Global Educator, Curriculum Developer, and Trainer
It’s easy to get frustrated about distance learning. Who doesn’t hate it? Teachers are overwhelmed by balancing in-person and online instruction, modifying lessons, cramming content into less time and constantly being asked to learn new tools — and we also miss the genuine, fun interactions and a-ha moments that actually make our jobs enjoyable. Students…
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If you’ve never taught online and suddenly you’re gearing up for weeks — if not months — of e-learning this spring, it can be very intimidating. You might be tempted to default to assigning an entire pre-made online curriculum package, assuming the kids will watch videos and do worksheets at home. I hope you won’t.…
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In the past few weeks, I’ve begun writing a series of 15 blog posts for Quarter Zero’s Idea Board. These articles all target major challenges facing anyone trying to teach/coach teenage entrepreneurs. They have been pretty easy to write because frankly, there are a lot of challenges. For example, #1 is about Abolishing the Passive…
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This semester, I taught an experimental Economics Concepts class. If you’re not sure what that means, it’s a modified version of our high school’s regular Econ class, designed to be more accessible to students who would probably struggle in that course. We teach Econ to freshmen here, and it’s typically one of the hardest courses…
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Does your school have a shared sense of what “educational gold” looks like? I came across this term in Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine’s excellent new book, In Search of Deeper Learning. These two did the research I’d always dreamed of doing — they went out and found schools that are succeeding with challenging…
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I finally finished reading What We Know About Grading, a 2019 ASCD book summarizing a century of research on grading. Probably doesn’t sound compelling to most people — it’s not going to top the New York Times bestseller list — but I wanted to know what the research says, since we spend so much of…
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“How do you build relationships with students?” A colleague asked me that yesterday, and I was stumped for a minute. I always struggle with that question and feel a little ashamed — because I don’t do many of the things experts say we are supposed to do. I do stand at the door when kids…
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Does “flipping” your classroom really work? I’ve written about this a few times since I first flipped my AP Macro class two years ago. In my (anecdotal) experience, it’s been extremely effective. But a new study from West Point (reported in this EdWeek blog) says not so fast. Is it time for me to reconsider?…
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He’s a great teacher, but when he was explaining calculus, I really couldn’t understand it. He ran a good workshop, but when one of the teachers didn’t get something, he just explained it the same way again. Is anyone else confused? I heard both of these comments this summer — just part of casual backyard…
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Were you the kind of high school student who always did your homework? Who always studied for tests? Who came to class prepared? Or were you kind who procrastinated? Who scraped by on what you could pick up in class? Who was too busy or distracted to pick up a book or notebook at home?…
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MARTHA RUSH 