Showing posts with label assessment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label assessment. Show all posts

Monday, April 13, 2020

What is Failure?

I don't believe in failure, only relative degrees of success.

Despite what some may say, learning is defined in more than one context. The lessons we learn come in many shapes and forms, and I'm not sure I understand failing them. I suppose in a quantitative context, if we establish a benchmark standard, then technically everything that falls below this is a failure. Let's explore failure in the context of how it's typically defined in education...
failure [ˈfeɪljə]
n
1. the act or an instance of failing
2. a person or thing that is unsuccessful or disappointing
3. nonperformance of something required or expected
4. cessation of normal operation; breakdown
5. an insufficiency or shortage
6. a decline or loss, as in health or strength
7. the fact of not reaching the required standard in an examination, test, course, etc
8. the act or process of becoming bankrupt or the state of being bankrupt
failure. (n.d.). Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. Retrieved January 04, 2013, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/failure
In education, failure is often defined by number seven above... The fact of not reaching the required standard in an examination, test, course, etc... So we set standards for students to aspire to, and everything below that is a failure... but what if we defined failure in a system's context...
From Wikipedia-
Systems thinking is the process of understanding how things, regarded as systems, influence one another within a whole... systems thinking has been defined as an approach to problem solving, by viewing "problems" as parts of an overall system, rather than reacting to specific part, outcomes or events and potentially contributing to further development of unintended consequences. Systems thinking is not one thing but a set of habits or practices within a framework that is based on the belief that the component parts of a system can best be understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation. Systems thinking focuses on cyclical rather than linear cause and effect.
I am so intrigued by this concept. What if we were to think of students as systems unto themselves with many components (variables) who could best be understood in the context of relationships with each other and with other systems, rather than in isolation? What if we just thought of failure in a system's context as the act or an instance of failing; the first definition above? Could we then accept that failure doesn't have to have a negative connotation, nor does it have to be defended through some sort of rationalization... it would be just what it is- the act or instance of failing.

If we were to think of failure in this regard when a student fails it would be perceived as a breakdown somewhere in the system (student) that affected the students' overall ability to perform as expected. It would be assumed that some part of a relationship within the system (student) or in the way the student relates to another system (person, concept, teacher, content, schedule, organization, etc.) is malfunctioning, and as a result, support is required. Reflective analysis of how the system broke down would be the default reaction, then action could be taken to restore the system's interactions to purposeful and functional states designed to mitigate the failure.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Informed Practice Makes Perfect...

flickr image via matthewpiatt

Well, maybe not perfect, but a whole lot better.

I was involved in a conversation about learning disorders recently, (I actually prefer to call them learning challenges.) I myself am a challenged learner... learning disabled in the traditional sense. I am dyslexic. The problem is I didn't know I was dyslexic until I was in my second year of university. I was taking an educational psychology course and we were talking about learning disabilities. As the professor described dyslexia, I began to remember the sorts of problems I had in school, and then I began to wonder if perhaps I was dyslexic. I spoke to him after class, and we decided to assess my problem. Sure enough; I was dyslexic. So how come it took until I was 21 years old to figure that out?

There isn't a teacher in the universe that would deny learning disorders can be terribly detrimental to a child's learning progress. I am certain that I have dealt with dozens of learning disabled kids during my teaching career. I am also certain that the vast majority of these kids are surviving in school, as I did, undiagnosed, or perhaps misdiagnosed... an equally or perhaps even more serious concern for teachers trying to do the right thing for all students.

Here's the problem... teachers aren't qualified to diagnose learning disorders, (unless of course they are also trained psychologists,) however, they are expected to effectively support kids who suffer from one or more of them even if they don't know exactly what the potential disabilities are. Teachers are confronted with the reality that they must teach kids who may very well present with a legitimate learning disorder, but also that they will seldom be working with really good data to support the effective mitigation of the problem. We are not practicing in an informed way when it comes to learning disorders. We need to know what a child is challenged by, and we need to know that early enough in the game to curb any added anxiety and stress a child will inevitably feel when he knows he is struggling.

