“I haven't put grades on student work since I started teaching as instructor of record in 2001… none of the institutions where I've worked (including R1s, community colleges, liberal arts colleges) has entirely dictated how I had to approach assessment—at every single one there was sufficient wiggle room for experimentation.”
Out went the plastic playhouses and in came the dicey stuff: stacks of two-by-fours, crates and loose bricks. The schoolyard got a mud pit, a tire swing, log stumps and workbenches with hammers and saws… Now, Ms. Morris says proudly, “we have fires, we use knives, saws, different tools,” all used under adult supervision.”
And experts say that rather than being shocked to find that kids are sexting, we should instead be talking about it from an early age, just as we should about other aspects of their developing sense of their sexual identities.”
Older cyclists are not like most of the rest of us. They are healthier. They are, biologically, younger. Their muscles generally retained their size, fiber composition and other markers of good health across the decades, with those riders who covered the most mileage each month displaying the healthiest muscles, whatever their age. The impacts on riders’ immune system also were marked.”
“That's the takeaway from new Australian research, which finds a university education has a positive impact on two key personality traits—extroversion and agreeableness.”
“For young saplings in a deeply shaded part of the forest, the network is literally a lifeline. Lacking the sunlight to photosynthesize, they survive because big trees, including their parents, pump sugar into their roots through the network… To communicate through the network, trees send chemical, hormonal and slow-pulsing electrical signals, which scientists are just beginning to decipher.”
“Today's top talent does not want a boss, they want a coach. Managers should establish expectations, coach, and create accountability”
“Researchers from the University of Minnesota and the University of Toronto studied 180 schools across nine states and concluded, “We have not found a single case of a school improving its student achievement record in the absence of talented leadership.””
“Sixth, I was encouraged to visit districts, and even states, that are transforming their schools — all of their schools. Their leaders bring a compelling message about the urgency of change and lay out aspirational possibilities. They prioritize essential competencies, not state-mandated tests and obsolete curriculum. They trust teachers to lead the way, both in managing classrooms and designing next-generation assessments.”
Copyright
Every week I send out articles I encounter from around the web. Subject matter ranges from hard knowledge about teaching to research about creativity and cognitive science to stories from other industries that, by analogy, inform what we do as educators. This breadth helps us see our work in new ways.
Readers include teachers, school leaders, university overseers, conference organizers, think tank workers, startup founders, nonprofit leaders, and people who are simply interested in what’s happening in education. They say it helps them keep tabs on what matters most in the conversation surrounding schools, teaching, learning, and more.
– Peter Nilsson