Tag: learning

  • I Love My Wife, But…

    Last week I shared an article written by Getting Smart’s Nate McClennen and Tom Vander Ark titled “The Great Education Unbundling and How Learning Will be Rebundled.” The concept of “Unbundled Learning” is part of a six pillar campaign Getting Smart launched last summer. I thought it would be nice to cover the other five…

  • Keep It Simple

    Back in May of 2022, Getting Smart’s Rebecca Midles wrote an interesting article titled “Framing and Designing the HOW.” Midles uses Simon Sinek’s work on organizational why, how, and what as a guide to her writing. As we attempt to create a new system of learning, I thought it wise to return to Midles’s thinking…

  • MLK and Education per Valerie Strauss

    I’m a big fan of Valerie Strauss, the Washington Post education writer, who also authors The Answer Sheet blog. Here is a reprint of an article Strauss shared with her audience on January 17, 2021. “Here, as I have published in recent years to mark the federal holiday honoring the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.,…

  • Friday News Roundup

    It’s Friday, and it’s a cold day in Iowa. Here’s your news roundup. America’s Public Schools Are Losing Students (Axios Finish Line) According to a report by Axios Finish Line this week, “The pandemic has supercharged a trend that has plagued districts across the U.S. for years – students are fleeing public schools.” “Why it…

  • Apprenticeships/ Residencies for Learning Coaches

    Earlier this week, The 74 released an article focused on how the traditional public school system is using apprenticeships to redesign teacher preparation. Reporter Asher Lehrer-Small begins by writing, “Wyoming is vast and sparsely populated. Its only public four-year university is located in Laramie, in the southeast corner of the sharply rectangular state. Those factors…

  • The Rebundling of Learning

    Over a year ago, Nate McClennen and Tom Vander Ark wrote an article for the online newsletter Getting Smart titled “The Great Education Unbundling and How Learning Will be Rebundled.” In the article, McClennen and Vander Ark write, “More schools, more courses, more online learning experiences – for 25 years there has been steady expansion…

  • Learner Agency is Not a School Priority

    One more thought related to yesterday’s post [Try As They May, Schools Just Can’t Innovate] – if you take a look at the text describing various state policy related to desired innovation zones, it’s clear that these descriptions weren’t written by innovators themselves. Innovators employ creative phrases and provide a vision of what is possible.…

  • Friday News Roundup

    It’s usually a slow news week returning from the holidays, but I found a few stories you might be interested in. Quarantines, Not School Closures, Led to Devastating Losses in Math and Reading (The 74) According to a report in The 74 this week, “The recent dismal results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress…

  • Is There Common Purpose Inside Schools?

    I usually try to stay away from political landmines in my posts, but the latest updates on public vaccines, especially when it comes to children, caused me concern. According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) report, “While most of the public continue to have confidence in the benefits of childhood vaccines for measles, mumps,…

  • AI Will be the Death of School As We Know It

    The Van Beck family has a tradition of participating in “table talks” where anyone in the family can bring a topic to the table for discussion. Topics range from politics to climate change to cheating – yes, that’s right, cheating. Specifically cheating at school. Is group work cheating? Allowing a student to take an open…