Educational Leadership articles from April 1993

Educational Leadership archives from April 1993

On teaching for understanding: a conversation with Howard Gardner. (Harvard University Graduate School of Education's Project Zero Director) (Authentic Learning)
April 1, 1993... How do we preserve the imagination and the questioning of the 5-year-old mind, but replace the child's notions with well-founded theories and accurate conceptions? Howard Gardner has some ideas. Would you say that most students don't really...

Five standards of authentic instruction.
April 1, 1993... What types of instruction engage students in using their minds well? A framework developed at Wisconsin's Center on Organization and Restructuring of Schools may be a valuable tool for teachers and researchers attempting to answer this complex...

Courting controversy: how to build interdisciplinary units.
April 1, 1993... When teachers build interdisciplinary thematic units around hot local issues, the result, said one student, is "learn, learn, learn." As 25 6th graders from a small school in an affluent area of Asheville, North Carolina, stepped off the two...

Tackling society's problems in English class.
April 1, 1993... A high school teacher's impromptu unit on "Social Problems" gave his students an opportunity to develop their writing skills while expanding their concept of community. Every day I drive by homeless people on my way to teach in Castro...

Global issues in 6th grade? Yes!
April 1, 1993... Conducting in-depth research and presenting solutions to the world's problems are all in a day's work for middle school students in Glenview, Illinois. Chris is investigating gun control, an issue he is concerned about. With his work...

What doctors can teach teachers about problem-based learning.
April 1, 1993... Medical educators found that when students studied patients' medical records, class focus shifted from isolated facts to emphasis on meaningful information. For many, it's hard to imagine that some physicians instruct students in classrooms....

Problem-based learning: as authentic as it gets.
April 1, 1993... An innovative high school is pioneering ways to engage students in solving problems by having them take on the roles of scientists, doctors, artists, and historians. In addition, the Center for Problem-Based Learning is helping other educators...

Involving students in authentic research.
April 1, 1993... When students see firsthand that research is not some complicated, esoteric thing conducted only by people in white coats, they find that they, too, can do it. "That's it! That's how I'll prove to my mom that I can listen to the radio while...

Designing an authentic assessment.
April 1, 1993... From an authentic task--which teaches content and a complex thinking process--flows an authentic assessment of student performance in advanced biology. As a high school science teacher, I often posed exam questions that required application...

Taking word problems off the page. (teaching the practical application of mathematics)
April 1, 1993... Using video "anchors" that simulate real-life problems, students in a Minnesota school district are learning the value of mathematics in the real world. Sixth graders at an elementary school in St. Cloud, Minnesota, have an urgent crisis to...

Learning history by doing history. (interpreting history)
April 1, 1993... To make learning authentic, teachers in two Rhode Island high schools have provided students the skills and resources necessary to create and interpret history. Imagine a history class where students are told a fictional story about three...

Civil war reenactments - "a real and complete image."
April 1, 1993... Years after participating in a Civil War Study Group in high school, former social studies students fondly remember a project that helped them make an enduring connection with the past. "Bringing history alive" is an overused expression, but...

Thank you, Miss Monroe. (building a student's self-esteem)
April 1, 1993... An inspiring teacher's ability to nurture students' dreams is a vital aspect of teaching--one that may be disappearing in an era of increasing demands on the profession. The year I first learned about Brazil was the middle of the Great...

Trying out careers.
April 1, 1993... Students in a Missouri high school are venturing into area businesses to experience the workdays of everyone from the pediatric nurse to the radio announcer. For the past 16 years, students at McCluer North High School in Florissant,...

Morning Programs revisited.
April 1, 1993... Like the British Morning Programs of the '70s and '80s, an upstate New York program encourages parents and community residents to get involved in children's education. It's a brisk autumn morning in the rolling hills of upstate New York. A...

The rural high school as community resource.
April 1, 1993... The Rural Schools and Community Development project is helping to revitalize schools and their communities by showing them how to serve each other. Students in my economics class in Custer, South Dakota, routinely take on community projects....

