Teachers Need to Be Informed, Part 1

Teachers Need To Be Informed

Part 1: Global and National Education News and Views

As a teacher you should of course have your content knowledge, specific pedagogy knowledge, general pedagogy knowledge, and knowledge of technology. But if that’s all you’ve got I doubt you’ll be one of the teachers that stays in the profession for long. In order to stick with it, you’ll need to know about the landscape of teaching globally, nationally, statewide, and locally. People are always talking about what’s going on in other countries and on a national scale, so it’s good to be able to contribute to the conversation, but also the trends you can read about eventually affect you. In Part 1, I’ll share a few resources for keeping up on the global and national scene. In Part 2 I'll share state and local resources. 

Resource A: The New York Times Education section:

http://www.nytimes.com/pages/education/index.html

This portal has links to stories on all kinds of education, from day-care to the university, public to private. You’ll see stories on testing, reform, trends, pedagogy, and people of interest.

The other day when I checked this was as good as any other day, and I found two articles of interest:

“Expecting the Best Yields Results in Massachusetts”

This story talks about how MA would rank second in the world on the TIMMS international assessment if it were its own country. International comparison is a hot topic in the policy world and teachers need to be aware of one of the primary justifications for education reform: “We’re falling behind other developed nations.” The story goes on to describe what kinds of things MA does to make their schools some of the best in the nation. Learning about practices you admire can help you bring change to your school.

“With Common Core, Fewer Topics but Covered More Rigorously”

Part of the deal with the No Child Left Behind waivers states received in recent years was a string attached that said states would have to adopt “tougher standards,” which is the Common Core. Tennessee is among those states and this article provides useful information on how public schools will be affected. 

Resource B: Education Week

www.edweek.org

I follow Education Week on Twitter, and they constantly send out links to interesting articles related to policy at all levels and general and subject-specific pedagogy.

Recent links:

A link to a specific math pedagogy/policy website: http://algebraeffectiveness.org/

And an article about getting ideas from around the world to improve education: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2013/10/02/06malone.h33.html

There are plenty more, maybe readers can tell me other good ones.