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Private Security Jobs | Mercenary and Defense Contractor Jobs | Silent Professionals

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Faculty Focus | Higher Ed Teaching & Learning

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I am unabashedly proud of my pedagogical article resource file. I've been collecting good articles on teaching and learning since the early '80s. I use the file almost every day, and in the process of looking for a particular article, I regularly stumble onto others whose contents I remember when I see them but have otherwise forgotten.

I ran into just such an article recently. It's old, published in 1986, but it was the first article I remember reading where the content of the discipline (in this case sociology) was used to explain certain instructional dynamics. Actually, there's a whole genre of pedagogical scholarship that does this, not just in sociology but also in many disciplines.

In this article, Billson compares the classroom to a small group. She applies the principles of small group dynamics as they are studied and understood in sociology to what happens in the classroom. And she does so for this reason: "Deeper awareness of small group processes can enhance the teaching effectiveness of college faculty through improving their ability to raise student participation levels, increase individual and group motivation, stimulate enthusiasm, and facilitate communication in the classroom." (p. 143) I'd say those outcomes are still of interest to most of us.

So what principles of small group dynamics might help us better understand what's happening in our classrooms? Billson identifies and discusses 15-four are highlighted here.

Principle 1: Every participant in a group is responsible for the outcome of the group interaction. Billson acknowledges that the major responsibility does belong to the professor, but she maintains that students share a "significant responsibility" as well. (p. 144) She recommends discussing that responsibility with students and explores the possibility of letting students plan certain segments of the course or maybe offer input as to the weight of the course's various assignments.

Principle 4: When people feel psychologically safe in a group, their participation levels will increase. This isn't a particularly new or novel idea, but it's something professors often take for granted. Most of us do feel safe in the classroom. We've been going to college classes for years. For students, classrooms don't feel as comfortable. They can be made to feel safer when students are known by names, when their first attempts to contribute garner positive feedback, and when the professor avoids sarcasm and ridicule.

Principle 8: The leader of any group serves as a model for that group. "The way in which professors play their role, including how they present expectations of students, carry out responsibilities, and handle privileges implicit in the professorial role, has a profound effect on how students enact their role." (p. 147)

Principle 13: A group will set its own norms of behavior and will expect conformity to them. These norms may extend to the professor. The same policies and procedures can be used and yet classes respond to them differently. In some classes, students argue at length about exam answers. In other classes, they want assignment deadlines extended. In many classes, a designated few become the only students who participate. Professors need to be aware of these norms and if they work against course goals, they should be discussed openly with students.

Although "small group" isn't a label that feels like it fits classes with more than 100 students, even large classes exhibit many features typical of groups. Applying these principles can result in classroom climates where learning is a more likely outcome. I'd say Billson was way ahead of her time in identifying what helps to make classrooms learner-centered.

Reference: Billson, J. (1986). The college classroom as a small group: Some implications for teaching and learning. Teaching Sociology, 14 (July), 143-151.

Reprinted from What Classes and Small Groups Have in Common The Teaching Professor, 26.3(2012): 6.

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What Group Dynamics Can Teach Us about Classroom Learning

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I am unabashedly proud of my pedagogical article resource file. I've been collecting good articles on teaching and learning since the early '80s. I use the file almost every day, and in the process of looking for a particular article, I regularly stumble onto others whose contents I remember when I see them but have otherwise forgotten.

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Keeping a classroom environment stimulating will help stimulate a student's mind, and make them better thinkers and learners.

So says Rod Pitcher, education expert, who looks at a stimulating classroom environment and how it can benefit students in an article on EducationHQ.com. The classroom, Pitcher said, "should include lots of books, visual materials and activities. All these requirement should be aimed at attracting and keeping the child's interest and promoting questioning and discussion. It is obvious, I think, that these facilities must be suited to the child's age and level of education."

"Expecting children, particularly young ones, to sit at a desk all day and learn is not the way to go," he said. "Children, particularly young ones, need to move around and do different activities. However, for the best results these activities must be related to their learning. Thus the children will be stimulated to learn, particularly if they are rewarded for doing well by being given access to facilities that have to be earned by correct responses and actions."

Pitcher said having a stimulating environment "will stimulate the students to do well and strive to do better."

"Anything that stimulates their minds will encourage them to take an interest and thus learn about the subject," he said. "Activities that promote thinking and attempting to answer questions will encourage the child to strive for answers, providing it is done properly and in such a way that it stimulates the child's interest."

