Most of the claims that new technology will make teachers obsolete are patently false. TED Talks, MOOCs (Massive Online Open Courses), educational videos, vast online databases and typical educational apps and games simply cannot replace an effective teacher in a classroom. But that doesn’t mean that nothing can. The technology tools with the greatest potential…
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Yes, there are dumb questions
Teachers often tell students there is “no such thing as a dumb question,” but that’s not true. There are plenty of dumb questions, and we ask them as often as we answer them. Here are some dumb questions teachers ask: Do you understand? Students say yes, not knowing what they don’t know. Why didn’t you…
Read MoreIf Econ can change…
Economics is not an easy discipline, and it’s not a subject teenagers are itching to learn. Most college-educated adults look back on Econ 101 as a boring series of lectures, with too many graphs about “widgets” and “utils.” One of the best parts of teaching high school econ, though, is that so many professional economists…
Read MoreThe “why” matters
We don’t talk enough about relevance. In one study of more than 300 teachers, motivation researcher Jere Brophy found that only 1.7 percent of them clearly explained the relevance of their lessons to students. The rest may have assumed that relevance doesn’t matter; after all, the students are required to learn this stuff. But it…
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MARTHA RUSH 