Here’s a question I’m always asking myself: how can I steal methods from design to improve my classroom work? Well, here’s one method we can steal from the discipline of design. The sticky note session. Folks who follow the methods of Tim Brown, the Stanford dSchool, and anybody who chants the phrase “design thinking” with …
The Wow Gap. Somewhere, I heard that what’s obvious to you is amazing to someone else. And the saying stuck with me. See, as a teacher, I’m in the business of explaining stuff, and it’s easy to get jaded about something you’ve explained a hundred times. We teachers should resist getting jaded though. The same …
Rubrics are Hell. Essay rubrics. Project rubrics. Oral presentation rubrics. As a social constructivist, I’ve always disliked them. But I can’t escape them. We teachers are actually wedged between rubrics on both sides. We use them on our students’ work, to try and streamline the complex and demanding cognitive process of evaluation. And our administrators …