The question of “what should we teach?” is a perpetual one for educators. Some describe it as a pendulum and believe their job as an educator is to hold the pendulum as the bottom of its arc. Other believe the pendulum belongs on either extreme. Yet others ride the pendulum and just adopt the most Read More
We have all experienced the change in our brains we call learning. We become capable of remembering information, performing actions, recognizing patterns, appreciating observations, asking questions, and otherwise interactive with ideas, tools, and people in a way we could not previously. Learning is the change associated with becoming aware of and evaluating our capabilities is Read More
This is an excerpt from some work I did recently in which I described school leaders whose adoption of technology planning appeared to reflect Rogers’ (2003) stages of adoption of innovations. Our school had been struggling with some aspects of our educational technology. Both our teachers and our technology people were trying, but we seemed Read More
Teaching is an inherently wicked problem. (This idea has been addressed multiple times in this blog– search for “wicked.”) In 1973, scholars Rittel and Webber defined wicked problems as those that are ill-defined and that are judged only from the perspective of the individual who experienced the solution. A defining characteristic of wicked problems is Read More
Much of the literature for educators treats metacognition as a separate type of learning. Winne and Azevedo (2014) point out that metacognition is simply learning about one’s own learning, so it is not different from learning about other phenomena. The same theories and models that describe cognition describe metacognition. For example, when new to a field, a learner must expend Read More
The culture that learners experience contributes to their views and perspectives that determine what is important to them and the people around them. These become the learned behaviors that determine what learners value, how they define learning, and other decisions about how learning occurs. Differences between the expectations of educators and students is an example Read More
First, educators make assumptions about the students who enter their classrooms. Sometimes these assumptions are accurate, sometime not. Sometime these assumptions inhibit teaching and learning, sometimes they promote it. These assumptions can be cultural or socioeconomic, reflect expectations regarding prior knowledge and experience, reflect certain values or expectations. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of these assumptions to overcome is that neither the teacher nor the student may be aware of Read More
Ostensibly, teaching and learning are directly associated. Teachers teach what they have planned, learners learn what they are expected to learn; that learning is demonstrated on the tests we administer, everyone leaves the classroom fulfilled. Reality gets in the way of this plan, however. Students do not learn what teachers teach… they learn things other than what was taught… the tests may not even Read More
For more than a generation, we have heard that “information technology is causing deep changes in how we communicate.” There has been a steady stream of literature supporting the claim, along with others who reject the claim. In the 2020 book, The Future of Change: How Technology Shapes Social Revolutions, Ray Brescia make the claim that Read More
This concept has been kicking around in my mind for many months now (during which time it has appeared in this blog). I think I am finally getting to the essence of how I think about it. Many scholars and organizations have proposed variations on deeper learning; each variation is accompanied by suggestions for describing Read More