Pitcher said "if the student is not interested in the topic being taught and nothing is done to stimulate and build an interest then learning will not take place."

"A major factor in providing a stimulating and creative environment in the classroom is the attitude of the teacher," he said. "A teacher who is interested in the topic being taught and the student's development will naturally provide stimulus to the students and they will respond in turn by learning and being interested in the topic. A teacher who is bored and uninterested will only pass that attitude onto the students who will then, in turn, not be interested in the topic being taught and so will not learn anything."

Pitcher said a stimulating classroom environment will also motivate the teacher to do better.

"If his/her students are interested in the work and learning about it then the teacher will in turn be stimulated to make the lessons more interesting," he said. "Thus a stimulating, creative classroom environment is to everyone's benefit. It will feed back onto itself and become more and more stimulating and creative to the benefit of teacher and students."

Read the full story.

Article by Kassondra Granata, Education World Contributor

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Opinion: Stimulating Classroom Environments Help Students, Teachers | Education World

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Keeping a classroom environment stimulating will help stimulate a student's mind, and make them better thinkers and learners. So says Rod Pitcher, education expert, who looks at a stimulating classroom environment and how it can benefit students in an article on EducationHQ.com. The classroom, Pitcher said, "should include lots of books, visual materials and activities.

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Call it "active learning," or "classroom participation" -- every teacher wants to know how to motivate students to particpate, and how to nurture more involved students and fewer apathetic ones. With a little extra planning, that is possible.

Below are four common reasons students don't participate and techniques to solve those problems and spice up your lessons.

Maybe it needs to be repetitive because the students don't really "get it," or maybe you're reviewing for a test. In any case, they're tuning out.

Solution #1: Assess their prior knowledge.

This could be as simple as asking students, "What do you know about (topic)?" and writing their responses on the board. You could also try a pre-test or a graphic organizer like a K-W-L chart . The goal is to find out what they already know (or think they know). You create buy-in for the students because they feel smart, and you can tailor your lesson to the information they don't know or don't remember correctly.

Solution #2: Try skills grouping.

Divide the class into groups based on what skills they need to practice - not forever, but for a class period or two, so they can focus on what they really need help with. So have a group that works on multiplying fractions, one on dividing fractions, and one on converting fractions to decimals. Make a group of "already got 100% on the test" kids and give them an extra credit activity or let them preview the next lesson. Then take time to move between the other groups and help them review. You'll have more students engaged in the lesson and they'll get specific, focused practice time.

Solution #3: Let them teach each other.

Especially good when reviewing before a test: divide the class into groups and give each group a topic. Set some guidelines and then let them teach each other. Encourage them to do interesting activities - write tests for each other, design review games, etc. - and evaluate each group on the accuracy of their content, the creativity of their approach, and how well they work together as a team. This is also a great way to discover how to motivate students.

This is really half the problem. The other half - especially with older students - is their fear of "looking stupid" by asking questions.

Solution #1: Allow anonymous questions.

Put out a "question box" where students can submit questions any time. Give each student an index card and ask them to write something about the reading assignment they did for homework. If they don't have a question, instruct them to write a comment on the reading. Collect the cards and use them to lead a class discussion. You'll easily recognize what parts of the reading confused a lot of students and they won't feel embarrassed.

Solution #2: Allow them to work together.

We can't do this all the time; individual students need to be assessed. Ask yourself: is the goal of this activity for them to learn the content, or for them to be assessed? If you want them to learn the content, why not let them work together? When they bring in their homework, do a quick survey for completeness, then put them in pairs and let them review the homework together. Encourage them to make changes if their partner's answer looks right. When they've finished, review as a class. Students may be less embarrassed to share a group's answer than their own and you may be able to complete the review more quickly.

Solution #3: Try a jigsaw approach.

No, we're not talking about puzzles or scary movies. If you're introducing new, difficult content, divide the class into groups and ask each group to master only one portion of it at a time. If, for example, you're teaching the American Revolution, have one group focus on the Continental Congress, one on Washington's Army, one on French support for the war, and so on.

Ask them to do a reading on their topic - to become the class "experts" on that subject. Then split up the class into new groups that include one "expert" on each topic. Ask these new groups to work together to write an essay or complete a worksheet that requires information about all the topics. They will teach each other in the process. Learn more about the Jigsaw Approach.

Problem: There's too much information to present in too short a time.

