Posts by Tom Vander Ark
Teacher Quality Means Some Must Go
The President and Secretary deserve credit for advancing the teacher quality agenda–a tough thing for democrats to do. Â Some of the credit for that goes to Jon Schnur and DFER. Â Because we don’t have very good predictive techniques, it’s important to watch teachers in their first few years,…
Brookings Makes Thoughtful Recommendations on Choice
Brookings  released a thoughtful report encouraging expanding K-12 choice including the following recommendations choice be exercised through systems in which parents have more options than at present (with the expansion of virtual education programs being a promising means to that end); admission into particular schools within choice systems be…
Apolo Ohno, Online Learning Pioneer
Apolo Ohno is one of the biggest stars of the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games. Tonight he begins his quest to be the most decorated American at the Winter Olympics. What you probably don’t know is that Ohno was one of the first graduates of the Internet Academy, one of…
5 Learning Breakthroughs of the Next 10 Years
I’ve written about what are likely to be the biggest developments of 2010 here, but a philanthropic service asked a really hard question, “What will be the 5 big breakthroughs in education during the decade to come?” Â Here’s a first pass: 1. Adaptive content & assessment and data…
More on Motivation: Knowledge Workers like Progress
Catherine Gewrtz, EdWeek, make great observation here that the ability to see progress is a great motivator.  Check out Harvard Business Review, “this is worth a look.”  Catherine continues: It’s an argument for the importance of feeling that you are making progress in your work. The authors…
Motivation May be More Important than Style
Jay Mathews dug up a report that suggested there was little evidence “to justify incorporating learning-styles assessments into general educational practice.” Â I think most teachers would agree that it’s obvious that kids learn in different ways. Â But it’s fair to say that books like multiple intelligences was taken…
A Better Alternative
About two thirds of American students leave high school unprepared for college and careers; almost a third drop out and another third graduate unprepared to earn college credit. There are lots of reasons, but now that there’s agreement that students should graduate college/career ready, it’s clear that American high schools…
Creativity and Accountability
Yong Zhao is back in receptive Seattle this week preaching his gospel of edu-innovation. The anti-standards, pro-creativity Zhao is a Chinese-born prof at Michigan State. Here’s his thesis in a nutshell: In my new book Catching Up or Leading the Way, I mostly focus on issues facing…
RttT Plans: Detailed, Compliant, Insufficient
I spent the last two days reading Race to the Top plans.  Here’s a few observations: 1. The plans are comprehensive and detailed. They all slavishly follow the Department of Education scoring rubic. As I’ve repeatedly said, RttT is a great program, but this isn’t ‘loose on means’.
Time is Running Out
After traveling Asia by high speed train and lounging in spectacular airports, it’s always disheartening to return to JKF or LAX. Bob Herbert makes the case that Time is Running Out for America to build the transportation, energy, and education infrastructure of the future. Quoting that great philosopher…