I love this story from last week’s Minneapolis Star-Tribune about North High students presenting research on social issues at a recent University of Minnesota symposium. One student presented his research on police brutality. Another her work on disparate maternal mortality rates for black women. Other topics included domestic abuse, poverty and immigration. The students surveyed…
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Let’s stop teaching like it’s 1899
Have you seen the picture? You know, the sepia-toned one with all of the kids sitting in desks in straight rows, representing American public schools 100 years ago? Or the newer version, the stock photo that got many of us riled up at Education Secretary Betsy DeVos? Because no, of course we don’t teach like…
Read MoreFor students, doing beats listening
A few weeks ago, I wrote about launching my experiment with “no lecture” AP Macroeconomics this spring. I should note — I didn’t start this experiment because my students were performing poorly. 61 of my 65 students passed the AP test last year, and nearly all of them were freshmen. It was a pretty successful…
Read MoreLetting go of lecture
AP Macroeconomics is the most traditional class I teach. Still too teacher-directed, still too organized around lecture-practice-homework. I know better — yes, I’ve written an entire book on active learning strategies — but it’s been hard to let go. Macro is a difficult subject, and it’s a lot of content for high school kids to…
Read MoreSleepless in Psych
Yesterday in AP Psych, I tried to illustrate the difference between “effortful” and “automatic” processing by asking a student what, if anything, he ate for breakfast. Normally, that’s a pretty easy question. No one has to intentionally encode it. No flashcards required. He looked at me, a little confused, and said, “I’m so tired, I…
Read MoreThe one skill all grads need
If you’ve ever remodeled your house, you know that nothing goes as planned. Last year, bathroom remodelers taking out old shower tile accidentally cut through a pipe (that was installed the wrong way) and flooded our kitchen, directly below. This year, kitchen remodelers removed old soffits and discovered they were not just decorative — they…
Read MoreNot your normal school project
Picture a room packed with 35-40 high school students eager to start working on a project, except you, the teacher, have no idea what the project will be. Will they create pencil cases? T-shirts for school teams? Will they design an app or a bot or an e-book? Or will they make jewelry? Car safety…
Read MoreIt’s tough to change our default setting
Did you ever notice how much we (teachers) love to talk? Recently, I was able to watch another instructor pilot some lessons I’d written. The curriculum was specifically designed to be student-driven and interactive — i.e. not a lecture — and I had planned a series of discovery-based activities that would let students do most…
Read MoreLean Startup: Powerful for teachers
Last week, I had the opportunity to teach the Lean Startup/Design Thinking method of entrepreneurship to an inaugural group of Minnesota teachers. It was the most fun I’ve ever had leading a workshop. (The image above is from a pitch deck designed by several of the participants.) The feedback I got from teachers was similarly…
Read MoreAre there good reasons to miss class?
No one likes it when students are out of class. Absenteeism is a big reason students fall behind (and fail), and it’s frustrating when students miss instruction, can’t grasp the material independently and then require our help outside of school hours. But what about when they are absent for a “good reason”? When I was…
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MARTHA RUSH 