Sometimes there's no way around it: you simply have to get a lot of information out there in a short amount of time. So you opt for a lecture and just want your students to absorb the content. Instead, they fall asleep or stare out the window. What can you do?

Solution #1: Keep it "bite-sized."

Remember: research shows the average student's attention span is as long as her age. So even high school kids can only handle about 15 minutes. If you have a lot of information to convey, re-arrange your lesson plans so you never lecture for more than 10-15 minutes.

Break up large concepts into smaller sections - give a brief lecture, then do an activity to help it "sink in." Repeat this process over several days. You'll increase participation - and improve comprehension, too.

Solution #2: Keep them busy.

Don't allow students to stare into space while you talk. Give them something to stay connected. Try "fill in the blank" lecture notes. Delete key words and phrases in your lecture notes to create a "fill in the blank" worksheet. Then ask students to fill in the worksheet while you lecture. Another fun variation - lecture bingo .

Solution #3: Look into the future.

Before a lecture, give students a prediction activity. For example, tell them you will be lecturing on Shakespeare and ask them to predict what you will say, or give them a set of true/false statements and ask them to take their best guess.

As you lecture, instruct students to compare their guesses with what you actually say.

When the lecture is over, have a class discussion and evaluate how accurate student predictions were.

Problem: The lesson emphasizes the teacher, not the students.

Solution #1: Keep them busier than you are.

The traditional classroom of yesteryear had the teacher at the front of the room, droning on while students doze. Re-imagine your classroom as a place where students are busier than you are.

Keep the "sit still and let me talk to you" moments as brief as possible; get those kids working! Give them worksheets, activities, discussions, and projects. That doesn't mean you get to sit around -- you will still be busy, moving from student to student or group to group, correcting, evaluating, or providing feedback. But now everyone is busy and involved.

Homogeneous grouping? Heterogeneous grouping? Tracking? Forget the buzz words: having students work in groups is one of the best ways to increase student participation. Don't keep them in the same groups all the time -give them a chance to be the "smart kid" who can help someone one day and the kid who needs help the next.

Take a traditional worksheet or activity and give it to students in groups. Offer a reward to the group who finishes first with the most answers correct and watch them go! Note: it helps to have additional prizes available to keep groups motivated after the first group "wins." Even high school students enjoy these competitions.

Solution #3: Give them a voice and a choice.

Do students ever get a "say" in your classroom? Of course you need to make most decisions, but there must be some things you could leave up to them - whether it's what color chalk you use today or how long they practice a specific activity.

Kids tune out because they feel like their ideas don't matter. Show them their opinions are important and they'll pay better attention and speak up more in class.

There will always be some unreachable student who won't respond, even with these efforts. But if you give these a try, you may be presently surprised at the previously unreachable students who just might join in!

How do you encourage participation in your class? In what ways did you discover how to motivate students? Share in the comments section!

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top 12 ways to increase student participation

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Top 12 Ways to Increase Student Participation

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Call it "active learning," or "classroom participation" -- every teacher wants to know how to motivate students to particpate, and how to nurture more involved students and fewer apathetic ones. With a little extra planning, that is possible. Below are four common reasons students don't participate and techniques to solve those problems and spice up your lessons.

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Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation

"More hands make for lighter work." "Two heads are better than one." "The more the merrier."

These adages speak to the potential groups have to be more productive, creative, and motivated than individuals on their own.

Benefits for students

Group projects can help students develop a host of skills that are increasingly important in the professional world (Caruso & Woolley, 2008; Mannix & Neale, 2005). Positive group experiences, moreover, have been shown to contribute to student learning, retention and overall college success (Astin, 1997; Tinto, 1998; National Survey of Student Engagement, 2006).

Properly structured, group projects can reinforce skills that are relevant to both group and individual work, including the ability to:

Break complex tasks into parts and steps

Plan and manage time

Refine understanding through discussion and explanation

Give and receive feedback on performance

Challenge assumptions

Develop stronger communication skills.

Group projects can also help students develop skills specific to collaborative efforts, allowing students to...

Tackle more complex problems than they could on their own.

Delegate roles and responsibilities.

Share diverse perspectives.

Pool knowledge and skills.

Hold one another (and be held) accountable.

Receive social support and encouragement to take risks.

Develop new approaches to resolving differences.

Establish a shared identity with other group members.

Find effective peers to emulate.

Develop their own voice and perspectives in relation to peers.

