Hello from Singapore!
I am in Singapore this week attending the Global Cities Education Network (GCEN) meeting. The GCEN is a network of urban school systems in North America and Asia, including Seattle, Denver, Houston,...
View ArticleA special school in Singapore
Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit School of the Arts, Singapore (SOTA). SOTA is one of Singapore’s specialized schools, which also include the Singapore Sports School, the School of Science and...
View ArticleBathroom Lesson Planning - Why I Was Talking About Toilets in Singapore
It was fitting that my first stop after arriving to Singapore was a restroom in Changi Airport. When exiting, I noticed a touchscreen survey on the wall. I rated my restroom experience “excellent” and...
View Article7 Essential Questions from GCEN’s Singapore Symposium
Worthwhile discussions tend to raise more questions than answers. Here are seven vexing questions after deliberations with education policymakers from across the globe.
View ArticleThe 21st-Century Teacher: Educating a New Kind of Driver
During a virtual meeting of the Global Cities Education Network, researchers from the Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) shared strategies for 21st-century teacher...
View ArticleHow Singapore Leaves No Child Behind
In an Education Week Teaching Ahead column last May, I wrote about a former student who dropped out of high school to pursue a low wage, full time construction job. I tried to help him find a way to...
View ArticleBest conversation of the day
I want to share a conversation I overheard today that just tickled the heck out of me. I was in the lunch line at my school.
View ArticleTake Your Personal PD Global
Increasingly, educators are taking charge of our own professional development (PD) rather than waiting on our employers to provide what someone else thinks we need to know to improve teaching and...
View ArticleA Real Mission Statement: Final Report on Year at Mission Hill
The Institute for Democratic Education in America (IDEA) has issued a summary report of the amazing project A Year at Mission Hill.
View ArticlePISA Day Has Arrived
In the next few hours, the world will learn the results of the 2012 Programme for International Assessment (PISA) test. You can watch a live presentation of the results, followed by panel discussions...
View ArticleSo...what can we DO about those low PISA scores?
American students have been outperformed... again. What should this tell us? And what can YOU do?
View ArticleMy Best Education Reads of 2013
’Tis the season for "best of 2013" lists. As an avid consumer of annual best-of lists, I selfishly created the retrospective of my preferred 2013 education reads in hopes that my colleagues on the...
View ArticleLearning from other nations
Make sure to check out the conversation taking place now on Ed Week Teacher's Teaching Ahead about what U.S. schools can learn from other nations. I wrote a piece about the need to decrease the amount...
View ArticleWhat is Your 2014 Summer Learning Plan?
Now that 2014 is here, it's time to start making summer plans! I’m not talking about that long-awaited beach vacation or camping trip. Free from the pressures of lesson planning and grading, summer is...
View ArticlePISA: Responding to the reaction
At a moment when we should be engaged in raucous dialogue about our performance on PISA, let's actually have the conversation instead of enumerating all the reasons why we shouldn't be talking about it.
View ArticleMadness in the Realm
Imagine two villages. Both have just received a decree from the kingdom that henceforth, all jousting tournaments will share a few commonalities: the same length field, the inclusion of age brackets,...
View ArticleA Digital Learning Story
In honor of Digital Learning Day, I'm sharing the story of my "AHA!" moment about digital learning.
View ArticleAre Students “College & Career Ready?” Ask A Recent Graduate
How do we truly determine postsecondary workforce readiness? How do we collectively foster this readiness in students prior to graduation? What “21st century skills” matter most? If you're curious, ask...
View ArticleMy BYOD Adventure: Part 1, where our hero maps the journey...
“Mr. Orphal! Why? You’re sucking up all of my battery life!” I just had to laugh. “Quit your whining, Whiney McWhineypants! Get your phones out and find the answer to the questions on the...
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