I submit that we need to invest in a process that assesses every child early enough in primary school to know what learning path we should be travelling. We need to ask every child what works best for them, and investigate ways to make that a reality. We can't continue playing guessing games long after a child is deemed to be struggling... we shouldn't let them get to the point of struggle. We should be responsibly assessing them at the beginning of their learning story in order to support them all the way through their kindergarten to grade twelve journey. A cognitive test for every child early enough in the school experience would eliminate the ineffective trial and error game we play later on when we notice a child isn't "getting it."

Assessment costs money... of course it does. Pay now, or pay later? How many teacher, counselor, learning assistant and educational consultant hours are spent guessing and checking what challenges may be present for kids? I will guess when compared to the cost of early and comprehensive assessment for all kids so we can fly with instruments right from the start, that the total cost in person hours trying to deal with the problem is very high, and may end up being more expensive than just doing the assessment in the beginning.

I recently viewed this TED talk by Dr. Aditi Shankardass... A second opinion on learning disorders:



I can't imagine there would be more compelling evidence supporting the effort we should be making to be informed about every learner before they begin to experience stress and anxiety as a result of potential learning disorders. It appears Dr. Shankardass has proven that these "disorders" need not be terribly detrimental if we can become aware of them early enough to establish good action plans mitigating the challenge and maximizing learning opportunities for kids. Knowledge is power. We need to empower kids by helping them understand themselves within their own learning contexts.

I sure would have liked to know about my dyslexia when I was a kid.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Differentiated assessment...

flickr image via Stuck in Customs

Great strides have been made to adjust our instruction to meet individual student needs, but often we don't adjust the way we assess this individualized learning. Differentiated instruction must at some point lead to differentiated assessment, otherwise we're fooling ourselves.

Students are all on their own timeline and we're finally starting to realize that we need to figure out what that timeline is in order to apply an optimized and purposeful learning experience. We need to meet them where they're at and help them learn forward. This is the differentiation process. It accounts for a student's particular learning styles, interests, strengths and weaknesses and adjusts for them to optimize learning. However, once we've done such a good job creating an appropriate and fair learning context for individual kids, we often ruin the process by not making a reciprocal effort to create an appropriate and fair assessment context for individual kids.

There are countless ways to assess learning; some really good and some really bad. I'm not going to get into the debate over which are which here. I'm just going to say that teachers should be making as much  effort to find the right way to assess each student as they do to find the right way to teach each student based on the learning styles, interests, strengths and weaknesses of each one.

How best to do this is up to each teacher and how much is known about each of their students' learning stories. Time should be provided for teachers to investigate the background of each student. A major element of this process should include asking students how best they learn and providing learning opportunities that match what they tell us. We should be engaging them as early as kindergarten to do this.

The thirteen-year learning story starts in kindergarten, and there are many ways kids show us what works for them and what doesn't. Observing and noting their reactions to particular learning tasks, watching them play and discover provides us the chance to get a glimpse into their unique perspectives. Keeping one eye on the prescribed curriculum outcomes, and the other on creative ways to achieve them in consideration of each child's learning preferences seems to me a great strategy to begin walking a good learning path alongside each of them.

However, assessing a whole class the same way after successfully and creatively designing a learning environment that accommodates the unique and individual learning variables of each student doesn't appear to make too much sense to me.

Friday, March 4, 2011

It's not the test; it's the timing of the test....


Recent #ecosys Twitter (EcoSys: Exploring the future of K12 Education) chat surrounding the issue of common core curricular standards has me thinking about how EduKare would respond to the issue. In the interest of furthering the EduKare thought experiment, like everything else about an EduKare approach to teaching and learning, the element of assessment would require a series of small shifts as opposed to piecemeal change. Twisting the lens regarding how we view the role of assessment in education allows EduKare proponents to use their best integrative thinking to identify currently useful elements of assessment, and insightful, informed ways to improve them. Despite what some educators appear to believe, it's essential that we know what kids know.

Friday, July 23, 2010

Assessment reform... are we going in circles?


