The American Federation of Teachers' quarterly "American Educator" was once a reliable source of first-rate research and practice tips. What's happened to it lately?
“The hundreds of teachers, administrators and others who pack ResearchEd conferences show the growing appetite in the field for evidence-based practice. And that appetite is largely apolitical…”
This is something I've been wondering about, too, especially since I've interviewed a number of teachers lately who say that knowing this stuff makes their work easier, less likely to burn out and makes them feel more confident. Could anything be more important in a teacher shortage?
Absolutely! What could be better than knowing you are using what is currently known to be the most effective instruction and conversely, what could be worse than knowing you could have made a real difference to a student and you didn’t?
The real problem here is that teachers feel they have to attend conferences and read journals to learn very basic facts about how people learn. That kind of information should be the bedrock of all teacher prep programs. The amount of times I've heard educators say "I'm a visual learner"...
Well, yes, there's that. The other thing I heard said at ResearchEd too many times to count is the Maya Angelou quote about how "When you know better, do better." Based on the evidence of the American Educator, the AFT knows better. So they should do better encouraging evidence-based practice. Their power and influence is surely not less than any ed school's.
Yes, implementing evidence-based practice makes life easier for teachers, and helps students to learn. My own tiny platform in this educational world is pushing for teacher recognition of student decontextualized language development stages (OLDS). My hope is that teachers can experience success by trying quick ways (research-based) to adapt to student language-based needs, and seeing the magic that happens when those needs are respected. I'm just starting out, hoping to post at least once a week at Building Eager Learners While Building Oral Language. During almost 50 years of teaching, consulting, and writing, I saw a lot of magic happen and hope to share some of it.
“The hundreds of teachers, administrators and others who pack ResearchEd conferences show the growing appetite in the field for evidence-based practice. And that appetite is largely apolitical…”
This is something I've been wondering about, too, especially since I've interviewed a number of teachers lately who say that knowing this stuff makes their work easier, less likely to burn out and makes them feel more confident. Could anything be more important in a teacher shortage?
Absolutely! What could be better than knowing you are using what is currently known to be the most effective instruction and conversely, what could be worse than knowing you could have made a real difference to a student and you didn’t?
"teaching should run on evidence, not folklore and philosophy"
Do you sell t-shirts?
The real problem here is that teachers feel they have to attend conferences and read journals to learn very basic facts about how people learn. That kind of information should be the bedrock of all teacher prep programs. The amount of times I've heard educators say "I'm a visual learner"...
Well, yes, there's that. The other thing I heard said at ResearchEd too many times to count is the Maya Angelou quote about how "When you know better, do better." Based on the evidence of the American Educator, the AFT knows better. So they should do better encouraging evidence-based practice. Their power and influence is surely not less than any ed school's.
Yes, implementing evidence-based practice makes life easier for teachers, and helps students to learn. My own tiny platform in this educational world is pushing for teacher recognition of student decontextualized language development stages (OLDS). My hope is that teachers can experience success by trying quick ways (research-based) to adapt to student language-based needs, and seeing the magic that happens when those needs are respected. I'm just starting out, hoping to post at least once a week at Building Eager Learners While Building Oral Language. During almost 50 years of teaching, consulting, and writing, I saw a lot of magic happen and hope to share some of it.