A sad note sounded in a document that has many otherwise valuable suggestions: The Teaching and Learning Framework of the Washington (DC, US) Public Schools (DCPS) recommends incorporating learning styles into instruction. Why the developers of this document included the rather-thoroughly debunked learning styles idea eludes me, but it is very clearly there, appearing on the front cover and receiving three pages of coverage starting on page 24 (see image at right).
Continue reading ‘DCPS goes for learning styles bunk’
Monthly Archive for August, 2009
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published a policy paper examining a report the Human Rights Watch and the ACLU about corporal punishment in US schools. It provides a clear and powerful indictment of what amounts to a state-sanctioned assault on children.
A Violent Education
Corporal Punishment of Children in U.S. Public Schools
Continue reading ‘Corporal punishment needs to be beaten’
The The Central Ohio Branch of the International Dyslexia Association will hold a conference 16 October 2009 under the theme, “Imagine, Every Child Reading,” according to Mary Damer, a member of the organization’s board. She told me about some of the highlights of the conference:
Keynote Speaker in the Morning is Louisa Moats “Science, Language, and Imagination in Teaching Students at Risk for Reading Failure”
The unique properties of English; the inability of many readers to intuit language structure; and the insufficiencies of many instructional programs and practices, all point to the critical role of informed, skilled, flexible teachers who base their instruction on content knowledge and reliable scientific research .
Continue reading ‘Ohio IDA: “Imagine, Every Child Reading!”’
Among the complex mix of factors affecting effective teaching considered here on Teach Effectively, teachers’ unions is one of several we’ve not discussed. I don’t consider this post to be a thorough analysis of the topic; it’s just observations about one consideration in promoting effective teaching: The role of teachers’ unions in relation to merit or performance pay. Teachers’ unions are a ready target for some groups, and one of the favored concerns is how teachers unions, in the view of some, resist efforts to tie pay to student performance.
Steve Lopez, a top journalist who writes for the Los Angeles Times, is wading into this topic. He found a case of a first-year teacher, Susan Requa, who was not re-hired, despite glowing recommendations from Ron Harris, her supervisor at James Monroe High School in the San Fernando Valley section of LA. In the belt-tightening that most people and agencies are having to undergo in the current economic situation, Ms. Requa had too little seniority to receive a renewal from the local education agency that employed her for the 2008-09 academic year. Mr. Lopez is planning to talk with A. J. Duffy, who is the head of United Teachers Los Angeles, about Mr. Requa’s case and the matter of seniority.
Continue reading ‘Teachers’ unions can help’
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