Welcome Pros

The content of this page is largely intended for Professional Educators. It contains some rather heavy-duty though very pragmatic instructional methods. Your comments, reactions, concerns and questions are welcomed. Please click on or copy and paste the following survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SFD9L3H
Many Thanks

Thursday, June 16, 2011

It;s the method not the teacher

Fresh Article out of Science Magazine on the difference between Teaching and Teachers...teaching is not an art but a craft.

Study: It's Not Teacher, But Method That Matters

by The Associated Press

A study by a Nobel Prize-

winning physicist, now a science adviser to President Barack Obama, suggests that how you ... Martin Dee, University of British Columbia, Associated Press

Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Fareed Rafiq Zakaria on Best Practices

Here is a very insightful and relevant to this blog's purpose comment from one of the globe's leading thinkers/writers:
We (Americans) are very bad as a society of doing Best Practices…

Fareed Rafiq Zakaria...as spoken on
Charlie Rose, June 1, 2011

Monday, May 16, 2011

It's Not Teacher, But Method That Matters

Breaking News Article in Science Magazine !!!


Study: It's Not Teacher, But Method That Matters

WASHINGTON May 12, 2011, 03:42 pm ET

Who's better at teaching difficult physics to a class of more than 250 college students: the highly rated veteran professor using time-tested lecturing, or the inexperienced graduate students interacting with kids via devices that look like TV remotes? The answer could rattle ivy on college walls.

A study by a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, now a science adviser to President Barack Obama, suggests that how you teach is more important than who does the teaching

This story seems to be a ringing endorsement for our effort to design and implement a systematic way to identify Good, Better and Best Instructional Practices. Most critically it is a contradiction of concepts and precepts of Professionalism to call Education a Profession with this fundamental step incomplete, and worse since it doesn't - until now - seem to even be on anyone's agenda, least of all the US Department of Education. For details on this effort to date see:

http://bestmethodsofinstruction.com/

Related text: Manzo/Manzo/Thomas (2009) Content Area Literacy (Wiley, Publisher)