education
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ask Auntie Siobhan, 1st installment: “All My Students Are Cheating!”
My new advice column, “Ask Auntie Siobhan,” debuted on Change.org’s education blog this morning. Today’s topic: why are so many of my students plagiarizing their papers? Please go visit and leave your reactions! And if you have a question for Auntie Siobhan, email me at siobhancurious@gmail.com. I’ll be answering one or two questions a day, Continue reading
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how I saved my teaching career part 6: get more training
The latest post on my series “How I Saved My Teaching Career” appeared on the TimesOnline’s education blog, School Gate, today. This post is about getting more training in order to improve your skills and refresh your perspective. Go check it out! And leave us some comments on the ways you’ve used education to improve Continue reading
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what makes a blog good?
What do you think are the characteristics of a good blog? My goal for today is to put together a handout for my Travel Literature students, who will be blogging next semester as one of their major projects. Before they begin, I’d like to give them a list of criteria for a good blog, focused Continue reading
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The Uses of Boredom
I became a reader because I was bored. I learned to read when I was about four years old, but, like most children, I read only picture books until I was seven. My parents brought me to the library every two weeks, and I filled up on library books at school as well, but picture Continue reading
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Lesson Diary, or, Stuff I Might Do Next Semester
I used to keep a lesson diary. I might start doing it again. I’ve been participating in the Castle Book Club discussion of Daniel T. Willingham’s Why Don’t Students Like School? – half-heartedly, I admit, for two reasons. First, my beloved cat died last week, and since then I’ve been doing everything with only half Continue reading
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10 edublogs I’ve been reading
Keeping a blog gives me a lot of chances to learn from other bloggers. I’m often inspired by someone else’s post, and that inspiration can be the beginning of a terrific conversation and blogging relationship. Below are ten education blogs that are “favourites” in my feed reader. Some of these are well-known and widely appreciated, Continue reading
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There are Worse Things than Dropping Out of School
Craig Althof over at In Pursuit of Excellence emailed me the other day with an article from CNN about “dropout prevention programs” in the United States, including the America’s Promise Alliance’s program, which is chaired by Gen. Colin Powell. The introduction to the article focuses on dropout prevention “foot soldiers” (a coordinator and a police Continue reading
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professional development meme 2009
I’ve been tagged by Tracy Rosen; thanks Tracy! This meme recently appeared on Clif’s Notes. Directions: Summer can be a great time for professional development. It is an opportunity to learn more about a topic, read a particular work or the works of a particular author, beef up an existing unit of instruction, advance one’s Continue reading
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What’s to Like about School?
Did you like school? (Or, if you’re a student now, do you?) I’m reading Daniel T. Willingham’s Why Don’t Students Like School? It’s totally readable and very interesting, and I’ll post a review when I’m done. (I’ve also joined a reading group to discuss it, over at Dangerously Irrelevant; if you’ve been wanting to pick Continue reading
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Who Are Your Gurus?
This week has been an exercise in detachment. I’ve been grading very long and sometimes very difficult final papers, and in a moment of hair-tearing frustration, wrote the post 10 Reasons I Hate Grading Your Assignment. When it went up here and, especially, on my Open Salon blog, there was an outpouring of hilarity, with 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 