I'm admittedly torn about the assessment thing... I'm left wondering whether opposition to perpetual reform of how teachers assess students is based more on a lack of understanding and poorly communicated strategy than fear or top-down direction to the contrary. Teachers need to find balance between high-quality current assessment practise, and action-oriented efforts to make future practise even better.

At the core of professional, responsible assessment is really strong and meaningful (real-time) communication (feedback) with students. Effective and solidly researched assessment practise (portfolio-based, two-way dialog between teacher and learner... group dialog has a place here as well- and perhaps even peer evaluation) is nothing new. Like many logical and pedagogically sound improvements to what teachers do, when we think we've discovered something new, some immediately and inevitably begin to resist out of ignorance. Seems to me the assessment issue is a black swan- we think we've discovered 'new' and better ways to assess students, and now we're busy aggressively trying to justify them and convince our colleagues that they need to follow our lead and implement the same assessment strategies because they are more effective than those that the "uninformed" utilize.

For decades, teachers have been doing assessment in relatively the same manner- summative, high stakes, 'bell-curved' tests have been the norm for a long time... and that's OK because these were what defined the limits of our understanding about how best to provide useful and positive feedback to students. Few would have predicted we would find better ways to evaluate students, (if the case were otherwise, it would have happened sooner...) but the reality is that today, we know more about how assessment works. Teachers don't have to justify pedagogically sound and responsible assessment, they just need to do it. Simply practising research-based, effective and meaningful assessment of students that surpasses previously-held understanding of what "works" is the best way to communicate best-practise with our colleagues...  morphic resonance will take care of the rest.

Teachers are professionally obliged to perpetually seek improved ways to do everything we do... including assessing students. Even more importantly, we are professionally responsible to share what we discover with others meaningfully, pragmatically and incrementally. The tipping point of assessment reform depends on how well we can display the effectiveness of new ways to evaluate students over time; and it will take time. It will also depend on our avoiding getting stuck in any "new" way of doing assessment. Like our limited perspective and conditioned acceptance regarding traditional forms of student assessment that have permeated our craft for decades, if we were to begin doing assessment differently, and then become resistant to critical analysis leading to even better ways, we'd right back where we started, wouldn't we?

I'm growing weary once again of the dichotomous perspective teachers appear to default toward on so many issues. There's the "old" way of doing something, and then there's the new (right) way according to the person making the claim. Instead of the old vs. new way of doing assessment, I think teachers should simply always be looking for the better way. To deny that this is a good, professional perspective would be ridiculous.

Change doesn't have to delineate right vs. wrong ways of doing things. When viewed as constant improvement, change never ends, and things never stop improving because getting it right simply becomes making it better... everyday. There are no meaningful static goals in the education assessment realm. To be truly striving for excellence, the bar must be continuously inched upward.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Competition doesn't have to be a four letter word...

flickr CC image via stockicide

Competition isn't inherently bad. Whether a competitive learning environment is perceived as positive or negative depends entirely on the context within which we define competition.

When it comes to competition, once again, educators are polarizing an issue unnecessarily. It's a black and white issue for us- either we endorse competitive learning environments as positive teaching and learning, or we denounce them as a negative influence. I think it's when we impose a norm-referenced competitive learning environment on kids in school that it becomes potentially negative and perhaps debilitating.

There has to be a middle ground.

Are we not competitive by nature? Just watch a group of kids playing sometime... inevitably, and without provocation, they will engage in some sort of competition... seeing how long they can hold there breath under water, seeing how high they can climb on the monkey bars or just having a friendly running race... kids like competition when it's designed by them. Why not nurture this tendency in school? Perhaps we need to let kids be the authors of their own learning to a degree. Perhaps this is the middle ground we should target.

Let's use a standards-based learning (SBL) environment as our positive example. In as SBL environment, every student is judged against a set of learning standards that are consistent and measurable. When these standards are differentiated into levels of achievement, they also allow for a considerable amount of assessment flexibility. SBL environments permit us to get away from variations of a Gaussian Curve analysis of any particular group of students- arguably an unfair and statistically-biased form of summative assessment, and instead focus on the individual achievement of each student. In this context, each student is competing against his own prior levels of achievement, working to improve his knowledge and skill-set... taking on the responsibility for directing his own learning. In my mind there's nothing wrong with this form of competition.

