Thomas Education

The NYTimes published a fascinating portrait of the modern writer, and a discussion pertinent to all students of writing, about research, style, and serendipity (open the old newspaper!). Laura Hillebrand has had a surprisingly important effect on recent writers, after the success of Seabiscuit .  Her meticulous research is unusually old-fashioned, relying on paper artifacts rather than google or microfilm simply because of the author's own physical limitations.  This allows her to be more immersed in the time period, and thereby include the small details that then immerse the reader as well.   We also find out that the idea for Unbroken  came from her accidental viewing of an article about Louis Zamperini while she was reading an actual copy of the New York Times with an article about Seabiscuit. Let this  be  a vote for varied research sources!

TypeToLearn is the keyboarding software purchased for use at YISS.  The current version is called TTL4, with category settings for Young (K-2), Intermediate (3-6), and Older(7-12) students.  The TTL4 program should already be pre-loaded onto ES and MS macbooks. E . Kosmack started using TTL4 with her sixth-grade tech classes in September 2014. We have built teacher usernames for all teachers of grades 1-5, and we encourage those teachers to try the software themselves, so see how it could best work for your students. There are student usernames for middle school (6-8), and we are planning to add younger grade levels when requested by the teachers. Notes about usernames and security:  this program provides minimal security -- any teacher can update any other user’s name and password.   It also allows duplicate names, so be careful when selecting Alicia Kim, for example.    We are standardizing on username=first initial lastname;  for ex...

My policy on quiz re-takes : Because my moodle quizzes select from a random pool of questions, and shuffle those questions, and shuffle the possible answers, every student’s quiz is slightly different.   Typically half the questions are new -- i.e. taken from the NewQuestions pool.  Therefore, the assessment is more likely to demonstrate students’ actual knowledge of the topic rather than their ability to memorize prior sequences or even rote answers. The structured nature of a test, along with its numeric reward system,  motivates students to prepare (study) in the first place, and then the focus required to answer the questions helps to cement those answers in memory.   Thus, repeated test sessions can actually encourage learning, as opposed to simply serving as a measurement tool -- if that were the case, we should administer a single test just prior to the reportcard. Currently for every quiz, I offer a second re-take, with the average result tr...

Building a pool of questions for online quizzes (we use Moodle now, but this ought to apply to most such Course Management Systems) requires some considerations that may not be obvious at first. It also raises questions about relative importance of quizzes at different times in the semester. Quiz question tips:  in order to make best use of moodle’s random-pool and random-shuffle mechanism, each question must be written to stand on its own.   Further, the answers will be shuffled as well, so they may occur in any sequence  (do not use phrases like “None of the above”). Do not assume any time-based or contextual reference points, as this question could crop up 3 months later, all on its own.   Make sure to include fully any book title references.  Use standard tag-prefixes in the question title (note that the question title is not seen by the student) as tips for the teacher: for example,   “Grammar”  or “TKAM”.   If a q...

Attended a seminar by Ken O'Connor earlier today.   I was kindly invited by Chadwick International School in Incheon to see this published and very opinionated expert on grading and report cards. He was primarily discussing his latest book How to Grade for Learning by Using 15 Fixes for Broken Grades .   Noted that grades and marks are used interchangeably, but should have distinct meanings:  Marks (or scores) are on individual assessments, whereas Grades are summary symbols on report cards. Reminding us of the Understanding By Design guidelines:  are grades Accurate Consistent Meaningful Supporting of Learning ? In his opinion, grades should be simply the way to communicate achievement status to parents, students, other schools. It confuses the issue when we try to also incorporate these others uses of grades:  self-evaluation, selecting students for later coursework, incentives to learn, effectiveness of teaching. O'Connor is rather st...

I attended the Google Apps For Education conference at SFS, October 4th and 5th.... Click here to view my presenta tion.

At YISS we have data projectors in each classroom, but no Interactive WhiteBoards. An idea to make our classrooms more amenable to data-projector use; to gain one of the benefits of a SmartBoard:   Currently most classrooms have 2 large WhiteBoards attached to, and centered on, one wall of the classroom.  They also have an electric-rolldown projection screen centered on that wall, with a projector aimed at the screen.  Thus, when the screen is not rolled down, the image projects onto the WhiteBoards, with the metal border of each board precisely down the center of the image!   The projector lens is focused on the roll-down screen; but the additional distance to the WhiteBoard is not so great as to make the image fuzzy when projected directly onto the Board.  However, the vertical metal frame down the middle makes the image almost useless when projected directly onto the Boards. Solution, given existing purchasing stock of WhiteBoards:  shift the Boards at...

Notes on the feasibility of using SafeExamBrowser for final exams, after some practical experience 30May morning with English9 final exams. Summary:  Planning for final exams online, from MPR: 1- Best to stagger logins, so that the servers are not overwhelmed by a surge of requests; 2- SafeExamBrowser is markedly less functional with editable textboxes (i.e. not good with lots of essay questions) 3- SafeExamBrowser is probably most appropriate when we need a few students to take an online quiz without our close monitoring.    4- Need to remind SafeExamBrowser users -- maybe add some text on the YISS splash page like this: The SafeExamBrowser is designed with some features different from a regular browser.  Certain features are disabled:  switching to another window, copypaste and selection keys.  Because of extra security, the response time may be a bit slower than usual, so be patient.  Note the “busy traffic” blinking icon shows in the...