Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

When learning is assumed to be the transfer of information, we approach students minds as passive, and passive minds do not learn.

While standardization can ease the work of technology management, it may prevent students from being able to do what they need to do.

"Social media is biased, not to the Left or the Right, but downward”
― Jaron Lanier

Teaching x "so students learn to think" is a myth.

Learning comprises many different types of abilities and actions. Our teaching and assessment should reflect that reality.

The “blank slate” has been discredited for decades, but many educators continue to assume students arrive in classrooms with no relevant experiences and that students need only pay sufficient attention to learn the information teachers tell them.

Science requires one admit there are unknowns. I think that’s one reason folks reject it.

One thing I learned during my education career: Every school has multiple on-going initiatives. Some of which have contradictory goals.

Darwin was right.

Learning comprises many different types of abilities and actions. Our teaching and assessment should reflect that reality.

The “blank slate” has been discredited for decades, but many educators continue to assume students arrive in classrooms with no relevant experiences and that students need only pay sufficient attention to learn the information teachers tell them.

"Scientists, being as a rule more or less human beings, passionately stick up for their ideas, their pet theories. It's up to someone else to show you are wrong.".--Niles Eldredge

You know that solar system thing with sun, planets, and all? That is a theory. Funny how few people dismiss it as “just a theory.”

“We need to teach our children what science is and how it works.” -Niles Eldridge

Just because you say it and believe it, I am under no obligation to assume it’s true.

Conspiracies are sometimes the explanation, but randomness explains many more events.

Curiosity works far better than learning outcomes.

While we might be able to calculate the percent of points students earn on an assignment, it is difficult to conclude that we know confidently that a student who scores 90% really knows 1% more of the total than the student who scored 89%.

Paraphrasing Jaron Lanier: Technology begins with human hands, but human speech plans what the hands will do.

Perhaps the most ridiculous myth that we (and this is a collective we that comprises educators, curriculum experts, employers, politicians, and book authors) believe is that we know what our students will need to know in the future.