The posts about teaching. Midgard education company. USA.

curriculum Ethnic Studies is History: New Curriculum Guidelines We applaud California’s recent attempts to broaden the curriculum in high school to include greater diversity. We all love Benjamin Franklin and Abraham Lincoln, but the American story is so much richer when we include the voices of Hispanics, African-Americans, Native Americans, Jews, Muslims, immigrants of all kinds, gender non-binary folks, the differently abled, and, of course, the most glaring omission in most current history books, women. White men are wonderful, so is everybody else. continue reading September 9, 2019

education T.G.I.S. for Teachers Thank God It’s Summer. Well, Summer’s almost here—and to us that means dancing in the streets. But in between the boogie and the woogie, here are some revitalizing tips for teachers. continue reading May 31, 2019

best practices Three Ways to Assess Without Test Stress Quizzes, games, and short tests to measure comprehension can be helpful to the teacher and fun for the students. But, when it comes to a summative evaluation of student work we often feel stuck with a long test about facts and/or a five-paragraph essay. Long tests do nothing but measure how many facts students can jam into their heads for a day or so before everything is forgotten. Essays are better—if the student is a verbal learner. If not, they just create stress and mental pabulum dripped onto the page or screen. There are other ways to assess how well students are incorporating information and demonstrating understanding. continue reading May 16, 2019

best practices What's the Question? What if I told you that asking questions is the single most important skill we can teach students? Aren’t questions the key to developing critical thinking skills and to writing with depth and complexity? What is all inquiry-based learning based on if not asking questions? continue reading May 10, 2019

best practices What Leonardo Taught Me About Teaching Techniques in one field can be applied to another. In Michael J. Gelb’s book, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci, he finds life advice in the Renaissance master’s notebooks that, with a New Age spin, he repurposes to help everybody maximize the genius within. Taking one from Gelb and adding a couple more that I found in Leonardo’s work, I’ll boil it down to three nuggets. continue reading May 10, 2019

diversity Including You In a recent controversy, one of the nation’s biggest textbook publishers, McGraw-Hill, had to amend a hundred thousand books because of incorrect description of African slaves in the U.S. as “agricultural workers.” Beyond editorial oversight, this reveals a bias towards Euro-American perspectives. continue reading May 4, 2019

best practices The Middle School Brain It’s a mess. A young child’s brain is like a tree growing tall and filled with beautifully colored leaves. Then at 11 or 12, a storm hits, shaking the tree, stripping the leaves, cracking the branches, and twisting the trunk. That’s the middle school brain. continue reading May 4, 2019

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