Archive for the 'Teacher education' Category

Bogus Bowl V will close soon

Published
by
JohnL
on 30 August 2008
in Administrivia, News and Teacher education
. 0 Comments

In Bogus Bowl V, the voting is pretty close. However, more respondents say that the most bogus reason for professors failing to teach prospective teachers effective methods is that they “don’t want to stifle future teachers’ creativity” than any of the other choices. However, it’s not a runaway; that explanation has garnered only about one third of the total votes. another reason—they “say that using research-based practice is only one small part of what future teachers need to know”—could catch and pass the leader with just a few votes.

Bogus Bowl V is only open for a little longer. If you’ve not voted yet, jump on over to it and cast your vote for your favorite.

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Willingham on learning styles

Published
by
JohnL
on 23 August 2008
in Administration, Arithmetic and mathematics, Assessment, Content learning, News, Reading, Research, Spelling, Teacher education and Written Expression
. 2 Comments

My colleague Dan Willingham produced a brief video explaining why basing instruction on learning styles is bologna. Here it is:

Here’s the YouTube link for Dan Willingham on Learning Styles and here’s a link to Dan’s Web site where one can learn plenty of useful things. Also, see the extended discussion on D-Ed Reckoning.

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DLD fall conference

Published
by
JohnL
on 14 August 2008
in Administration, Arithmetic and mathematics, Content learning, News, Reading, Research, Teacher education, The press and Written Expression
. 0 Comments

The Division for Learning Disabilities (DLD) of the Council for Exceptional Children holds a conference annually in late October or early November. This year it is in Philadelphia (PA, US) and it features a batch of presentations that promise to be helpful to teachers, coaches, and administrators interested in learning how to implement evidence-based instructional practices.

Check the agenda for the next Fall Conference 24 and 25 October 2008 and then register! Learn about DLD’s “Bridging the Gap Between Research and Practice” and learn how you can participate in this outstanding professional development opportunity.

Please note that I am connected with DLD (long-time member, former president, currently executive director and co-editor of the Web site), but I’d be pushing this conference even if I wasn’t affiliated with it.

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ABA Ed conf

Published
by
JohnL
on 13 August 2008
in Administration, Behavior Management, News, Research and Teacher education
. 0 Comments

The Association for Behavior Analysis (ABA) education conference is to be held in Reston (VA, US) in just a few weeks. Although the presence of the word “behavior” in the organization’s name may lead one to expect the conference to focus on social behavior, that is not the case. There are many members who focus their work on academic outcomes. This is not just a meeting for people interested in Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, Autism, or discrete trial training.

After today, registration will only be possible at the site.

The last day to pre-register for ABA International’s 2008 Education Conference titled, “Evidence-Based Practice, Scientifically Based Instruction, and Educational Effectiveness” is this tomorrow, Wednesday, August 13th. The conference will be held on the second floor of the Hyatt Regency Reston, in Reston, Virginia near Washington D.C., during the weekend of September 5-7, 2008. After August 13th, registration will only be available on-site and will increase by $25. To pre-register for this conference, please visit http://www.abainternational.org/educonf/convreg/ .

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Teacher prep grants awarded

Published
by
JohnL
on 6 August 2008
in News, Policy, Teacher education and The press
. 0 Comments

Christina Samuels, who writes and blogs for Ed Week, has a story about grants from the US Department of Education to universities conducting teacher preparation programs. Here’s her lead:

The U.S. Department of Education has given grants to 20 universities to revamp their special education teacher-preparation programs, a step the department says is key to increasing the numbers of highly qualified teachers in that field.

Jump to Ms. Samuels’ story. Note that there’s a link to her blog, On Special Ed, in the blogroll.

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In-service nightmares

Published
by
JohnL
on 5 August 2008
in Administration, Administrivia, News and Teacher education
. 0 Comments

I’ve posted a couple of entries decrying the the limp rigor and sorry quality of professional development for teachers. Having seen people attending some very good workshops recently when I was at the Reading First conference in Nashville (TN, US), I was reminded that I wanted to run a Bogus Bowl about the worst in-service sessions readers have seen.

