The purpose of education is to help people learn. Learning is a natural physiological process of the human brain and the nature of those processes define the rules within which educators (and education policy makers) must play. While it might be convenient for policy makers to define test scores as a measure of learning, those Read More
Students in online courses that include discussions frequently complain the task is a burden, the discussions are disappointing, and they contribute little to their building of new knowledge. Students report that the prompts used to focus discussions can make the board more interesting. If the prompt simply has them restate information from a text, they Read More
Although the constant cycles of reforms can be tiresome for many educators, the cycle can be explained by and even predicted by aspects of education that are well-known. First, education is a field that requires continuous improvement. One never “achieves being a good educator,” we adopt new practices, adapt existing practice to unfamiliar students, and Read More
Computers are excellent at solving problems… that is as long as the problem can be reduced to an algorithm (artificial intelligence researchers are working to change this, but most folks who use computers solve such reduced problems with them). Reduction to an algorithm requires rules to be clearly and completely defined. If the problem reflects Read More
I was recently cleaning out some digital files, and found some materials I had developed for secondary students focusing on Douglas Rushkoff’s 2011 book Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. The work arrived on bookstore shelves a decade ago, but the rules for digital life seem as relevant today as back Read More
The term “research-based” is one of those that has been so broadly used that it is no longer meaningful. It seems one can do about anything they want and they apply the “research-based” label to it. Just what must one do if they want really be doing research? Here is my definition of research: Research Read More
Those who are aware of what they know, capable of judging the situations in which they can solve problems, and reacting to fil gaps in their knowledge with their existing knowledge are demonstrating their metacognitive abilities. They know what they know and they know what to do if they don’t know. Greater metacognitive understanding is Read More
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