contract to American Institutes of Research, released several sets of new reports. The reports cover topics in (a) beginning reading, (b) drop-out prevention, (c) early childhood education, (d) elementary school math, (e) English lanaguage learning, and (f) middle school. Here’s a clipping from the release notice.
Continue reading ‘WWC releases more results’
O.K. Maybe there are only five visitors to Teach Effectively! At least, that’s the total number of votes on the current pole about roles. So, I’m moving the voting booth over here…putting it in plain sight.
Continue reading ‘Visitors’
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