Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

I reconnected with a former teacher colleague i his retirement career. We left education about 10 years ago. We both are very happy with the decision and continue to be dismayed at the state of education.

By making the problem/ idea/ concept/ task easier for your #students you also made it so dull, unimportant, and disconnected that no one cares enough to bother with it.

“Put the students first,” is *always* used to justify educational decisions. The more vehement the insistence it is “best for students,” the crummier the idea tends to be.

You would think we would be able to copy and paste between applications, platforms, editors without introducing lots of stray formatting. Or at least a warning that says “this has lots of hidden tags, should I paste as plain text?”

Have you ever noticed the things that really engage students are rarely those things “we all know students need?” (I’m thinking grades, a lecture, deadlines, measurable outcomes, textbooks, lessons tuned to their “learning style,” etc.).

Adult, working full time, parent who is a community college student already knows how to be organized... she probably doesn’t need our advice... at least that’s what she said in the student panel on remote learning.

Generative AI: We Are Getting What We Asked For
A blog post (with a snarky title and tone)
https://www.hackscience.education/generative-ai-we-are-getting-what-we-asked-for/

I encountered “capacity build” in a question... “How do we ‘capacity build’ for...?”

Let’s stop this use of that phrase. Immediately.

“If I didn’t believe it, I never would have seen it.” This is far truer than we admit.

If you aren’t much of a learner, you won’t be much of a teacher.

Yes, I do judge you by the company you keep.

Seriously. If you are a leader (or representing a organization charged with leadership) sending out emails about accessibility, *make sure it is accessible*

I’m convinced there is something hypocritical about faculty who have to be shown how to do the same tasks over and over and over on an LMS. I get it isn’t your area of expertise, but it is part of your profession.

Students: “We are burned out by school and everything else happening in the world right now.”

I tweeted this during the pandemic. The world was better for a few years, but we are right back in it.

Chemistry student: “I put equations on my bedroom wall so it has a classroom feel.”

Take your “right” answer and turn it around and around until you see how it is wrong... then you are starting to understand it.

Answers are rarely valuable. Knowing how to find answers... that’s were the value can be found.

Always be suspicious of the obvious.

I once asked a director of special education to stop referring to students as “kiddos” in my presence.

You can tell when “leaders for change” aren’t. This conversation happens.

Leader: You argue against strategy x. How do you propose we accomplish y?

Advocate for change: I’m not arguing against x, I’m arguing against y.