While the potential learning benefits of group work are significant, simply assigning group work is no guarantee that these goals will be achieved. In fact, group projects can - and often do - backfire badly when they are not designed, supervised, and assessed in a way that promotes meaningful teamwork and deep collaboration.

Benefits for instructors

Faculty can often assign more complex, authentic problems to groups of students than they could to individuals. Group work also introduces more unpredictability in teaching, since groups may approach tasks and solve problems in novel, interesting ways. This can be refreshing for instructors. Additionally, group assignments can be useful when there are a limited number of viable project topics to distribute among students. And they can reduce the number of final products instructors have to grade.

Whatever the benefits in terms of teaching, instructors should take care only to assign as group work tasks that truly fulfill the learning objectives of the course and lend themselves to collaboration. Instructors should also be aware that group projects can add work for faculty at different points in the semester and introduce its own grading complexities.

References

Astin, A. (1993). What matters in college? Four critical years revisited. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Caruso, H.M., & Wooley, A.W. (2008). Harnessing the power of emergent interdependence to promote diverse team collaboration. Diversity and Groups. 11, 245-266.

Mannix, E., & Neale, M.A. (2005). What differences make a difference? The promise and reality of diverse teams in organizations. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 6(2), 31-55.

National Survey of Student Engagement Report. (2006). http://nsse.iub.edu/NSSE_2006_Annual_Report/docs/NSSE_2006_Annual_Report.pdf.

Tinto, V. (1987). Leaving college: Rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

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What are the benefits of group work? - Eberly Center - Carnegie Mellon University

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Implementing Group Work in the Classroom | Centre for Teaching Excellence

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Group work can be an effective method to motivate students, encourage active learning, and develop key critical-thinking, communication, and decision-making sk

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Cooperative Learning in the classroom: How to do it

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A true cooperative learning experience requires that a number of criteria be met.

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From the Principal Files

From time to time, Education World updates and reposts an archived article that we think might be of interest to administrators. We hope you find this recently updated article to be of value
Does the accountability movement in schools force teachers to spend more time teaching to the test? Does the emphasis on testing take all the fun out of teaching? Education World's Principal Files principals share their thoughts about the impact of standards and testing on classroom teachers and students.
Standards. Accountability. Testing. Those things are serious business -- on that point most educators would agree. Has the emphasis on accountability had an overall negative impact on teachers and students, however? Has it taken all the fun out of teaching and learning?

It has, if you believe Gail Collins. In a recent New York Times editorial, Collins wrote about a hurricane unit once taught at a Scarsdale middle school. Students loved that unit, which involved them in tracking storms online. The state doesn't test eighth graders about hurricanes, though, so the school dumped the unit.

"School is not about hands-on learning -- it's about how to take tests," one teacher commented. New York City school chancellor Harold Levy told Collins, "Creative teachers hate [testing]. And bad teachers need it."

Testing "is a way of dumbing down the teaching profession, making the job simpler for the instructors who are struggling and making it simultaneously stressful and boring for the people who are capable of working at a much higher level," concluded Collins.

Are Collins's comments right on the mark, or does she overstate the case? Can teaching and learning still be fun in an environment that emphasizes testing and accountability? This month, Education World asked the Principal Files principals what they think.

ACCOUNTABILITY NEED NOT STIFLE CREATIVITY

"I believe we can have accountability, testing, and high standards and still have fun at school," principal Les Potter tells Education World. "We just have to be more creative."

Creative teachers who inspire kids to learn will get the expected test results, agrees principal Mary Ellen Imbo. She recalls when the state of Oklahoma introduced its annual PASS (Priority Academic Student Skills) tests. The tests didn't stop her fifth-grade teachers from having fun, Imbo says. Those teachers teamed up and brainstormed ways to achieve the goals that testing imposed. Content teachers worked with art, music, and physical education teachers. They created integrated units, such as a colonial fair to meet their colonial period objectives and a re-enactment of the Battle of Gettysburg to meet their Civil War objective. The teachers even went for special training in a hands-on algebra technique to help them teach the problem-solving components of PASS.

"I fully understand that creative teachers feel stifled by testing," Imbo explains to Education World. However, the teachers at her school put on their thinking caps and came up with creative solutions. "They had to," she says, "because 83 percent of parents surveyed by the Association of American Publishers want testing. Testing is here to stay."

