Link goes to story about students at university level who were accused of cheating because they used an "Instructor's Manual" as a study guide for their exam--and the exam turned out to be identical to the one in the manual.
The instructor believes this to be a form of cheating, but it's not clear that the students were necessarily aware that the questions in the manual were going to be the exact same ones as on the exam, rather than merely similar ones.
Food for thought.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Sunday, November 21, 2010
The Shadow Scholar
Man who writes papers for people spills his guts anonymously. This is a very intriguing insight into the collegiate paper-writing underground world.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Emily Pilloton on Teaching Design for Change (TED talk)
Great video on TED demonstrating how a community and education system can be transformed via design.
Monday, November 8, 2010
The Education Manifesto: Michelle Rhee and Adrian Fenty defend their approach
WSJ article link
Rhee and Fenty sum up their approach as Merit Pay for Teachers = Success. But on review of their whole strategy and execution, it really seems like getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people OFF the bus was what made the most difference school by school.
(I'd like to vote the idea of merit pay off the island. A teacher should be paid for the role -- and perform well or be let go. A teacher is either worth having on the staff, or isn't. No wonder teachers' unions are upset. No one should feel like they have to deal daily political fealty to a particular school administrator in order to be fully paid for their job.)
The other piece of the right-on wrong-off staffing strategy success was to "...allow principals to make the layoffs based on the quality, value and performance of their staffs." This kept the decision-making local to each school and its own leadership. Principals got to own their staffing decisions; staff got to be accountable to their principals and not to every governing member of the school district. Cutting down on the I have eight bosses effect can't but help.
Notes for the future school administration file...
Rhee and Fenty sum up their approach as Merit Pay for Teachers = Success. But on review of their whole strategy and execution, it really seems like getting the right people on the bus and the wrong people OFF the bus was what made the most difference school by school.
(I'd like to vote the idea of merit pay off the island. A teacher should be paid for the role -- and perform well or be let go. A teacher is either worth having on the staff, or isn't. No wonder teachers' unions are upset. No one should feel like they have to deal daily political fealty to a particular school administrator in order to be fully paid for their job.)
The other piece of the right-on wrong-off staffing strategy success was to "...allow principals to make the layoffs based on the quality, value and performance of their staffs." This kept the decision-making local to each school and its own leadership. Principals got to own their staffing decisions; staff got to be accountable to their principals and not to every governing member of the school district. Cutting down on the I have eight bosses effect can't but help.
Notes for the future school administration file...
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