Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

An Old Guy’s Story of Media https://hackscience.net/2024/09/02/an-old-guys-story-of-media/

Conceptualizing Technology in Education
https://hackscience.education/2020/03/24/conceptualizing-technology-in-education/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

Answers are generally uninteresting. Questions, on the other hand, are very interesting.

Human learning is complex and multifaceted, and different people experience the same events quite differently. Many educators seem oblivious to this fact.

Any school built following a “one-size-fits-all” solution is doomed to fail.

Adults are trying to improve schools by looking towards their past; “what worked for me will work for them,” is their misguided reasoning.

If it is easy, it isn’t learning.

How Will This Turn Out?
https://hackscience.education/2020/03/12/how-will-this-turn-out/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

An Elevator Pitch on Education Outcomes
https://hackscience.education/2020/03/10/an-elevator-pitch-on-education-outcomes/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

Online teaching is not conducive to lectures. The students are unlikely to watch and entire lecture on a screen. Try it sometime: They are boring… really boring… and I write that as one who enjoys a good lecture.

At the most basic level watch teachers; face-to-face teachers spend their time talking while online teachers spend their time typing.

It Is Likely Your College…
https://hackscience.education/2020/03/06/it-is-likely-your-college/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

What educators believe about how human brains function and what causes brains to change is one of the most important factors that determines how they organize curriculum and deliver instruction.

The culture that learners experience contributes to their views and perspectives that determine what is important to them and the people around them. These become the learned behaviors that determine what learners value, how they define learning, and other decisions about how learning occurs.

I wrote this some years ago... I think I was right: "Formal education will become more important, but traditional schools will become less important."

Leadership and Goals and Decisions
https://hackscience.education/2020/03/05/leadership-and-goals-and-decisions/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

“Effective schools” is a nebulous term. We could define them as those where students earn top scores on standardized tests; likewise, we could define them as schools in which students write cogent essays (or create paintings, music, and dance) expounding the evils of standardized tests.

Your students are not blank slates and their brains are not there to be filled with information.

By including participation, engagement, flexibility, adaptability, and similar soft skills in our assessment and evaluation of students we are communicating to them these are valuable skills to develop. By removing these from their evaluation, educators are ignoring the most important skills students can develop.

Homework grades often depend on the availability of a quite and well-stocked space away from school (well stocked may also include someone to provided tutoring or even answers). It is difficulty to justify including it in our evaluation or assessment of students.