Classroom by committee.
April 1, 1993... Seventh graders at this middle school model their classroom on the town council. For every major endeavor they want to accomplish, they appoint a committee. It's 9:10 on a Wednesday morning on the third floor of Brennan Middle School in...

The day the children found a ghost. (firsthand observation)
April 1, 1993... Firsthand observation and exploration led students in this school in India to the truth about the spirit in their tree. I entered school that morning to the normal buzz of friendly voices. With my arms full of papers and books and my lunch...

When students write home.
April 1, 1993... Giving students opportunities to assess their own progress--via letters to their parents--empowers them as learners and builds a strong school/home connection. To help bridge the gap between home and school, I decided to try a new approach...

Japanese education: no recipe for authentic learning.
April 1, 1993... Before we copy Japanese education, let's make sure we understand that in Japan, authentic learning means mastery of memorized information, not experiential learning that prepares one for life. During my three years in Japan I've taught a...

From newspapers to circuses - the benefits of production-driven learning.
April 1, 1993... When students create a real product or perform before a live audience, the learning is alive, too. I had my first experience with production-driven learning when I was assigned the duty of newspaper sponsor. I was already teaching several...

A trial for Dmitri Karamazov. (Fyodor Dostoyevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov')
April 1, 1993... The teacher and students in this California classroom created a variety of authentic activities to bring a classic novel to life. When my senior-high literature students told me they didn't want to read the anthology of stories I had...

Beyond show and tell. (authentic learning)(includes related article)
April 1, 1993... Developing their own criteria for authentic learning prompted several teachers of a three-hour interdisciplinary block period to critique old, favorite assignments and develop new, more powerful ones for their 10th graders. Teacher: "I...

Four misconceptions about authentic learning.
April 1, 1993... To keep the authentic learning movement alive, we must dispel some myths that may discourage teachers from exploring the potential of this approach. For the past two years, I have worked with schools in southwest Iowa that are investing...

Welcome back to high school. (back-to-school assembly)
April 1, 1993... Inviting back the graduates is the way this school makes the back-to-school assembly "a total high school experience." Creating an environment of warmth, support, and belonging in a modern high school is a difficult task. Mission statements,...

Technology as a bridge. (educational innovations) (Voices: The Teacher)
April 1, 1993... Last summer I had the opportunity to revisit the Austrian family whom I had lived with during a student exchange 20 years ago. Since my first visit, the horizons of the family's world had expanded considerably. Monika, my Austrian "sister" who...

Learning styles in a one-room school. (Voices: The Teacher)
April 1, 1993... We arrive at school around 7 a.m. and quickly start a fire in the woodburning stove to warm the room before students arrive. Though this sounds like the classroom of a century ago, we're describing the school we teach in right now. Lowman...

Grading should go. (grading system in schools) (Voices: The Parent/The Teacher)
April 1, 1993... The grading period is over, and teachers are feeling pretty good about themselves. They have just finished assigning grades, that great culminating activity of the teaching profession. As at the last judgment, students are sorted into the...

Motivating Humans.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1993... Anyone interested in the subject of motivation will find Motivating Humans one of the most detailed accounts on the subject. The extent to which behavior can be energized and directed is easily at the very core of teaching and learning....

The Schools We Have, The Schools We Want.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1993... According to this high school teacher from New York who is "on the front lines," the schools we have are outdated, underachieving, and virtually impossible to change. In The Schools We Have, The Schools We Want, Nehring takes the reader...

Myths of Educational Choice.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1993... A veteran Minnesota educator, Judith Pearson urges Americans to put the brakes on the rapid drive toward freedom of choice in schools so that they can examine the idea and its tremendous consequences more closely. Her book serves as a wake-up...

The Incompetent Teacher: Managerial Responses.(Brief Article)
April 1, 1993... Any research topic has an "invisible college," a small group of men and women who devote their lives to the global postulates and questions of the problem. Ed Bridges would surely be the dean of the invisible college centered on evaluating,...