Flipped Classrooms: Changing public education for the better.

Flipped classrooms?  In high school I had 90 minute class periods.  Usually it consisted of long lectures by the teachers on their subject, with some awkward group activities and projects, and then the inevitable tests.  If we didn't understand the class material it made doing homework very difficult, and often times there was no one at home to help us understand the material better.

Well, that was in the days just before the internet became prevalent and widely available to all.

Now we have so much content at our fingertips that some are even questioning whether or not classrooms are obsolete!  The modern smartphone has more computing power than the best home computers from my day (graduating class of 2001), and anyone can upload as much content to the internet as their hearts desire.

Here's the rub: despite the plethora of content available to anyone with internet access, there's still much more to learning than simply absorbing information.  That's where context comes into play.

How are the students learning?  Do they have strategies?  What is their emotional state?  Limiting beliefs?  Who answers their questions?  Do they work better alone, or in a group?

Seven things teachers are sick of hearing from school reformers.

This article begins with a mention of a psychological study that showed how polite people are more likely to follow orders, good or bad, and not question authority.  An important point because many teachers are too concerned with keeping their jobs to raise questions and spark debate amongst teachers and administrators.  It ends with a call for reformers to stay out of the way of teachers.

Ian Altman is the author of this scathing response to school reformers.  Altman equates these people to  condescending propagandists for a top-down system that only seeks to promote its own relevance, despite all evidence to the contrary.  The simple fact that the common core is near-Gospel and was "passed" (read: monetarily coerced into practice, read this) without any justification for doing so is enough to make the most complacent parents and educators wonder why we spend any time and money on it at all.