A Better Path to Learning

Tag: students

  • Talent, Space, and Time

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    Today’s public education system doesn’t understand the importance of talent, space, and time when it comes to producing smarter and stronger learners. Schools depend on a finite set of teachers, hired to insure student learning. In my old district, our human resources department had to fill 10,000 teaching positions for 200,000 students enrolled in our…

  • Best of the Best – School’s Out: Liberated Parents

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    In September of 2018, I was asked to write an article for Education Reimagined, focusing on the liberated role of parents if schools suddenly didn’t exist, or didn’t exist as a near monopoly like today. The article was part of a series title “School’s Out.” Today, as part of ABPTL’s Best of the Best series,…

  • You Can Lead a Horse to Water…

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    Compulsory education laws have been around since 1852, when Massachusetts became the first state to pass a bill that required public school attendance. These laws were originally put in place to improve literacy rates but also to discourage widespread child labor practices of the 19th and early 20th centuries. I think it’s time to get…

  • Friday News Roundup…

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    I promised to give an update on the listening session I attended this past week at my neighborhood high school. The Des Moines Public Schools (DMPS) offered these sessions after a high school student was shot outside a school a few months ago. The evening reminded me how smart young people are when it comes…

  • Let’s Try a New Type of Learning Cohort

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    The school year is coming to an end. Research tells us more black, brown, and poor kids will end this year more under-performing schools than white, middle-class youngsters – a lot more. Most of the black, brown, and poor kids, attending these low-achieving campuses are, destined for summer school, a place traditionally reserved for kids…

  • What’s a Learning Coach?

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    A learning coach is not a teacher. Most public-school teachers utilize lesson planning, which includes instructional strategies, to present a state-approved curriculum to their students. Most of those strategies are judged successful or not by a state-approved standardized test at the end of a teaching cycle, usually 36 weeks. A learning coach creates a learning…

  • Learning Pods: The New One Room Schoolhouse

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    A few months ago, the Center for Reforming Public Education (CRPE) released a report titled “Crisis Breeds Innovation: Pandemic Pods and the Future of Education. In the report, authors Ashley Jochim and Jennifer Poon’s research offered the first in-depth look at families’ and educators’ experiences with pandemic pods, drawing upon a national survey of 152…

  • Have You Ever Used a Learner Whiteboard?

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    In yesterday’s column, I described The Game Plan as a way to organize your learning. But The Game Plan is a long and rather unwieldy document, so we need to streamline the weekly learning process a bit. The Learner Whiteboard and Learner Whiteboard Part 2 are better ways to organize your learning goals over the…

  • Everyone Needs a Learning Plan

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    Last week I wrote a column focused on the The Scouting Report. To review, The Scouting Report introduces a learning assessment process that asks you where you are with your own learning. It can be used by both adults and young adults alike. It is the first step in establishing a true personalized learning plan.…

  • If You Don’t Believe Me, Ask Bev

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    I’ve been accused of being a grim reaper of sorts when it comes to my public education outlook. My critics tell me that nothing is ever good enough when it comes to these places we call school. Well, if wanting the best for our kids when it comes to their learning and at the same…