In this episode of the Progressively Incorrect podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Jasmine Lane. Jasmine is a secondary English teacher who recently moved from the U.S. to teach in England. I first came across Jasmine through her blog, jasmineteaches.wordpress.com, which was originally about her experiences as a first-year teacher. Back in those … Continue reading S2E2: Jasmine Lane on Subject Expertise and Why She’ll Never Go Back to Teaching in the U.S.
S2E1: Paul A. Kirschner on Minimally Guided Instruction and Cognitive Load
In this episode of the Progressively Incorrect podcast, I had the pleasure of speaking with Paul A. Kirschner. Paul is Emeritus Professor at the Open University of the Netherlands as well as Guest Professor at the Thomas More University of Applied Sciences in Antwerp, Belgium. He is the author of several books, including How Learning … Continue reading S2E1: Paul A. Kirschner on Minimally Guided Instruction and Cognitive Load
Different Schools for Different Fools
To celebrate the completion of my dissertation and my contribution to a new book, I allowed myself back onto Twitter. I had been tweeting via Hootsuite and self-blocking Twitter on my technology so that I could focus on these projects, free from the weight of the nonsense that tends to dominate the platform. My return … Continue reading Different Schools for Different Fools
Do We Want Our Students to Struggle?
Like so many buzzwords in education, it's hard to pin down what people mean by the term "Productive Struggle". Of the two meanings of Productive Struggle I've heard being used most often, the good meaning is uncontroversial, and the bad - and more popular - meaning encourages teachers to abandon principles of effective instruction. The … Continue reading Do We Want Our Students to Struggle?
S1E10: Special Edition
In this episode, Zach flies to the Midwest to meet up with Brad to tape a road trip edition of Progressively Incorrect. Along the way, the duo stop at the highest point of Ohio, the first paved road in the USA, and find (some) common ground in their debate over progressive versus traditional ideas in education.
The Private School Penalty
For the past 9 years, I've worked in private independent and international schools, and before that, I trained and worked in public schools. As I've written before, the challenges that teachers experience in each of these contexts are vastly different. A pedagogy consisting largely of unstructured tasks with ill-defined goals, coupled with a laissez-faire approach … Continue reading The Private School Penalty
S1E9: On Students’ (Mis)judgments of Learning and Teaching Effectiveness by Carpenter et al.
In this episode of Progressively Incorrect, Zach Groshell and Bradley Arnold discuss "On Students’ (Mis)judgments of Learning and Teaching Effectiveness" by Shana Carpenter and colleagues. While it may be popular to collect student opinion on instructional matters, there is often a conflict between what students think is effective and what is actually effective. We discuss many of the ways that student opinion can have negative or positive effects on the quality of students' education.
S1E8: The Dynamic Tension at the Core of the Grammar of Schooling by David F. Labaree
In this episode of Progressively Incorrect, Zach Groshell and Bradley Arnold discuss "The Dynamic Tension at the Core of the Grammar of Schooling" by David F. Labaree (@DLabaree). The discussion has us both acknowledging that organizational needs - i.e., what is doable - often prevent large-scale changes to the "grammar of schooling", such as age-graded classrooms, teacher-centered instruction, and a decentralized curriculum.
Cringe!
My last blog post seems to have been this site’s 200th post. What a journey it’s been. Long time readers may have noticed that Stephanie (my wife) used to contribute about half of the posts on educationrickshaw.com. Lately she’s been too busy being one of the best literacy specialists in the country to be messing … Continue reading Cringe!
S1E7: Dewey Outlines Utopian Schools (1933) by John Dewey
In this episode of Progressively Incorrect, Zach Groshell and Bradley Arnold discuss a New York Times article by John Dewey with the headline, "Dewey Outlines Utopian Schools." Much of the discussion revolves around whether any of Dewey's utopian ideas could be realistically implemented in the world we live in, and both of us question whether informal interest-based learning without a core curriculum would do more harm than good.
Education Rickshaw 