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Dean Larry Flick

Do Teachers and University Faculty Learn from Teaching Experience?

October 13th, 2015

I am proposing three issues that are of central concern if we are to become better educating students and move away from the repetitive churn of reforms and worn out language that masks the reality that little change is taking place.

What follows are three principles for impacting change culled from experienced observation of school reform by teachers, administrators, researchers, state leaders, and university faculty. Each category implies changes in the way that professional development and professional discourse has been carried out in the past. The first principle is the mechanism for carrying out the other two.

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Making Time for Students to Think Out Loud

October 21st, 2013

vanessa2The Common Core State Standards in Mathematics and the Next Generation Science Standards will place a greater premium on developing student capabilities for “talking science” or “talking math”.  Spending time in math or science classrooms suggests that this is a radical shift in how instruction is currently performed.

If we are able to accomplish this transition to a form of instruction that values and increases the amount of guided student talk that expresses developing ideas in mathematics and science, we will have gone a long way toward making the subject matter – matter in their lives.  And if we can do that, it is virtually certain we can improve student achievement. Read the rest of this entry »

Developing Skills for Employing New Technologies

October 1st, 2013

technology in the classroomAs we work on proposals to the state, to foundations, and the federal government for funds to learn about building our collective capabilities and assessing outcomes, thinking often turns toward employing new technologies.  The ubiquitous nature of information technologies actually pervades any thinking about how to address educational issues, such as performance in mathematics and stark differences in achievement among various subgroups of students.  Within the setting of our common work, I have been reflecting on how employing new technologies would benefit from the partnership approach discussed in my previous blog entry.
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