Gary Ackerman @garyackerman@qoto.org

“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.

“The easy way to teach” will work for a small sub set of your students—much smaller than its advocates admit. Your job is *not* to deploy that and move on.

In my current wrting project (an undated version of a book from a few years ago), I finally got to the new stuff. I was about to abandon it until I finished the chapters that are being revised, now I am excited about it again.

“A good theory helps predict what could be.” Not going to argue against that one.

For decades, we have heard how computers are going to change everything in education. Why is it that we have school leaders who cannot manage the most simple tasks?

"How will you use technology help us improve our communication?"

Communication is a problem within your organization. It cannot be solved with technology.

Attuning your ear to your #students (paraphrasing Confucius) is a lesson most #teachers learn too late in their careers, and those who become administrators (IMHO) rarely learn, and when they do they dismiss it. #education

Open book tests throughout the term, then closed for the final? Yeah... if we want to encourage learning through the entirety of the course.

Desirable difficulties. Some good ideas in education never get our attention.