To Grammar's House We Go

With my new iPhone in hand, I’ve finally discovered the wonderful world of podcasts. One of my personal favorites is the award-winning Grammar Girl podcast, starring the surprisingly charming Mignon Fogarty. Each week, she goes after an issue (many raised by her listeners via email or voicemail messages) and uses extensive references from obscure style guides to correct the masses. I think that the true enjoy

ment of listening to this show comes from the guilty pleasure of having a professional tell you that you are justified in your long-held pet peeve about how some people love to spell “lose” as “loose”. Oooooh, it feels so good.

A Freaky Read

I have been a big fan of Stephen J. Dubner and Steve Levitt ever since reading “Freakonomics” two years ago. I discovered their blog a few months back, and that has helped rekindle that feeling of Science explaining Life that made me love the book so much. They recently “upgraded” to become part of the New York Times website, which has allowed them to include videos and many more cool features.

The recent posts on their site have centered around the most controversial topic in the book, the correlation (note: not causality) between the drop in U.S. crime rate during the 1990’s and the legalization of abortion in the 1960’s. We learn more about the research that led to the scientific paper on which this part of the book was based. Great reading for conservatives and liberals alike.

New Beginnings...

As the name suggests, this new enterprise is oxymoronic at its core. I will be using my “free time” to post and comment on things of interest to me–Apple products, atheism, dumb people, and education, to name a few–in a unpredictable, yet well-planned, style. I welcome your comments, and I look forward to engaging in some interesting conversations.

Photo courtesy of k4cay at Flickr.com

Gratitude

This will just be a short note to accompany the release of my first book, Creating a Culture of Feedback, which is available in print form on Tuesday, November 23 and in ebook format right now.   I’d love to be able to say that writing this book (or any book) has been a dream of mine for years.  The truth, however, is more complicated.

I have spent much of the past ten years learning everything that I can about grading and assessment.  As a classroom teacher, I’ve been able to put into practice many of the ideas that I’ve concocted and see the results.  I get to talk to my colleagues and learn from them and then meld the best of what I’ve learned into powerful experiences for my students.  Everything that I am as a teacher is a product of the conversations and experiences that have included many of the important educators that I know.

It’s one of these educators to whom I owe a tremendous debt.  Bill Ferriter came into my life when I was just a few years into my career.  It was just serendipity that we teach in the same district.  But, it was more than luck that has made us friends.  We have spent many hours—over beer, the occasional salad, or Moons Over My Hammy—talking about important issues like technology integration and reality television.  Over that time, my respect for Bill has only grown.

So, a year ago, when he asked me to write a book with him, I jumped at the opportunity.  Over the intervening months, he taught me so much about the process.  He helped me craft my ideas into meaningful pages.  He found ways to merge our voices into one coherent piece of work.  He showed incredible patience with me and my incessant procrastination.  In short, Bill was the perfect mentor and partner for a first-time author.  I am enormously grateful.

And now the fruit of our efforts is available to the public, in the form of an 80-page book that lays out practical and effective strategies for putting actionable feedback front and center in your classroom.  You should read it.  And when you do, I hope that you recognize the value of what we do and can find ways to use these strategies in your own classroom.

"Researchers looked at 74 Android mobile apps and found that 89 percent of the security features on the apps focus on parental control by blocking and monitoring teens' online activities. Only 11 percent support teens' ability to regulate their own behavior. In other words, most of the apps don't encourage parents and teens to talk about their shared social media values. And that may be a missed opportunity."

From a recent NPR piece about how apps allow parents to manage content by blocking it rather than teaching teens how to make smarter decisions.

One of my favorite quotes from Wiggins and McTighe work on UbD

But in spite of our online gradebooks — which arrogantly assert achievement can be calculated to the hundredth place (implying 10,001 levels of performance!)— assessment and grading remain a fundamentally subjective endeavor.

Arthur Chiaravalli