Education, like golf, is ultimately an individually driven effort... to be successful at golf we need only to worry about our own score... to be successful at learning we need only to be concerned with our own progress.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Is Testing Education's Red Herring?


flickr CC image via timparkinson

I'm blown away by the volume of Twitter posts addressing the issue of testing in education. An inordinate amount of time and energy is being spent on the controversy, and I'm of the opinion that this is taking us away from the real task of getting on with creating effective strategies addressing the assessment challenge, and also from other educational issues that have been pushed aside by the volume of debate over testing. Before you get all riled up about the title of this post, hear me out just a bit.
  • I'm all for improving the manner in which we assess and evaluate students... we should never, never stop doing this.
  • There are undoubtedly strong arguments favouring alternatives to high-stakes, one shot win or lose forms of summative assessment.
  • We must evaluate students if we are to call ourselves professionals. To do so is responsible, necessary and important professional work.
I worry that the frenetic pace with which teachers around the world are slamming traditional forms of assessment is taking away from the real work of suggesting viable alternatives, and I don't mean alternatives that are so far removed from conventional wisdom that they don't have a chance in you know where of becoming common practice. There are logistical problems... how do we ensure that all kids are assessed fairly and comprehensively to establish appropriate educational transition plans, and to ensure that every one of them feels supported and enabled to approach their dreams without prejudice? This is no small task. I hear a lot of statements about what is wrong with the state of assessment in education, but beyond the regular "ban multiple choice exams" rhetoric, (perhaps there are viable alternatives,) I don't hear many really solid solutions to the problem... just bandwagon-jumping complaints addressing the inadequacy and inappropriateness of conventional testing methods.

Like it or not, education can't happen for free, and as long as taxpayers are paying government to provide an education system, there will be requirements for government to be accountable to them for their investment. This is not inherently bad really, is it? In turn, why shouldn't the education system be expected to be accountable for its investment in learning? It's not whether we should be accountable for what we do in education, but rather how we'll be accountable, that we should be discussing intelligently and openly. Whether students, parents, teachers or government, we should all be targeting the same outcomes surrounding and supporting student success... why not do this collaboratively in their best interests?

Cardinal rule  number one when making decisions affecting how we support kids- ask whether the decision is in their best interest to the exclusion of any other variable. If the answer is yes, you're likely on the right track, and I refuse to believe there is as agenda out there that intentionally damages kids... no matter the group, we need to default to a perspective that assumes people are doing the best they can for kids with the knowledge and experience they represent, and if that's not enough, we need to talk rationally about why, and where to go next.

Let's stop bandwagon-jumping and get talking about alternatives that have hope; alternatives that are viable enough to satisfy the testing gods on high because their effectiveness is undeniable. Let's be smarter than the problem. Let's do our homework, and instead of illuminating the problem, let's illuminate some solutions.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Systems-Centered Standards

flickr CC image via PinkMoose

The problem with education standards in North America is they are system centered. My friend Gord Atkinson (via Twitter @Principal20) came up with a sadly accurate definition of a system-centered education system- he characterizes it as budget crossed with social engineering. Brilliant, and tragically a massive reason why we're not moving education reform forward toward what it should be; a child development centered system.

It sounds crazy that a system centered approach to education would ever be good- like restaurants serving food without asking the customers what they want. Gord's assessment that budget and social engineering are at play makes the issue easier to understand, if not to accept.

