Here is yet another post from 20 years ago. I originally wrote this an article to go into a newsletter written for middle school educators, but it was never published. The human brain is the focus of education. If our students are to have the ability to use the lessons we teach as they solve Read More
Here is another bit of discovered writing in my “clean out the files on the thumb drive” project. I orginally worte in 2010. Little did I know how much worse things would get in the interveneing years. Charles Dickens begins his famous novel set during the French Revolution with what may be best opening lines Read More
A common complain among students in teacher education programs is that that coursework focuses too much attention on theory. As an undergraduate student seeking a career in science education, I was fond of saying “I don’t care about all of this, I just want to know how to teach.” Well, it wasn’t until I got Read More
I have been asked about the potential for creating portfolios for a new organization. I the past, I created a series of documents outlining the work of work of creating portfolios. In an attempt to support my new colleagues, I am revising and posting some of the my earlier work. Regardless of the purpose of Read More
Bricoleur The French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss developed the concept of the bricolage in 1960 to describe a human who adopts a particular approach to framing problems, solving problems and learning. Others have adopted the concept, and applied it to thinking about how to approach the use of information technology in schools. In my experience, being Read More
Prior to starting work compiling the portfolio, one should compose two statements of purpose: The brief statement will serve as the first page of the portfolio and the longer one is a brainstorming and clarification document. Composing each will focus the portfolio creator’s attention on what is being done, why it is being done, and Read More
I am in the middle of rereading Carl Bereiter’s 2002 book Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age. Among the intriguing ideas is the book is his confrontation of the “mind as a container” metaphor. Recent generations of educators have operated under the assumption that one’s brain is a container and that what we know Read More
I found this piece I wrote several years ago and it continues to be relevant for middle school treachers. One obvious feature of fully implemented middle level schools is engaging and relevant curriculum. Students in fully implemented middle schools are likely to score well on standardized tests. However, many educators also recognize that to view Read More
I just finished Ron Folman’s 2025 book The Human Test: How Predictability, Creativity, and the Quantum Mind Will Redefine Life in the Age of AI. Folman’s book opens with ahypothetical story of Eve, who was in his lab looking at atoms, and asked the question “Are they alive?” My mind immediately went to 10th grade Read More
I recently observed (but did not participate in) a conversation of higher education faculty and (to no one’s surprise) AI came up when they were asked about challenges they face. Although the research seems somewhat ambiguous, and the recommendations are even mor ambiguous, I think we can confidently assume that most of our students are using AI to complete their work. Because I did not participate in the conversations, Read More