Category: Education Reformation

  • Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: April

    “How do you balance preparation for high stakes assessments with teaching and learning in your classroom?” Guest blogger: Karyn McWhirter As a teacher of Advanced Placement students and students preparing to be in Advance Placement classes, I may have a different relationship with high stakes testing than many other educators. Since a central goal for…

  • Opt-out Letter 2015

    March 23, 2015 Dear New Hampshire School District, I am refusing to allow my child, Ian Hawkins, to take Smarter Balanced assessment, the Science NECAP, or any other state standardized tests. I believe that my child’s educational progress can best be measured using his daily school work and regular classroom testing. According to the U.S…

  • Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: March

    “What are the biggest mistakes teachers make when integrating technology into the classroom?” The biggest mistake teachers make is thinking that the technology is more important than the lesson. No matter what teachers use in the classroom, the goal has to be to help students understand concepts and to move them forward on their educational…

  • Top 12 Global Teacher Blogger Discussion: February

    “What will be the most significant classroom innovation in the next 10 years?” The tide is turning—Educators, parents, and even some government officials realize that the attempt to mass-produce educated children is not working. The biggest innovation in the classroom will come in the roles of teachers and students. If we start with the end…

  • Picking Favorites

    I have had students in high school accuse me of picking favorites. At that age, it’s understandable that they would have difficulties with the way the world works. They are still young and look at how unfair everything is–a fact they can’t seem to accept. Therefore, when they see a teacher showing perceived favoritism to someone, they…

  • 10 Things I Learned as a New Adjunct Teacher

    This semester I taught two college composition classes at a community college. I started with 23 students in one class and 24 students in the other. Halfway into the semester, 7 students out of 47 just stopped coming to class. At the end of the semester, 5 students out of 47 earned A’s; 23 students…

  • An “Open Letter” to the CDE

    For those of you not aware what has been happening in Colorado the past few weeks, high-school seniors in Boulder started a mass protest and opt-out movement against the CMAS test seniors were required to take last week. Instead of staying home, these students protested in front of their school; they wrote a letter to…

  • A Student’s Perspective: Common Core: One Size Does Not Fit All

    Our students know what they need; we need to find a way to get their voices heard. By Gina Galjour Imagine an education system in which a student’s knowledge is evaluated by a set of fifty questions, a system in which the federal government decides what students need to know at the end of the…

  • Part 2: The Perfect Storm: Common Core, Standardized State Testing, and Teacher Evaluations

    The last few weeks I’ve been putting together my thoughts on the current educational system to explain, in detail, why I wrote my resignation letter. Since it was a lengthy post, I decided to split it into two posts: Part 1: “A Brief History on NCLB and Common Core.” Part 2: “The Perfect Storm: Common Core,…

  • Part 1: A Brief History on NCLB and Common Core

    The last few weeks I’ve been putting together my thoughts on the current educational system to explain, in detail, why I wrote my resignation letter. Since it was a lengthy post, I decided to split it into two posts: Part 1: “A Brief History on NCLB and Common Core.” Part 2: “The Perfect Storm: Common…