The importance of brainstorming and getting creative was reinforced for Imbo when she attended a technology conference in 1996. The Japanese secretary of education was one of the conference speakers. "He said that Japan aggressively recruits Americans because our schools foster creativity," says Imbo. "I hope we never lose that quality. If all we do is teach to the test, we will."

ACCOUNTABILITY IS NOT A BAD THING

Les Potter has been an educator for 31 years. Never before has he seen such an all-out emphasis on accountability. However, raising the bar -- creating tougher standards and testing for achievement -- isn't necessarily a bad thing, says Potter.

"I remember my days as a coach, when athletes took the fewest academic courses possible to keep them eligible to play," Potter tells Education World. "When they were ready for college, they went to a community college or a lower-tier college. Worse, I saw many non-athletes who were unprepared for the rigors of college or work because of the weak graduation requirements."

"Standards and accountability take the fun out of teaching only if we choose to focus on all the reasons they might be wrong," adds principal Norma Chenevert.

"Educators have to stop providing all the reasons something won't work," Chenevert states. "We are supposed to model what we expect of our young people. We should not be modeling problems. Instead, we should be modeling teamwork, brainstorming, hands-on learning, critical thinking, and problem solving. If we use those techniques to solve the testing and accountability dilemma, then we will model what we expect of our students."

The movement toward tougher standards and testing can challenge good teachers to find new ways to do it even better, administrator Lyn McCarty tells Education World. "Standards do not have the power to make teaching joyless," McCarty adds. "Good teachers have always been able to lead students to the threshold of their own wisdom, whether they were teaching Spanish, dance, hurricanes, or hexagons. ... The joy is in teaching people to think. A good teacher can do that with a Chilton's Auto Manual for a scope and sequence!"

McCarty feels that the stress on accountability will increase scrutiny on the classrooms of marginal teachers. The changes that result from that scrutiny, and the support that those teachers will get to improve, will likely take the form of new and better teaching that might make the job of teaching "wonderful in new ways."

GO AHEAD -- HOLD ME ACCOUNTABLE -- BUT...

Principal Bill Myers's son is a quality-control supervisor for a large corporation. In that role, the young Myers rejects supplies his company purchases that don't meet minimum standards, his father explains.

"How many teachers and administrators would leap for joy if every student who entered the door had to meet minimum standards?" Myers wonders. "How about if every student came to school each day from a loving household, having eaten a nutritious breakfast, being able to read since pre-school, and understanding the value of education?

"Most people, presidents, senators, representatives, governors, state legislators, and other public-policy people truly do not understand the act of teaching," Myers continues. "Please hold me accountable. Set high standards. I'm not afraid. Just make sure you know what you're doing.

"Testing is not teaching!" Myers concludes. "The more testing we do, the more instructional time we lose. When Illinois students take the Illinois Standards Achievement Tests, they receive feedback only on their scores. They don't even learn what questions they missed or what the correct answers were. What does that teach them? How does that help them learn?"

Mary Ellen Imbo agrees. When it comes to testing, the bottom line is that testing and learning are not synonymous, she tells Education World.

"If teachers are doing effective teaching, and learning is taking place in such a way that kids are really engaged and excited, good test results will follow," maintains principal Judy Burt. Burt and her staff evaluate each year's test results. They target the weakest areas for school-wide emphasis. The real bottom line, Burt adds, is that "we try to do the best we can for the kids as young human beings. If that means spending more time on interpersonal relationships and the arts, then so be it. The students will be happier and more able to learn if there is a joy and friendship in their lives."

"I am not going to get my guts in an uproar over testing," Burt states.

DID EDUCATORS BRING ON ACCOUNTABILITY?

Could it be that the current emphasis on accountability is something educators brought on themselves? Is it just the inevitable extension of approaches that have proved successful in business and government?

The Alliance for Childhood issued a statement regarding high-stakes testing. Following are a few points from that statement:
* The massive [testing] experiment, intended to raise educational achievement, is based on misconceptions about the nature and value of testing and about how children develop a true love of learning.
* We know a great deal about the kinds of schools and assessment practices that best support children's learning. The proliferation of standardized tests places those schools and practices at risk.
* Research suggests that the increased emphasis on standardized testing contributes to the flight of good teachers from public schools.
* Children in low-income areas, where test scores are lowest for reasons mostly unrelated to the quality or dedication of the teachers, have the most to lose. Their teachers are the ones most likely to be branded as failures by high-stakes testing policies.
* Standardized testing may harm children's health by causing excessive test anxiety and stress.

