FOSS, Tech, Education, and Life in Japan
Xkcd is one of my favorite comics. The humor is weird and often warped but always funny. Now you can access the xkcd comic on the command line. Hours of fun for the whole family. If your family are the sort who enjoy xkcd, that is. Try the comic at http://xkcd.com and their command line interface at http://xkcd.com/unixkcd/.
Tired of 2D and 3D puzzle games? How about a 4D game? That should keep even the most fanatic gamers busy for a while. I don’t know if this is just an April Fools joke or not (really hope it isn’t), but if this game is for real, wow. Check it out at Miegakure.
Here are some details from the book “Teach like a champion: 49 Techniques that put students on the path to college”. I have found the book very helpful because so much of the advice is so specific. The author includes examples of specific phrases that are (supposedly) effective and also tells the reader why they work and why they are better than some other commonly used phrases.
Also: There is a DVD included with the book. I have not watched it yet. The videos are of the techniques in the book actually being used with students. So I think the DVD (not having seen it yet, mind you) complements the book content well.
Chapter 6: setting and maintaining high behavior expectations explains techniques 36 to 42. They are:
Each of these is explained in as many pages as required. Strong Voice includes five principles and takes about nine pages. Sweat the Details and Threshold only need about 2 pages each.
Technique 38: Strong Voice
Five Principles of Strong Voice:
I am finding “Do Not Engage” especially useful. Basically, when the class is on a topic – whatever it is – the teacher should not allow the topic to be changed. Classic case is the teacher tells a student to do something and instead of doing it, the student replies with something like “I wasn’t doing it” or “She kicked my desk first”. The teacher should not reply with anything off topic, but should stay on target by, for example, repeating the request and adding a comment to the effect that the student does not need to talk now.
Do Not Engage applies to general classroom interactions as well. Students shouting out answers? Do not engage. Not even to say something like “Good but next time please raise your hand”. That is engaging. Better to say something like “Raise your hands if you want to answer” – corrects without engaging.
All of the techniques are handled in this way and there is a lot of good advice that new teachers will find very helpful. Experienced teachers may already know a lot of what is in the book. Or they may find several great ideas that they hadn’t thought of before.
During our flight home from Japan, my wife noticed something odd from the window. Some of the pictures she took show what looks to be a large ship. We were very surprised that we were able to see it so well.
More pictures and info below …