To state the obvious, there is a cost to education. Of course fiscal responsibility is critical if government is to continue to provide any sort of education system; this isn't at question, but how much really is our system dependent on the almighty dollar? In "Why Is It Always About the Funding?" I stated that,
...obviously funds are required to support many elements of the education system. Teachers need to get paid, resources need to be supplied and schools need to be built and maintained, however, when it comes to ideas supporting better practise, I would submit that perhaps the best education reforms require no financial support whatsoever...  As intelligent professionals who know tacitly what works and what doesn't in their classrooms and schools, teachers typically integrate and synthesize their philosophical thoughts in an effort to reform their personal practise and refine their craft. I've had enough professional conversations with my teaching colleagues to know that collectively, we also have a lot to say about how these efforts can be extrapolated to a broader education reform context.
We need to accept that politics are politics, (party agendas, personal political aspirations, fiscal realities and the never-ending quest for power are obvious factors that affect not just the funding of education, but every publicly funded institution,) and if we're going to tip education reform so that it reflects a child development-centered philosophy we need to get past our obsession with blaming government for our system inadequacies. Government is what it is; it will always require that education answers to a set of standards that reflect the relative success of the system. Understanding this, and also being pedagogical experts, it's incumbent upon teachers to show government that we too aren't interested in removing standards, but that we are interested in defining better ways to reach them. Let's let the government define the standards, while we define the path to get there.

As opposed to what we seem to approach as an absolute process with end goals, education reform should be a ubiquitous, constant, never-ending process. If we intend to move toward a child development-centered education system, teachers need to take the lead role in showing government that we know better ways to teach and evaluate kids so learning is evident, and that in many cases will cost less. The obvious example is weaning the system from high-stakes, standardized testing routines. We have come to accept these tests as just something we do, but this hasn't always been the case.This interesting article from the New York Times highlights the arbitrary and inconclusive nature of these tests. Amidst this controversy and considering the massive cost to administer these tests, why not instead let teachers decide to what degree learning standards have been met by individual students? After all, teachers spend two hundred days with their students every year; can we not trust their insight into how well curriculum goals have been met in each student's case?

Another cost-saving measure could be to move away from unsustainable forms of teaching and learning resources; paper textbooks being the obvious example. As soon as a textbook is published, contemporary access to digital information has made it yesterday's information. There is also an argument that textbook learning perhaps isn't the most effective way to learn anyway. Teachers know that authentic learning is displayed when it's relevant, current and applicable to a student's future, and they also know that a textbook isn't required as part of the process. Let's increase access to the digital universe, and allow teachers unfettered access to assist in creating relevant, current and applicable learning environments.

High-stakes standardized test routines and textbook style learning resources are not necessarily the only ways to measure and apply teaching and learning. They are multimillion dollar enterprises though, and the cost to education is unimaginable. All of a sudden, teachers start to look like a bargain at twice the price when compared to the cost of standardized tests and textbooks considering we can provide better, more authentic, child development-centered learning and assessment environments without either of these influences.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Control...

flickr CC image via ms. Tea

Uncontrolled Thoughts on Control:

Students don't often fit very well into the assessment categories we have established. They develop at their own pace, reach milestones on their terms and hold a perspective that is theirs alone and impossible for us to decipher, yet when we are pressed to evaluate their progress, we do so in comparison to benchmark standards that we as educators have subjectively designated.

When educators prescribe standards of achievement that target a classic Gaussian Probability Distribution, or bell curve outcome, we are essentially rejecting the quantum possibilities that originate within the standard deviations that fall outside the curve.

Virtually any black swan event in history that I'm aware of originated outside the curve, so to speak. Genuinely earth shattering ideas don't often originate somewhere in the mean.

Perhaps in our quest for ultimate control over student outcomes, we have actually lost control... that is, any amount that may have been within our grasp in the realm of learning and its infinite possibilities.
Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog

