The high stakes test culture runs almost totally counter to what we know about how people learn. It causes us to engage in professional malpractice on a regular basis.
Sometimes educators suffer from the "I already do that" syndrome. In those cases, we feel inadequate if we admit we have a distance to go as learners of our craft.
It's important to know how to lead and manage a classroom with flexibility. Students of all ages are quite capable of learning these routines and contributing to their success once the teacher is comfortable guiding students in that direction.
Readiness is a student’s entry point relative to a particular understanding or skill.
Interest refers to student’s affinity, curiosity, or passion for a particular topic or skill.
We aren't quite sure what we're trying to differentiate, and therefore can't quite see how to do it other than giving some students more to cover and some less. That rarely works.
I think [testing] has had a profoundly problematic impact on student learning. It must seem to students that their worth as individuals is equivalent to their test score. The stress the high stakes culture has on teachers is also highly negative and must surely impact students in a negative way. It also de-professionalizes teachers because it encourages them to be script readers, followers of rigid schedules, and to disregard the needs of the people they teach in favor of the scripts and schedules.
Prospective teachers may read about the science of education, but they'll only grasp the art in their early years by seeing it practiced and having it commended to them.
We need teacher educators who regularly spend a great deal of time in classrooms so they have a deep understanding of where they students will teach.
Accepting both the opportunity and the responsibility evokes a great deal of humility.
I have find that today's students are often more tolerant of human variance than students in earlier generations might have been. On the other hand, some of our students need much more interaction with a wide variety of peers so they level of understanding deepens and so they are prepared to live in a world that is only going to get smaller.
As a teacher, it is your job to make explicit whatever you though was implicit
We have students at the university say on a regular basis, "You're asking us to think and no one has ever done that in school."
Teaching is a very habit-bound endeavor. We're unsettled by the unfamiliar. We're creatures of habit too.
[Students] often have a "We can figure this out - don't just tell us" attitude. In that way, they can be less patient with "traditional" approaches to teaching.
[Students] are also accustomed to having quick access to information. The idea of "storing" data in their heads can seem pointless. I find that they are also much more interested in learning through problem solving and group collaboration than in the past.
On some level students are essentially the same. They are people with fears and dreams. They laugh and cry over many of the same things. They share an essential humanity as young people always have.hey differ in some significant ways now, too, I believe. They are forced to grapple with complex issues at a much younger age.
[Students] are exposed to many things the majority of their teachers didn't encounter until much later in their growing up years.