We can be our own worst enemies, principal Walter Lutz tells Education World. "As I reflect back over the past 35 years, I can clearly state that we have done very little to validate exactly what we have accomplished. In many states, we have demanded and gained substantial salary increases, but we have done next to nothing to validate what we have done within our classrooms."

Missouri principal Lolli Haws supports that contention. "Educators and school leaders have not always done a good job of using data -- all types of data -- well. We have not used the excellent information we have to demonstrate that what we're doing is good for kids, that they are learning, and that schools are doing their jobs.

"Because we haven't shown good measures of accountability, we are in a terrible conundrum of having external sources -- usually legislatures and the public they represent -- insist on accountability and actually present educators with the data collection and analysis that they have derived," Haws explains.

"We must become more adept at collecting data to document and prove our excellence," adds Haws. "We also have to make a public case against using a single test as the measure of a child's growth, a school's effectiveness, or a district's quality."

Accountability is not new to the education community, principal Norma Chenevert says. "What is wrong with asking for accountability or a means of assessing it? We are the largest business in our country, and we should be held accountable for achieving what we set as goals.

"We have a lot of flexibility in how we use accountability," Chenevert continues. "Let's move on to finding the best way to do it!"

A SINGLE, HIGH-STAKES TEST IS NOT THE ANSWER

"Most colleges, universities, and businesses want schools to prepare students who can think critically, solve problems, and apply knowledge to a variety of situations," says principal Jim Jordan. "Policy makers, on the other hand, have decided that high-stakes tests provide the measure of a school's ability to prepare students to do those things.

"Teaching students to take tests will make them good test takers, but will it prepare them to be meaningful contributors to the future success of our nation?" Jordan continues.

Many of Education World's Principal Files principals agree with Jordan. Standardized tests don't test a student's ability to classify, hypothesize, generalize, or synthesize. In addition, tests often underestimate the true abilities of students who are not good test takers or overestimate the skills of students who memorize easily but who don't understand.

"It amazes me that there is so much confusion regarding accountability and high-stakes testing," Jordan adds. "Most educators are not opposed to being held accountable as long as everyone who has a role in education is held equally accountable. When communities set high expectations, outline appropriate support strategies, and properly fund the initiatives, we usually see improvement.

"The problem is the incongruence between expectations and accountability measures," Jordan concludes. "Can we evaluate with a paper and pencil test? I think not. Can educators develop better ways of assessing student and school performance? I think so."

Jordan wonders though: Will educators have the opportunity to sell the community at large on better assessment tools? "Probably not," he tells Education World. "Most politicians feel they are experts on schooling because they once attended one. I have attended legislative sessions. Does that make me a legislator?"

The following principals contributed to this Education World article:

Judith S. Burt, Walton Ferry Elementary School,
Hendersonville, Tennessee

Norma G. Chenevert, Pittsburg School,
Pittsburg, New Hampshire

Dr. Lolli Haws, Avery Elementary School,
Webster Groves, Missouri

Mary Ellen Imbo, Westwood Elementary School,
Broken Arrow, Oklahoma (retired)

Dr. James W. Jordan, Buford High School,
Lancaster, South Carolina

Walter J. Lutz, Berwick Middle School,
Berwick, Pennsylvania

Lyn McCarty, coordinator of special education services,
Sacramento, California

Bill Myers, Lincoln Elementary School,
Sterling, Illinois

Dr. Les Potter, Silver Sands Middle School,
Port Orange, Florida

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Has Accountability Taken All the Fun Out of Teaching and Learning?

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From time to time, Education World updates and reposts an archived article that we think might be of interest to administrators. We hope you find this recently updated article to be of value Does the accountability movement in schools force teachers to spend more time teaching to the test?

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Read "Investigating the Influence of Standards: A Framework for Research in Mathematics, Science, and Technology Education" at NAP.edu

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Read chapter 6 Assessment and Accountability in the Education System: Since 1989, with the publication of Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for Mathema...

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Reciprocity - People is so dumb! One of the most basic principles of human behavior is the tendency to reward the kind behavior of others. The reverse is also true; we are inclined to punish those who are unkind.

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Video Presentation of Sharing Responsibility 

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Video Presentation of Sharing Responsibility 

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National College for Teaching and Leadership

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Sharing responsibilities can be fraught with tension. Laura Brodie explains how working with an experienced assistant taught her to share the reins with grace.