Joanne Jacobs
All children can learn -- but how much?
Not all education problems are solvable, if we just try hard enough or spend enough, argues Freddie DeBoer in a column on optimism bias. ...
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Joanne Jacobs
- Mar 21
- 2 min
If you have to think about 3x = 18 . . .
Thinking about everything is hard, writes Greg Ashman, author of Cognitive Load Theory, on Filling the Pail. It exhausts students'...
Joanne Jacobs
- Mar 14
- 2 min
Why even kids who like to read hate English class
English teachers are teaching kids to hate reading, writes Pamela Paul, a New York Times op-ed columnist, in response to Nathan Heller's...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 27
- 2 min
Seeking the 'science of math' teaching
Basing early literacy teaching on evidence of what works -- the "science of reading" -- has taken off in the last 10 years. Teachers are...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 3
- 2 min
Teach civics -- not activism
"Fixating on activism misses the point of civics education," write Frederick M. Hess, a former civics teacher now education policy...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 30
- 2 min
Teacher: Students are learning they don't need to show up or do the work
No-consequences attendance policies have encouraged students to skip class, teacher Loren Green told the Albany, New York school board....
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 29
- 2 min
The sound of stupid
The Sound of Music is not the Nazi-glorifying Triumph of the Will, nor is it the Nazi-spoofing Springtime for Hitler. But it does have...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 18
- 1 min
When the best paper in the class was written by a bot
Professors are changing the way they assess students to make it harder for students to use artificial intelligence to generate essays,...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 11
- 2 min
Tolerating misbehavior undercuts learning
A six-year-old boy shot and nearly killed his first-grade teacher at a Newport News, Virginia school last week. The teacher was...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 10
- 2 min
Teaching with AI: Can the bot be a useful tool?
ChatGPT can be a powerful teaching tool, argues Ben Talsma, who helps teachers use technology, on Chalkbeat. A learning specialist for...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 10
- 1 min
NYC schools ban ChatGPT
Is it real or is it artificial intelligence? ChatGPT, the new AI chatbot that"generates stunningly cogent and lifelike writing" has been ...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 3
- 3 min
NAACP pushes for literacy reform: Teach our kids to read
Black leaders have transformed reading instruction in northern Virginia, reports Sarah Carr in the Washington Post. The Fairfax County...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 19, 2022
- 2 min
Teacher tries 'just-in-time' math for students who didn't learn the basics
A veteran teacher at Denver's George Washington High, Joe Bolz knows his students didn't learn much math when their middle schools...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 13, 2022
- 2 min
We're not that far apart on how to teach our history
The "history wars" are a fight between "imaginary enemies" concludes More in Common, after surveying Americans. "Both Democrats and...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 11, 2022
- 2 min
ChatGPT writes better than most students: What next?
Is writing over? The ability to write clearly and cogently has been seen as "a gatekeeper, a metric for intelligence, a teachable skill,"...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 8, 2022
- 2 min
'Ya gotta believe'
"We're not good now, but we can get better" was the unofficial motto of a start-up charter high school in San Jose, I concluded in 2001....
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 1, 2022
- 2 min
Once they can decode ...
Once students can sound out words, the next step is teaching comprehension, writes Matt Bardin on The 74. Once a middle and high school...
Joanne Jacobs
- Dec 1, 2022
- 2 min
Leave the straw man alone: Teach those kids to read
Students don't need to sound out words, letter by letter, teachers were told. They don't need to be taught phonics systematically. If...
Joanne Jacobs
- Nov 30, 2022
- 1 min
Does Gates have 'right answer' for math ed?
The Gates Foundation is going to put more than a billion dollars into math education. Do we know how to teach math? asks Jay Caspian Kang...
Joanne Jacobs
- Nov 29, 2022
- 2 min
Math scores keep falling: It's not 'drill and kill'
I learned my multiplication tables in fourth grade, and they've been mine ever since. I've had my worries over the years, but figuring...
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