The multiple-choice question has been a staple of educational assessment for generations and that makes sense. They are easy to create (unless of course we design good ones) and they are easy to administer and to grade. Educators also find they are very comforting. We can have confidence that students who give the correct answer Read More
114: The Scientific Attitude “What is science?” Is a question that has held the attention of philosophers for quite some time. At least that is the contention of Lee McIntyre in his 2019 The Scientific Attitude: Defending Science from Denial, Fraud, and Pseudoscience. The author reviews many of the problems in the field including demarcation Read More
Blogs have been a tool for self-publishing to the Internet since the late 1990’s. The model is simple: An individual is “assigned” to a part of the platform. That individual is given permission to post text, images, video, audio and other content to their blog. Visitors to the site can post comments to the blog Read More
As we get closer to the start of another school year (my 34th year working in education), I’m thinking about what I would tell myself if I was starting out. Here is my current list: Students must take an active role in learning. Although physical activity is associated with learning, “active” refers to cognitive activity. Read More
In cleanout out some files, I found a document containing the “working definition” of research the I presented to a group of science teachers who were refreshing the roles of lab activities, science fairs, and similar activities in their school. Although written in 2014, it still seems accurate: This working definition assumes: Research seeks to Read More
I made the decision to finish my career working in community colleges. I was asked why. Here is a summary of my response. These institutions prepare minds and bodies for new opportunities. There are several aspects these school that are appealing to me as an educator and as a teacher of teachers. First, students who attend these Read More
While I am a distance learning professional and I spend most of my time working at a computer and encouraging educators to use computers, I am an educator before I am a technologist. Teaching decisions must be made to benefit students. For much of my career, it has been easy for many individual educators to reject all technology-based and distance learning options categorically. They were justified in reasoning they could Read More
211: On Extended Minds “The extended mind” has focus some of my attention recently. It seems to be one of the basic epistemological assumptions upon which many teaching, learning, and schooling decisions are made. First, the mind. Let’s adopt the materialist view that it exists in the brain. There can be little debate in the Read More
The word “essential” is interesting. It describes that which we cannot do without. Food, water, and oxygen (in the right concentration) is essential to human life. It also describes the fundamental character. When we remove the unimportant or marginal parts of something we are left with its essence; removing anything more changes what it is. Read More
A friend and I were recently discussing John Perry Barlow’s “Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace.” Barlow’s ideas resonate with both of us. We were wondering if we (as a culture) had achieved what Barlow had envisioned. We challenged ourselves to compose a brief summary of what we have observed in the last few years. Read More