Megan Wilson
Stories (32/0)
Influence on Learning Important, Generic Skills
In some ways, the student voice has been the most powerful in traditional schemes for evaluating teaching at the college level because student evaluations are often the only systematically collected data on teaching. Nevertheless, the way questions are asked of students, and - more important - the way they are used, often diminishes students' sense of the value of their role in this process. These student "voices" have provided a unique source of data through which to further inquire into the nature of good teaching and good teachers as well as the qualities they possess which might cause them to be perceived as so effective.
By Megan Wilson2 years ago in Education
The Effects of Block Scheduling on Academic Success
The current research exploring the effect of class scheduling format changes (shifting from three fifty-minute class sessions a week to two eighty-minute class meetings per week) on undergraduate student learning is quite limited. Extending beyond the undergraduate literature, this report also examines research on the assessment of scheduling formats for time intensive courses (nontraditional, part-time, and continuing education), graduate courses, and block scheduling at the high school level. Researchers investigated students' academic achievement, attitudes, student/teacher interactions, school/classroom environment, instructional methodologies, and challenges of an extended instructional period. Although the ages of these groups of students are outside the traditional eighteen to twenty-two years of the typical undergraduate, the insights on student learning obtained from these studies may be helpful.
By Megan Wilson2 years ago in Education
Quotations on Teaching, Learning, and Education
A number of teaching and learning centers have begun collections of quotations. The following have been gleened from these and other sources. In most cases the quotations are given without specific citation to the source in which it first appeared. This will annoy scholars and be of no concern to toastmasters.
By Megan Wilson2 years ago in Education
Deeper Understanding of Stages of Insight Development
In my experience the "epiphanies of learning" or the moments of spontaneous intellectual clarity, so valued by those of us committed to teaching and learning, are far more abundant and well articulated in the classrooms. While educational and cognitive psychologists are quick to define "insight," little empirical research is available to assess its occurrence in the classroom setting. More often than not the methodology employed to document change in student understanding and insight involves an approach that privileges the teacher's perceptions over the learner's. Ironically, very little emphasis has been placed on the voices of learners as important and necessary assessment tools.
By Megan Wilson3 years ago in Motivation
More Families Would Opt For Different Schools If They Could
There is growing evidence that more families would opt for different schools if they could. This is clear from survey data and focus groups, from alternative-school and charter-school waiting lists, among many examples. What prevents them from sailing to a new education island is, above all, the political blockade that still seals the ports to all but a few lucky or intrepid voyagers. Visible though the new education islands and vessels may be to avid policy explorers, most people still reside on the two old continents - and don't travel much. The reasons are familiar, beginning with old-fashioned complacency about one's own school. Surveys have long shown a relatively high level of contentment - or resignation - among Americans with children in school. The familiar and nearby are often more comfortable than the distant and strange.
By Megan Wilson3 years ago in Education
Principals Must Became Change Agents Motivating Teachers To Learn
The modern tension between technological change and traditional values in American culture characterizes the context in which the role of the school principal is currently being reshaped. Schools are traditional centers of community. But they are also confronting rapid social and technological changes. Understanding the principal's changing role is important, since evidence indicates that principals make schools better places to work and learn. This paper describes the reshaping of the principalship, first identifying how work roles generally have become more complex and then examining the internal and external complexities that are transforming the principalship.
By Megan Wilson3 years ago in Education
The Simple Process Of Closely Watching Someone Else Teach
The cohort group exists so that its members can visit each other's classes and make observation of classroom instruction and interaction. For the purposes of the cohort groups, the content explored in the observed instruction is incidental to the process of the group. This does not mean, of course, that content is incidental, but it does allow instructors of different academic disciplines to joint together in one cohort group. A cohort group can be as small as two members, but it has been my experience that three or four is a better number. The reason for this larger number is largely incidental to actual practices; instead observing a larger number of ones colleagues allows one to pick up on and borrow more teaching techniques that one would observe were one only to visit one other instructor's classroom.
By Megan Wilson3 years ago in Education
Best Support and Opportunities for all
American youth currently face challenging realities along their way to adulthood. With parents working longer hours and the absence of grandparents and other community adults who used to make up support systems, the intergenerational fabric of community has been frayed. Youth development strategies aim to reweave community fabric in a new way - one that takes the supports and opportunities young people should have, and re-institutes them in the context of young people's realities today. While many of these realities are harsh ones, we know that young people themselves want to be involved in their communities. The importance of building positive youth/adult partnerships in this process cannot be stressed enough.
By Megan Wilson3 years ago in Education
- Top Story - April 2021
Do Middle Schools Result In Higher Achievement Than Junior High Schools?Top Story - April 2021
Question: Do middle schools result in higher achievement than junior high schools? This question addresses the academic outcomes of students in junior high schools that are organized in a manner similar to large comprehensive high schools with departmentalization, 40-50 minute periods, subject area teachers, and competitive sports, as compared to middle schools using various degrees of the five commonly endorsed practices considered essential to the middle level model of schooling: teaming, exploratory courses, co-curricular programs, adviser-advisee arrangements, and intramural activities. These delineations, however, are not consistent, as many junior highs contain middle school components and vice versa.
By Megan Wilson3 years ago in Education
Choosing College Is Choosing A Different Kind Of Present And Future
High School graduation requirements should be worked out at the school level by faculty and approved by parents and supervising boards, accepted by students who come to the school (who - one hopes! - have some choice in what school they attend), and which lay out the knowledge which a young person needs to be considered an effective adult. These requirements will not consist only of long-ago earned Carnegie units and/or test scores, but will be based on a system of promotion by performance and by portfolio during the junior high school and high school years. Although most students will complete the faculty's expectations by the time they are about eighteen, others will move through the program more or less quickly. The "fixed" will be the basic proficiency standards; the "variables" will be the time it takes to achieve them, and the ways in which these aptitudes are displayed. Breadth in the curriculum will also vary according to the student. Senior year will be dominated by a rigorous senior seminar, which will include a substantial senior project, possibly including an internship, and which will lead to a Graduation Exhibition which can be described and explained to all interested parties.
By Megan Wilson3 years ago in Education
Adolescents Who Perform Better In School
Associations between important aspects of the home and family and adolescents' behavior and well-being are the primary focus. Families with few economic resources are more likely to have adolescents who have behavioral problems, who are psychologically distressed, and who do less well in school. Parental behavior and psychological well-being in less adequately resourced homes partially explain adolescents' poorer functioning. Parents in economically deprived homes are more distressed, inconsistent, and harsh in their parenting, and are less likely to create an organized and structured home environment. All of these can lead adolescents to display psychological distress.
By Megan Wilson3 years ago in Education