Weekend Reading 6/18/16 General by Joel Wagner - June 18, 2016June 19, 20161 I found some great stuff going on out there in the world of education blogging this week. Here is a summary of what I found and shared on Twitter (follow @sywtt). this week. Growth Mindset: Clearing Up Some Common Confusions Digital transformation in eduction: from challenge to opportunity What's so sexy about math? How I teach kids to love science 10 Open-Ended Questions for Teachers' Reflection and Summative Evaluation 5 Common Teaching Practices I'm Kicking to the Curb When Everyone Owns the Place of the Arts I'm A Teacher Who Loves Quizzing; But Does Quiz Format Matter? Are We Too Preoccupied with Teaching Techniques? 7 Shifts To Create A Classroom of the Future 6 Apps That Can Help with Student Assessment
Quitting Teaching, A View From A Former Teacher General by Lucas Allen - June 13, 2016July 10, 20162 In this article Lucas Allen, a former math educator from Illinois writes about his experience quitting teaching and the transition into the corporate world. Why I Left About 18 months ago, I quit teaching for a job in the corporate world. This wasn't a decision I made lightly. I had been a high school mathematics teacher at a couple of different schools in downstate Illinois over the course of 13 years. Lest you think I was longtime disgruntled employee of the public school system, let me assure you that was not the case. Over the years, I had thrown myself into numerous school activities, coaching the chess team, the volleyball team, and my favorite, the math team, eventually coaching my team to the 2012 Illinois
Teacher Turnover [Infographic] Why Teachers Quit by Joel Wagner - June 10, 2016June 16, 20160 According to recent studies, 30% of teachers quit teaching by the end of their second year of teaching. I am convinced that many of those cases would be avoided with proper support networks in place. I recently came across an infographic from 2013 by USC Rossier that addresses this issue in their blog post entitled How To Save Our Educators. What interests me about this is that it goes a bit further than simply acknowledging that teacher turnover is a problem from the standpoint of it being bad to lose educators, but also at the average cost to replace teachers ($12,500), the impacts on student achievement, and looking at some of the possible solutions. USC RossierOnline
From Burnout Into Ignited Passion: How Blogging, Information Overload, and Running Made Me A Better Teacher Inspiration by Joel Wagner - May 28, 2013July 6, 20161 I don't care if it's your teaching job or your personal habits or your social life or what it is, we all face burnout at one time or another. Or another or another or another. At times, I can feel like we are in a dark tunnel with no escape and we don't have the energy to escape. Ummm, not that I have ever experienced that, of course. ANYWAY, you may or may not be struggling with this now. I would guess at this point in the school year, none of us in the United States are wanting to ever teach another school year. It happens. So I present to you an autobiographical short story that addresses this concept. Once upon a