Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

I like protocols, but I see them as scaffolds. If you are not integrating the interaction into your practice, you are missing the point.

Education is a field in which leaders firmly believe what they did decades ago is the answer to today’s problems.

“We are adopting a new textbook, it’s going to vastly improve the course for our students.”

Is it? Is it really?

Perceptions matter... but sometimes they are inaccurate.

Cognitive presence... which is (basically) becoming curious, exploring and integrating new concepts and ideas, then "owning" new learning... if your classroom doesn't nurture this, then... well... it should.

Discovery. Exploration.

These teaching strategies are informed and guided in a way instructionists ignore.

Instruction can be engaging in a way discovery educators ignore.

Open pedagogy-- finds students becoming prosumers of knowledge. This is a threat to many.

Users: Why don’t we just make a web site to do x?

IT: Yeah, maintaining a web site is hard and time consuming.

Users: It can’t be that hard, can’t you set it up so we can do it?

IT: Sure, here you go.

Users: We don’t have time for this. Who builds and updates our pages?

One thing I learned during 30 years as a teacher: the language in faculty lounges is worse than in football locker rooms.

Students want a purpose to the lesson… not measurable outcomes… but a purpose.

Who knew?

I mean other than all the students and most of the teachers.

Self-reported data is fine… but it’s not always what you need.

Calling your “fill in the facts” worksheets a “scaffold for big ideas” isn’t really what we mean.

“We have a new paradigm.”

“No, actually you just found an alliterative way to summarize what is obvious.”

#leadership #innovation

Hey leaders admit it…

You hear complaints about IT, but you have no idea how to address it.

#technology #edtech #IT #leadership

Our technology decisions are made, in part, by social influences—we want what others are using.

Unfortunately, influential folks often adopt lousy IT.

Do you know how to solve it?

Does a solution exist, but you don’t know it?

Does no solution exist—yet?

These are very different problems to solve.

I like protocols, but I see them as scaffolds. If you are not integrating the interaction into your practice, you are missing the point.

One thing I learned during 30 years as a teacher: some learning can be “accelerated,” some cannot. Awareness can be accelerated almost always, but awareness isn’t really what we should be after.

A blog post, now with audio, reviewing a strategy for teaching:
https://hackscience.education/2018/11/06/deeper-learning-principles/

Deeper learning occurs when tasks are social, active, contextual, engaging, and student-centered. Are your classroom tasks designed this way?
#education #teaching #learning #edchat