First day with students back in the building. Our state has decided that we must eliminate cell phone use in all schools. This should go over well. #teaching
#teaching
5 posts5 participants0 posts today
I had my annual "first day of school goes horribly wrong" dream last night so it must be time to go back to work.
August is National Inventor’s Month and we’re celebrating The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind. This Netflix film is based on the true story of William Kamkwamba, whose creativity, persistence and courage as a schoolboy provided a solution to devastating drought for his family and eventually many others in his country of Malawi and beyond.
We offer a Discussion Guide and a Curriculum Guide with classroom-ready lessons for this film, to make it easy to work with in different settings. Students can learn more about wind power and the physics of generating electricity, as well as lessons in English Language Arts, Social Studies, Film Studies and more. These are powerful resource to inspire young inventors in your classroom!
https://journeysinfilm.org/film/the-boy-who-harnessed-the-wind/
What we're reading:
"Asked to generate intervention plans for struggling students, AI teacher assistants recommended more punitive measures for hypothetical students with Black-coded names and more supportive approaches for students the platforms perceived as white, a new study shows."
We know that educators are bombarded with (VC-funded) hype about AI tools as magical solutions. Please don't take these claims at face value and do your own due diligence. 1/4
https://www.chalkbeat.org/2025/08/06/ai-teacher-assistants-promote-racial-bias-study-finds/
Chalkbeat · AI teacher tools display racial bias when generating student behavior plans, study finds
Are #student #assignments which used ##grammarly or #ChatGPT as worthy of the #scores as #work which didn't have that help?
If both cases are treated as #equal we are #teaching #students that there's no point in #learning.
It already happens including #university level.
We are #dumbing_down.
What happens if the #digital #assistance stops?
Would digitally supported students be able to work things out for themselves?
Will the #future need to be oversimplified?
#education #tech #criticalthinking
#teaching #math #education #pedagogy
'Researchers at the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Educational Initiatives have launched the Number Sense Assessment, a free, research-based math app now available to educators nationwide. '
Notre Dame NewsInstitute for Educational Initiatives launches free math app to help teachers strengthen students’ understanding of numbers and operationsThe free Number Sense Assessment app is available to educators nationwide and offers quick, research-based insights to target instruction and improve st...
Professor Khalidi speaks my mind.
Watch for his free lecture series on the history of the Middle East coming this autumn - it should be brilliant!
#columbiauniversity #uspol #Palestine #antisemitism #teaching #academicfreedom #antifascism
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/01/columbia-historian-rashid-khalidi-open-letter
The Guardian · I spent decades at Columbia. I’m withdrawing my fall course due to its deal with Trump
A repeat from the summer of 2023, about the importance of walking around inside of a book instead of using a tool to summarize it for you.
Are you a literature instructor? I HIGHLY SUGGEST you check out this new #openAccess book on strategies for teaching literature with student-selected texts.
Searching for Wonder, by Mary Isbell.
I was involved in discussions with Mary as she was creating this. It's WAY COOL!
Does anyone know of an intro #psychology #textbook that deals in an intelligent, non-avoidant way with the replication crisis?
#Automation & #OpenSource #robotic technology: Making #Titration accessible for #students of all abilities:
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00025
#DIYchem #chemistry #lab #instruments #education #STEM #MINT #school #BLISTA #accessibility #disabilities #inclusion #Inklusion #science #teaching #EDU #Arduino
Some PD sessions I hope to give in the fall. Topics include
- Wait, Wait, Please Interrupt Me.
Interjections are surprisingly helpful and this helped me chill the fuck out in lecture
- Ground Truthing the #ANI Bubble.
Uses @FlintDibble 's discussion of ground truthing the Giza Megastructure Hoax to look at @Zitron material and financial criticisms of ANI hype.
- Tranquil #Teaching the Age of Cheap Text.
Proposes we chill the fuck out and focus on making the classes mean something.
What’s the secret to fine phyllo, or anything, really? As our writer learns from her Greek teacher, it’s not in exact measurements or complicated techniques – it’s cooking something meaningful by heart and feel. #Greek #Greece #teaching
Posted into Culture @culture-csmonitor
The Christian Science Monitor · In Greece, I learned to taste my way through love and life. Opa!
CleoQc 
Do I have any Ontario teachers willing to answer a few questions?
Replied in thread
Indeed. And another re-arrangement of the axioms.
Paul Halmos in his autobiography reports on one of his colleagues who taught a course in measure theory (I quote from memory). He set out the axioms in lecture 1. Come lecture 2, and he explains that actually, the right axioms should be such and such. And so the semester progresses, each week a new, better axiom system, with no time left for any derivations.
I love that story, on so many levels.
Cognitive science has taken off at British schools but hasn’t registered in the U.S. Educators blame it on America’s decentralized system and grad schools that are often hostile to research. The74million.org has more:
flip.it · ‘Cognitive Science,’ All the Rage in British Schools, Fails to Register in U.S.
Continued thread
You literally have to earn their respect, and every semester they try to pull some weird shenanigans. Not to mention that usually half the class hates the other half (the ones who worked hard to get to medical school vs the nepo-babies who don't care, they'll inherit dad's clinic sooner or later).
This semester? They were just the nicest medical students I have taught. Saying goodbye to them actually made me sad, when usually 15 weeks of them is more than enough.
That's all.
It’s that time of year—thank you, teachers, for all you do!
If you could use a hand stocking your classroom, drop your wishlist link in the comments and let’s come together to support you!
A quotation from Douglas Adams
What I mean is that if you really want to understand something, the best way is to try and explain it to someone else. That forces you to sort it out in your mind. And the more slow and dim-witted your pupil, the more you have to break things down into more and more simple ideas. And that’s really the essence of programming. By the time you’ve sorted out a complicated idea into little steps that even a stupid machine can deal with, you’ve learned something about it yourself.
Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humourist, screenwriter
Dirk Gently, No. 1, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, ch. 4 [Richard] (1987)
Sourcing, notes: wist.info/adams-douglas/29566/