Thinking and Linking Pt. 4

This Edutopia post by Suzie Boss is a little scattershot in its coverage of some of the issues related to project-based learning, but it gets right at the heart of the matter by asking teachers to design projects focused on "what's worth learning" - in other words, to determine the learning outcomes in advance of the project.

USA Today published an opinion piece advocating for greater cultural competency and culturally-relevant teaching in addressing the differing needs of Latinos and African Americans. This is a much-needed step in beginning to close the achievement and equity gap between those groups on one hand, and Asian Americans and Caucasians on the other hand.

EdWeek had a report from AERA on meta-studies looking at teacher evaluation systems. Some interesting results came out: most systems "use too few classroom observations, indicators that are not effective at gauging student achievement, and lump teachers into too-simplistic categories". This has interesting synergy with the Huffington Post's five recommendations for a good evaluation process, from the perspective of teachers.

To riff again on the teachers-coaching-admin theme, here's a post on CNN about what one teacher wants in and from her administrators.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports on a public school district trying to take a step in the right direction about grades.

Societal expectations and children's own development often lead parents to back away from direct interaction with their children's educational experience as a child reaches middle school and high school. U.S. News offers some good reasons why it's important to stay engaged during these critical years, starting with the quality of student learning.

The New York Times reported on the debate between Core Knowledge and Balanced Literacy. In addition to the important critiques of the study raised in the article, I want to know who gets to determine what content knowledge is important to test for in K-2 reading comprehension, and what testing mechanisms were used.

Here's a great one-two ending combo advocating for the social and emotional lives of children. First, The Washington Post gives ASCD a platform to advocate for whole-child education. Second, CNN tells us the love is the key to brain development in children. Hurrah!