Dr. Heidi Hallman, associate professor of English education at the University of Kansas and author of Secondary English Teacher Education in the United States: Responding to a Changing Context, joins our PLC this month. Patterns in teacher preparation have changed over the last couple decades. Patterns in how teachers are trained to use standards, leverage… Read More »

Differentiation can be a contentious topic. Most educators want to reach all of their students, but the realities of how they can serve the breadth of needs in a classroom can lead to frustration. We consider the state of the national conversation by looking at a paper from Warwick. It argues that theoretical perspectives, policies,… Read More »

Data analysis is getting increasing attention in education. Data science can have considerable influence over education, especially in online or blended learning settings. How do teachers find actionability in the data while still meeting the tremendous demand of running a classroom five days a week? We’ll consider comments from the journal Nature on the subject…. Read More »

Lesson planning and sequencing seem to be ever present problems for teachers and coordinators. Which topics should go where? Who should have control over making those decisions? Curriculum research in an economics course provides some insight into how we should choose our priorities. As we search for how to create a system for making sequencing… Read More »

We’ll discuss the effects of high school students earning college credit before they graduate. Washington has Running Start, Kansas has dual enrollment, and many other states have similar programs. Some new and more detailed measures of Running Start outcomes indicate there may be some problems with the program and how it is impacting student achievement…. Read More »

Standardized testing is a major concern for teachers, administrators and parents. The problem is standardized tests don’t always mean what they are supposed to mean. Misconceptions about how test scores relate to school quality are driving a growing separation between students of financial means and students from disadvantage. In the end, research indicates that separation… Read More »

Education discussions often focus on how best to serve our students, but as the summer comes to an end we must turn our attention to the realities of our job. Many policies are implemented that are beyond our control and navigating the expectations of the many stakeholders in a student’s education can be exhausting. We’ll… Read More »

Every teacher can only provide influence and options to students; they are the ones who will make choices for what they do and how they strive (or don’t) to do those things well. We will consider some of the most influential research on how humans make choices for themselves, and then more specifically in the… Read More »

The first group of episodes will establish a foundation of educational philosophy, from which we can move forward. Technology is having a tremendous impact on classrooms around the world. We’re considering what the effects of rapid proliferation of communication innovations may be on student learning. We’ll compare research into how new devices compare to older,… Read More »

The first group of episodes will establish a foundation of educational philosophy, from which we can move forward. We’re moving on to the difficult topic of grades, using an article describing one effort to abolish letter grades and percentages entirely. What should a grade represent and how do we as teachers ensure they do that… Read More »