So, I’m calling for nominations. Please send me accounts of the worst professional development sessions at which you’ve had to be present. Now, this will be a little tricky, so I’ve got to promulgate some rules for submissions.
Continue reading ‘In-service nightmares’

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Petrilli on Teacher Quality

Published
by
JohnL
on 1 August 2008
in Administration, Musings, News, Policy, Teacher education and The press
. 4 Comments

Over at The Education Gadfly, Michael J. Petrilli has an editorial entitled “What if ‘improving teacher quality’ isn’t THE answer?” In it Mr. Petrilli goes through a pretty thoughtful discussion of some of the reservations that have been expressed about the improve-teacher-quality path for improving outcomes for students (e.g., recruiting a la Teach for America; alternative certification; incentives for teachers who take tough assignments). Ultimately, he comes to the conclusion that those paths are not likely to be fruitful.

So let’s summarize: we’re unlikely to fill all of America’s classrooms with teachers from the ranks of society’s “best and brightest.” And we’re particularly unlikely to do so in tough urban or rural areas, outside of a handful of hot cities where young college grads like to live. Which means that lots of our children–especially poor and minority children–are going to have teachers who may be good but are not likely to be great. These are teachers who themselves received so-so public school educations, attended so-so colleges, are raising families and thus probably don’t want to work sixty hours a week, but who do care about their students and want them to succeed.

Shouldn’t we be thinking about how to make these average teachers more effective, too, and augmenting them via technology and other stratagems, rather than putting all our eggs in the “superstar teacher” basket? (Look out for my thoughts about how to do that in a future Gadfly.)

I think Mr. Petrilli arrived at a close-to-right conclusion. It’s not a bull’s-eye shot (technology?), but we do need to begin helping average and below-average teachers teach more effectively. In fact, although he seems to have backed into it, teaching effectively is about our only hope for improving schools. Other solutions (recruiting smart people to teach) are still one or more steps removed from teaching effectively.

As Erin Johnson noted in one of the comments on Mr. Petrilli’s post, and echoing the very premise of Teach Effectively, what we need is less talk about teacher quality and more investment in teaching quality.

Link to Mr. Petrilli’s editorial.

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One best way?

Published
by
JohnL
on 31 July 2008
in Administration, Musings, News, Policy, Research and Teacher education
. 0 Comments

The current Bogus Bowl (it’s number 5) raised questions about the professorate, with one alternative mentioning the belief that there is no one best way to teach. The answer to the question, “Is there one best way to teach?,” is surely, “No.” There are actually something like, oh, a few million ways to teach. But some of them are better than others.

Better? Yes, better. That is, some ways of teaching lead to students who score higher on trustworthy measures of declarative and procedural knowledge than the students taught using some other ways of teaching. [Some people will complain that (a) declarative and procedural knowledge are not appropriate foci for education or (b) that trustworthy measurement is impossible; those are arguments for another discussion.] Of course, Teach Effectively is about identifying and employing, and preparing others to employ those methods that meet this standard.

Fortunately, TE is not alone in the quest for use of evidence-based education. Here’s a resource that some readers will find useful. It’s from the IllinoisLoop, a source that’s been over there in the blog roll for much of the tenure of TE.

Is There ONE Best Way to Run a School?

Is there only one way to run a school?

Does rhetoric about “best practices” point to a single “best” way to teach children?

Of course not.

But ed school theorists insist that there is one “best” method. Not only that, they claim that they know exactly what it is!

Consequently, most American schools have moved to that “constructivist” approach and continue to expand its usage further in their classrooms. But mounting evidence calls the whole constructivist framework into question.

The page goes on to integrate a couple of score or a few dozen sources related to the idea in the lead that I’ve reproduced here. There’s plenty of links to good sources. The page would serve admirably as a syllabus for a course on cutting through gobbledygook and identifying clearly reasoned arguments for teaching effectively. Here’s the link. Study hard. There will be quizzes.

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