Master's Degree Vs. Student Achievement

A good friend of mine, Deb Jordan, exposed me to the fact that there is no correlation between having a Master's Degree and increased student achievement. So, of course, I had to research this to see if she was correct in her statement. Much to my chagrin, and contrary to everything that I have been trained to believe, I found many websites and studies that actually support her claim. I found ZERO sites that dispute her claim. My day today has pretty much been one that has pleasantly destroyed many of my predispositions on how the education system works and, most importantly, how our district "supports" its teachers.

Self Direction in ECSD

How can I allow my students to be self directed during a math class? In an environment where everything needs to be modeled, and your evaluation scores depend upon a structured classroom, is it possible to allow students the freedom to develop new ideas within the math classroom? I find it odd that we expect our students to be self directed and intrinsically motivated while the the district expects the teachers to be guided by the ever-changing rubric and the extrinsic motivation known as performance pay. 

Cool Slope Song

First Couple Days of E2T2

The first couple days of our E2T2 class has not been going to bad. I have been learning some new stuff about wikis and about blogs. This is nice because I feel I haven't learned anything to epic in quite awhile, and not learning new things makes life kinda boring.

The blogs and the wikis are nice so far. I've been playing around with them for a couple of hours just to see some of the things I can do. While playing with them I have been trying to come up with some practical applications for my math classes, though, to no avail. If anyone has any ideas on how to do this please let me know.

Simon Says....Welcome!

Hola! Welcome to the first blog post on Simon Says... This blog will be used for a variety of purposes over the next couple of months, including updating the progress that I am making learning about all of this new technology.

See you soon!