Sex and Relationships Education in School
Ahem. I’d be lying if I said part of me doesn’t cringe at having to do this. At the same time, there is a far greater part of me that thinks the Dutch approach is infinitely healthier than going bright red at the mention of the word “nipple”. [see e.g. here and here for comparisons] […]
Quantity is quality (2)
This post from Victoria made me think. She If we told students that we would give them ONE test a year and that their entire grade for the whole year rested on that ONE test, nothing else. What would we see? We would see parents yelling. We would see students crying. We would see legislators […]
Encouraging mathematical reasoning
Another thing to do more of next year: encourage children not just to give the answer, but to justify why their answer makes sense. This way, I hope, children will learn that maths is something that can be understood rather than a series of processes to learn.
Some reasons for Mixed Ability Grouping
Some parents become anxious about mixed ability classes. In a subject like maths, which is both a “core” subject and has a reputation for being a subject that people either do or don’t get, these anxieties are aggravated. The parents will either feel that their child is being overly or underly stretched. Mixed ability...
Writing helps children’s executive function
During the school years, especially from ages 8-18, the most rapid phase of maturation is taking place in the prefrontal cortex. This is a critical time during which the brain is developing the individual’s executive functions. These include judgment, critical analysis, induction, deduction, delay of immediate gratification for...
Plumbers & “Write what you know”
I’ve heard the statement, “Write what you know,” probably like a million times, but only a handful of times did that make any sense to me. Teacher says, “Write what you know.” Student begins to write. On the planet Jupiter robot warriors called Jenturions launched a . . Teacher corrects, “No, write...
Video series on the remix
From the Sugar Hill Gang to the typewriter. Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo. via Betchablog
Mixed ability group work in maths
There’s a great resource here for problems that children can work on together in a maths class. As interesting is the approach, something called Complex Instruction, which was developed at the Stanford Uni School of Education. There’s a useful video of Jo Boaler talking about how it works here, and some videos of it in...
The importance of estimation
Teaching children how to estimate properly is something I need to improve on. As Jo Boaler points out in The Elephant in the Classroom: “When an official report in the UK was commissioned to examine the mathematics needed in the workplace the reviewers found that estimation was the most useful activity. Yet when children who...