Pedagogy
Quand tu veux construire un bateau, ne commence pas par rassembler du bois, couper des planches et distribuer du travail, mais reveille au sein des hommes le desir de la mer grande et large.
- Antoine de Saint Exupéry
In my class, students aim to master the Common Core standards for their grade level, working on a curriculum that is informed by both classical tradition and modern research. The year's activities were planned with an eye towards spaced repetition learning, differentiated instruction and assessments, intensifying "depth of knowledge" activities, and other techniques. Overall, I practice mastery learning, attempting to allow different pacing on tasks according to a student's ability in a particular skill.
Classroom routines are well-established and seldom vary. Students frequently have a posted "Do Now" which they begin immediately, allowing them to re-engage with the prior day's material and English skill-set -- and allowing me to distribute graded papers and take roll without wasting any class time. I also post learning goals (a "SWBAT;" Students Will Be Able To) to identify the purpose of classroom activities, as well as upcoming deadlines and assignments. Assignments are also available on the classroom Twitter feed (publicly visible with or without the Twitter app), which is in turn embedded on this website.
Helpful research:
- Using a model to compute the optimal schedule of practice. Pavlik PI, Anderson JR. J Exp Psychol Appl. 2008 Jun;14(2):101-17. doi: 10.1037/1076-898X.14.2.101.
- Practice makes pretty good: Assessment of Primary Literature Reading Abilities across Multiple Large-Enrollment Biology Laboratory Courses. Brian K. Sato, Pavan Kadandale, Wenliang He, Paige M. N. Murata, Yama Latif, and Mark Warschauer. doi: 10.1187/cbe.14-02-0025 CBE Life Sci Educ vol. 13 no. 4 677-686.
- The unfortunate consequences of Bloom's taxonomy. Roland Case. Social Education, Number 4 / September 2013, pp. 196-200(5).
