Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

One thing I learned during 30 years in the classroom: often times it is the student who acts more like an adult than the adult during interactions.

Leaders should shut up once their actions have spoken. They only make it worse.

“I don’t update my course because my field hasn’t change.”

Yeah, it has, you just are not paying attention... math teachers excepted.

The study with “surprising new findings” makes the news. The studies that demonstrate it was wrong do not.

Hey folks… please don’t say “god bless you for helping me” in work settings.

I used to work with middle school students to create portfolios of things that were meaningful to them as learners (e.g. “this is how I know I’m becoming a communicator”). Other teachers didn’t see the value because students never included assignments they had done for class. 🤔

If you leave the meeting with nothing on your to do list when others do, you are part of the problem.

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.