Middle and High School … from a Montessori Point of View
If economics ultimately boils down to the study of human behavior, and our students are ultimately human (stick with me for a second here), then economic theory ought to be able to inform the way we teach. In fact, I’d argue that constructivist approaches to education, like Montessori, work for the same reasons that free-markets … Continue reading “The Montessori Method and Free Markets”
Being a scientist is a state of mind. It’s really a way of looking at the world with wonder, curiosity, and logical rigor. Once you realize that, and get past the tedium of moving little bits of water from one place to the next, or peering through endless mathematical equations and lines of code, you’ll … Continue reading “Growing up a Scientist”
Using the actual U.S. wealth distribution data from Norton and Arieli (2011; pdf), I created a little addendum to our exercise on the distribution of wealth. I started with the definition of wealth. Students tend to think you’re referring to annual income, so I gave the example of someone who does not have a job … Continue reading “Exercise on Wealth Distribution”
We were working on plate tectonics last week, and the conversation went from earthquakes to heartbeats. I think it started with the question of, “How do we know what the inside of the Earth is like if no one’s been down to see it?” I agreed that we’ve not even been down to the bottom … Continue reading “Seismic vibrations of the heart”
Since different student learn better in different ways, would it make sense to separate schools and classes by different learning styles? A countervailing argument, and the one upon which my Montessori middle school program (which is based on the Coe model) is predicated, is that students need to learn about different ways of learning and … Continue reading “Cognitive diversity in the classroom”
The attempted assassination of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords will come up tomorrow, (I have one student who is extremely interested in politics who is sure to recognize the importance of this), so I’ve been trying to figure out how to approach the issue. The New York Times’ Learning Network Blog has an excellent resource on, “Ways … Continue reading “Lessons from the Arizona Shooting: Connecting texts and inflammatory rhetoric”
Concrete to abstract, or abstract to concrete? Bottom up or top down? Introducing new concepts can be done either way, but which way is best? Students tend to learn better when they’re building on an existing scaffolding. However, some students are more adept at seeing the bigger picture first then analyzing the details, while others … Continue reading “Explaining algebra: concrete to abstract”
Alice Waters has been in the news a lot recently with the recent evaluation of the Berkley School Lunch Initiative (full report). Waters instituted a program that: … offered cooking and garden classes integrated with selected classroom lessons along with improvements in school food and the dining environment. – Rauzon et al. (2010) The report, … Continue reading “The Edible Schoolyard”