Labels

learning (55) teaching (49) education reform (29) authentic learning (24) students (24) EduKare (20) school (20) effective teaching (19) resiliency (19) educational leadership (13) creative teaching (12) education (12) hope (12) change (11) collaboration (11) creativity (11) educational change (11) perspective (11) #edchat (10) 21st Century Learning (10) Glendale School (10) caring (10) leadership (10) school climate (10) school culture (10) support (10) assessment (9) #EduKare (8) culture (8) empathy (8) professional development (8) teachers (8) at-risk kids (7) inquiry-based learning (7) learning circles (7) learning stories (7) student success (7) technology (7) technology integration (7) Sean Grainger (6) at-risk (6) collaborative teaching (6) pre-service teachers (6) purpose (6) resilience (6) responsive teaching (6) teacher training (6) Alberta Education (5) Bell Curve (5) Twitter (5) action (5) empathy reboot (5) engaging (5) integrative thinking (5) kids (5) mentor teachers (5) public schools (5) relationships (5) student (5) teach (5) teacher (5) beliefs (4) belonging (4) bullying (4) children (4) debate (4) diversity (4) high-stakes testing (4) hope wheel (4) inclusion (4) learn (4) pedagogy (4) possibility (4) school leadership (4) #ACE #school #edchat (3) #cpchat (3) ConnectED (3) LCU (3) action research (3) child development (3) choice (3) classroom (3) commitment (3) communication (3) community (3) counseling (3) creative (3) dreams (3) duty to care (3) ed reform (3) educators (3) failure (3) fun (3) growboys (3) hope alliance (3) inquiry (3) interculturalism (3) karegivers (3) life-long learning (3) mentorship (3) mindfulness (3) nemetics (3) professionalism (3) reflection (3) thinking differently (3) transformational leadership (3) understanding (3) #KARE #students (2) #ecosys (2) #nemetics (2) #redcamp13 (2) #teaching (2) Bloom's Taxonomy (2) Control (2) Google (2) Innovative Voices in Education- Engaging Diverse Communities (2) Moore's Law (2) PD (2) Tao Teh Ching (2) adversity (2) alternative teaching (2) audience (2) balance (2) behavior (2) behaviorism (2) best educational practice (2) blogging (2) boys (2) bully (2) bully prevention (2) care (2) challenge (2) change agent (2) character (2) circles (2) classroom management (2) competition (2) connect (2) connecting with kids (2) covid19 (2) development (2) dialog (2) digital technology (2) disagreement (2) edcamp (2) edkare (2) education change (2) effective classrooms (2) etmooc (2) evaluation (2) facts (2) fear (2) feelings (2) formative assessment (2) future (2) goals (2) groupthink (2) growth (2) heuristic (2) ideas (2) independent thinking (2) innovation (2) interdependence (2) journey (2) learning story (2) listening (2) love (2) management (2) mastery (2) mindful (2) morphic resonance (2) multiculturalism (2) new teachers (2) opinions (2) opportunity (2) passion (2) personal learning network (2) phenomenological (2) philosophy (2) project-based learning (2) question (2) resilient (2) resolution (2) responsibility (2) self-esteem (2) self-organized learning environments (2) servant leadership (2) share (2) social-media (2) special education (2) standardized tests (2) struggling schools (2) student support (2) success (2) sympathy (2) teacher growth (2) teacher welfare (2) trauma (2) trust (2) unconditional love (2) unconference (2) university (2) values (2) vision (2) voice (2) words (2) "Art of Possibility" (1) #LCU (1) #bellletstalk (1) #ccunesco2014 (1) #covid19 (1) #humanKIND (1) #learning (1) #positive childhood experiences (1) #printernet (1) #rip (1) #schoolleaders (1) #speakchat (1) #teacher (1) #tg2chat (1) #toughloveforx #michaeljosefowicz (1) 40 Developmental Assets (1) ATLE 2010 (1) Africa (1) Black Swan (1) Brokenleg (1) Calgary Science School (1) Circle of Courage (1) Curate (1) Daniel Durant (1) Dry Island Buffalo Jump (1) FBA (1) Fouth Way (1) Geoffrey Canada (1) Grow Boys (1) Howard Gardner (1) Impact (1) Instructional leadership (1) John Dewey (1) Kathryn Schultz (1) Lao Tzu (1) MIT (1) Michael Josefowicz (1) Nunavut (1) Occam;s |Razor (1) PBL (1) PLN (1) Phoebe Prince (1) Piaget (1) Red Deer (1) SBL (1) SOLE (1) Search Institute (1) Second Way (1) Shankardass (1) TED (1) Vygotsky (1) Wangler (1) ableism (1) aboriginal (1) accountability (1) achievement (1) actions (1) anger (1) answer (1) applied behavior (1) applied research (1) apprenticeship (1) aptitude (1) aquaintances (1) at risk (1) athletics (1) authentic (1) autonomy (1) badges (1) being wrong (1) believing (1) benchmark (1) blended learning (1) blog (1) borders (1) brain research (1) budget (1) business (1) cdnedchat (1) chaos (1) character education (1) charity (1) child (1) child-development (1) clarity (1) collaborate (1) communciation (1) communicate (1) conference (1) confidence (1) conflict (1) consciousness (1) conversation (1) cooperation (1) coordinated children's services (1) counselling (1) critical thinking (1) curiosity (1) curriculum (1) democracy (1) destiny (1) developmental (1) differentiated learning (1) differentiation (1) digital citizen (1) digital immigrant (1) diigo (1) dissonance (1) dyslexia (1) early learning (1) education innovation (1) effort (1) emotions (1) enabling (1) endogenous (1) engaged (1) engagement (1) equity (1) ethics (1) excellence (1) existentialism (1) fail (1) faith (1) family (1) fate (1) fatherhood (1) feedback (1) feminine (1) finding voice (1) focus (1) forgiveness (1) friends (1) gender differences (1) gender identity (1) global education (1) goal setting (1) governing body (1) grandfather (1) happiness (1) happy (1) hard work (1) hardware (1) healing (1) healthy (1) high school (1) higher education (1) homework (1) honesty (1) hop (1) humankind (1) humility (1) iconoclastic (1) ideology (1) imagery (1) imagination (1) improbable (1) inclusive (1) inclusive education (1) indigenous knowledge (1) inspiration (1) instinctual (1) interdependent (1) internalize (1) internship (1) interpersonal (1) intuitive (1) judgement (1) knowledge (1) lacrosse (1) leading (1) leaps of faith (1) learning circle (1) learning disabilities (1) learning disorders (1) learning from place (1) learning goals (1) learning spaces (1) learning styles (1) learning tools (1) lecture (1) library (1) lifelong-learning (1) limits (1) literacy (1) lobby (1) manhood (1) masculine (1) masculinity (1) math (1) medicine wheel (1) men (1) micro-blogging (1) mindfullness (1) mission (1) mistakes (1) morals (1) motivation (1) navigate (1) negative reinforcement (1) network (1) networking (1) new year resolution (1) objectify (1) objective (1) open education (1) open-source (1) operant conditioning (1) outcomes (1) overcome (1) pandemic (1) partisan (1) pass (1) patience (1) peace (1) polarity (1) positive (1) positive reinforcement (1) positivity (1) positve dissonance (1) postmodern (1) poverty (1) power point (1) practice (1) pride (1) private logic (1) productivity (1) professional organization (1) progression (1) questioning. Socrates (1) rally (1) rationalization (1) rdcrd (1) rdpsd (1) re-frame (1) re-tool (1) reality (1) receive (1) reclaim (1) redcamp15 (1) relative (1) relativism (1) relevance (1) research (1) resourcefulness (1) rest (1) revolution (1) ritual (1) routine (1) scholar (1) scholarship (1) sciences (1) scrutiny (1) self-deception (1) self-determination (1) self-help (1) significance (1) silence (1) simple (1) sincerity (1) skate park (1) skateboard (1) smile (1) socialize (1) society (1) software (1) solution-focused (1) speaking (1) sport (1) standards-based learning (1) stories (1) story (1) strangers (1) strengths (1) stress (1) student engagement (1) student evaluation (1) sustainability (1) synergy (1) taking risk (1) talking (1) tangibility (1) targets (1) teacher evaluation (1) teaching. learning (1) textbooks (1) therapy (1) thinking skills (1) thought (1) thoughts (1) trans-species (1) transference (1) tribes (1) unconditioned response (1) unconditioned stimulus (1) universal (1) urban gardening (1) urban schools (1) victim (1) visceral (1) wellness (1) wisdom (1) work (1) work week (1) worksheets (1) writing (1)