classroom
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ClassROOM: Teaching and Physical Space
I was thrilled when I learned my schedule this semester: noon to 4 most days, a nice change from my usual 8 a.m. start. Then I learned the catch. When you teach in the middle of the day, it seems, you’re much more likely to end up in a terrible classroom. My first class of Continue reading
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The Problem With Desire Paths
I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about “desire paths” lately, and I don’t like where the talk is going. Tony Baldusaro tells a charming story about desire paths: officials at Disney World were upset about customers scarring the lawns by cutting across them instead of sticking to the sidewalks. They asked Walt Disney how Continue reading
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Cold Call
Are you willing to put your students on the spot? A reader, Damommachef, has asked me to discuss a problem that can arise with classroom dynamics: the Constant Commenter. She says, “Some kids want to constantly comment, but the smartest are often the quietest. How can we get them more involved? How do we subdue Continue reading
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What If They Don’t Do the Required Reading?
It’s a perennial problem for teachers. You plan a great lesson around today’s short story, but it turns out two-thirds of the students haven’t read it. What do you do? Do you kick out the slackers? Give them class time to read it? Give up and do something else? As a follow-up to last week’s Continue reading
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Willing to Read and Write
Yesterday, I told my college students that they need to read the next 150 pages of the novel we are studying, Life of Pi, over the next seven days. This is not news – they got a reading schedule on the first day of class, and were told to read ahead. Nevertheless, there was a Continue reading
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Late Penalties?
Throughout the years, I’ve heard a lot of arguments against giving penalties for late student work. Back in February, Tom Shimmer outlined some of the arguments against late penalties in a post, and they reflect the main argument I’ve heard again and again: students should be evaluated on the learning they can demonstrate, not punctuality. Continue reading
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What Have You Been Thinking About?
Whether you’re a teacher, a parent, a student, or just a citizen of the world who believes that learning is important, you may be thinking about new problems or dwelling on old fears or puzzles as the school year begins. Maybe you’d like to hear what others have to say about your burning questions or Continue reading
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The First Days of School: Then and Now
Today is the beginning of the new school year for me and my colleagues, and many of you will be getting back into the saddle in the next couple of weeks. As I prepare, my thoughts have returned to three of my past posts that still seem timely. The first is called “Mean ‘Til Hallowe’een: Continue reading
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“Either You Can Be a Teacher or You Can Be the Plagiarism Police”
As the new semester creeps nearer, I’m starting to think about plagiarism again. My use of Turnitin.com, a plagiarism-detection software, is helping me relax a bit – last semester, the software made discovering plagiarism, and talking to students about it, a lot easier. However, cheating is a perennial source of anxiety for most teachers, and a Continue reading
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Should We Bid Farewell to the Academic Paper?
Is the academic paper the best way for students to demonstrate their learning? Will learning to write papers help students develop the skills they will need later in their lives? One of my heroes, Virginia Heffernan of the New York Times (whose Sunday Magazine column, The Medium, is sorely missed) writes this week that “Education Continue reading
About Me
My job is to teach people to read and write; aside from that, I like to learn things.
Classroom as Microcosm 