Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

IMO: The assumption that your current practices are optimal is the one that holds back the most progress.

Those who say "education will change because of this new thing" do not know how resistant to change eduction is.

Every moment students are being tested is another moment they are not learning… unless, of course, it’s well-designed retrieval practice… which it never is.

One of the main reasons given for not abandoning bad practices in schools is “what else should we do?” 🤦

A blog post on social and technology-rich teaching
https://www.hackscience.education/on-social-and-technology-rich-education/

Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man critiques early definitions of intelligence, arguing that those initial ideas, now known to be false, continue to have disastrous influences on society.

A Story About Technology Leaders in School
https://www.hackscience.education/a-story-about-technology-leaders-in-school/

Early 20th-century psychologists sought to make intelligence a "real" science, defining objective quantities to describe brain functions, similar to physical laws. I think it is time to say they failed.

A blog post on negligence and Gould's book The Mismeasure of Man:
https://www.hackscience.education/is-it-time-to-reject-intelligence-as-a-construct/

OK... here we go... again... correlation does not mean causation.

I still remember how to diagram sentences. I believe it helped me become a better writer, but I don't believe we should make everyone learn it.

What if students really do know how to improve schools?

Your edtech competitors have terrible products. That does not mean yours are good.

Let’s get this straight: Evolution is a scientific theory which means it is the best framework we have for explaining and predicting observations of how organisms change. It is updated with new knowledge.

To dismiss is as “merely” a theory demonstrates you don’t know science.

Use the microphone.

Sometimes poor course design is continued as “academic freedom.” That bugs me.

Makerspaces are fine, but they are really a poor substitute for the "industrial arts" and "home economics" shops and kitchens and well-supplied art studios we had in the 1970's and 1980's. Yes, I realize this post can be labeled "back in my day things we better."

The best test questions I have seen are written by teachers collaborating. The worst ones come from the textbook publishers.

One of the challenges of being a highly competent worker is that you end up enabling crummy leadership as they don’t experience the effects of their bad decisions.

Here is your reminder that personal incredulity isn’t evidence you are correct.