Standards based grades are an exciting option for making grades more meaningful. We look at some recent writings on how to avoid some of the most common mistakes in our gradebooks, and then consider how standards-based grades can support some of the best practices.   Later, we read some additional work suggested by one of… Read More »

Students should drive their own learning. Drew Ising, another biology teacher from Baldwin High School, joins the PLC to discuss how the NGSS framework calls for letting our students take the lead in our classroom. We must guide students as they build understanding and skill, but how do we deal with misconceptions and incomplete understanding… Read More »

Social controversy swirls in the public space. Controversial issues carry into the classroom and affect how students interact with each other and the material. Teachers must have the courage to address contentious topics in their classroom, the wisdom to know where their expertise lies, and the resolution to see their choices through to the end…. Read More »

Online education makes learning opportunities available for millions of people who otherwise would have very limited access to teachers, peers, and classrooms. As educators continue to explore all the ways we can use digital learning environments to better reach kids, we must search for ways to make online multimedia as responsive and personal as a… Read More »

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 »