Educational Ideas

14:25  

I haven't blogged in a while and just felt like free-flowing some ideas out of my head. The plan is to eventually have a separate blog post for each of these ideas.

1. Standards-based grading matches how the real world works. Points are not nitpicked. Standards are addressed either explicitly or implicitly. Explicit seems ideal for the "worker" whereas implicit is more ideal for the "boss".
2. Redos and retakes also match how the real world works. Many points of proper leadership point out that building more capacity from who you are leading occurs faster and more meaningfully when mistakes are allowed and allowed to be fixed.
3. With standards-based grading, extra credit is not extra. It falls under a certain standard and is assessed accordingly. If it does not fall under a standard, why is it being assessed to begin with? Rhetorical question.
4. If you have a valid test, students redoing it shouldn't matter. It's not cheating that they have seen the test already.
5. Learning for the love of learning >>> Learning for the sake of a grade.
• For all you non-math people out there, ">>>" translates to  "really, really greater than".
6. Students can learn without grades. However, they cannot learn without feedback whether it's from themselves or others.
7. Telling someone they are wrong does little to help them learn. Asking them why they think that and analyzing the thought processes can help instill habits of mind and help them learn.
8. It is more important to know how you are learning relative to a standard than it is to simply be learning.
9. Don't let impatience be the reason to not have students struggle. What's the rush?
10. Watching other teachers teach can dramatically make you teach better. Watching others teach forces you to think about how you teach.
11. Momentum to learn needs to be created before efficient learning can happen. Students need to be taught what self-starting is before we can ever expect them to do it themselves.
12. Curiosity needs to be focused on in the class. When students start being curious, they start to wonder, which makes them want to learn.
13. Teachers and students are on the same team with the same goals. Us against them is old and tired.