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Darling-Hammond and McLaughlin Report Published
Article on Student Learning by Linda Darling-Hammond
Darling-Hammond and McLaughling published a ground-breaking report that revealed the need for teachers to learn from one another in a variety of content-specific settings. I enjoy a common planning period and district-wide curriculum wriitng opportunities thanks to them! -
UNESCO's Publishes the Jacques Delor Report
The Jacques Delor Report Intro
The Jacque Delors report, a part of UNESCO's task force on 21st Century education was pivotal in drawing attention to the need for media literacy in schools. As an English teacher who specializes in film and media studies, this paved the way for innovations in writing education. For example, my English 4 in Film Writing uses film criticisms, reviews and even screenplays to stand-in for more traditional modes. -
Rise of Authentic Assesment
Daniel Callison's article on authentic assessment
School needs to teach real skills, applicable to the real world. It's the only way to stay viable. The rise of using authentic assessment in curriculum has allowed literacy teachers to create writing tasks that more accurately allow students to express themselves in non-traditional, more create ways. This includes performance assesments. -
John Dewey's "The School and Society"
PBS on Dewwy
Education is "fundamental for a thriving democracy." John Dewy was the original educational progressive, waxing philosophy on the links between thriving public schools and a thriving public. His philosophy still provides the foundational strengths of our industry. Most progressive throughts in education still pay homage to him, and his ghost still informs all curricula. 1999 is the 100 year anniversary of his seminal work. -
1st National Service-Learning Conference
Service Learning Organization
Service-learning should be the future of seconday curriculum. The idea of students using writing to create solutions for real-life problems excites me as an educator. Currently, my school is working on a magnet school in public policy. As the lead teacher on the endeavor, I am enjoying learning about the role service-learning can play in our Senior seminar. The future! -
SAT Adds Grammar
SATs: A History
In 2005, the College Board revised its infamous SAT. It's ditching of analogies was to students, as presents are to birthday parties. In their place though came sentence construction and usage sections that drive high school English teachers back to the world of pronoun errors and parrellism training. -
YouTube Invented
YouTube
Don't laugh...where would we be without it? Curriculum development has never been so easy in the arts. The world at our fingertips. Shakespeare live. Hal Holbrook as Twain. Published presentations re-enacting the Salem Witch Trials. But was it the advent of YouTube or the long road to get our district administrator's to open up its use to our schools? -
Tsay and Brady Report on Cooperative Learning
Journal of Scholarship Teaching and Learning
Tsay and Brady weren't the first ones to show the merits and achievements possible through cooperative learning, but they were the ones who drew the highest correlations to test scores. And that's what a district needs to hear! This music to their ears turned into small learning community curriculum and inter-disciplinary, team-approaches. I teach one in film studies.
