Merit pay for dentists! « The Dog’s Bollocks I received this in an email. I don’t know who wrote this but thought it a worthy read: My dentist is great! He sends me reminders so I don’t forget checkups. He uses the latest techniques based on research. When I ran into him the other day, I was eager to see if he’d heard about the Federal Government’s latest program for improving the dental health of our children by introducing merit pay for dentists. “Did you hear about the new federal program to measure effectiveness of dentists with their young patients?” “No,” he said. “It’s quite simple,” I answered. “That’s terrible,” he replied. “What? “Sure I do, but that’s not a fair way to determine who is practising good dentistry.” “Why not?” “Well, it’s so obvious,” he said. “It sounds like you’re making excuses. “I am not being defensive!” “Don’t’ get touchy,” I said. “Touchy?” “I think you are overreacting,” I said. “What’s the DOC?” “Spare me! The program sounded reasonable to me, so I asked, “How else would you measure good dentistry?”
10 TED Talks for Entrepreneurs ? The Educated Entrepreneur's Blog A fellow entrepreneur gave me a slight nudge today that motivated me to post today’s blog. I think you will certainly find value in it as it incorporates some of the best minds of the 21st century. Remember….. The secret to learning as an entrepreneur is to mix equal parts of inspiration and perspiration. Seth Godin on Standing Out: What makes you so special? Like this: Like Loading... 18 Things Highly Creative People Do Differently Creativity works in mysterious and often paradoxical ways. Creative thinking is a stable, defining characteristic in some personalities, but it may also change based on situation and context. Inspiration and ideas often arise seemingly out of nowhere and then fail to show up when we most need them, and creative thinking requires complex cognition yet is completely distinct from the thinking process. Neuroscience paints a complicated picture of creativity. As scientists now understand it, creativity is far more complex than the right-left brain distinction would have us think (the theory being that left brain = rational and analytical, right brain = creative and emotional). And psychologically speaking, creative personality types are difficult to pin down, largely because they're complex, paradoxical and tend to avoid habit or routine. While there's no "typical" creative type, there are some tell-tale characteristics and behaviors of highly creative people. They daydream. They "fail up."
When it comes to Technology, teachers need as much scaffolding as students As teachers, we have come to learn over the years that we should never expect our students to fully understand a new idea without some form of structured support framework, or scaffolding as the current buzzword defines it. If we want them to solve a problem, we tend to provide them with a range of strategies and tools to assist them. Before writing a persuasive text, teachers present a text framework and spend time developing the language structures and features required. It’s common sense thinking that we need to help learners when exposing them to new experiences. The same, of course, should be the case in supporting learning for our fellow teachers. At the moment , I am reading the book, “Leading for Instructional Improvement – How Successful Leaders Develop Teaching and Learning Expertise” by Stephen Fink and Anneke Markholt. For me it comes down to these points. Professional Learning Team Meetings (PLTs) For example, Final thought
What, Me Biased? Our False Sense of Fairness and Impartiality New research finds we retain our unwarranted faith in our capacity to be objective, even in the face of obvious evidence to the contrary. Pretty much all of us are prone to “bias blindness.” We can easily spot prejudice in others, but we’re oblivious to our own, insisting on our impartiality in spite of any and all evidence to the contrary. Newly published research suggests this problem is actually worse than we thought. “Recognizing one’s bias is a critical first step in trying to correct for it,” writes a research team led by Emily Pronin and Katherine Hansen of Princeton University. “Even when people acknowledge that what they are about to do is biased, they still are inclined to see their resulting decisions as objective.” Although their findings have clear implications regarding political opinions, the researchers avoided such fraught topics and focused on art. The students who saw these names conceded that the format lent itself to bias. So what’s the answer here?
Schools of thought clash on principals' autonomy Collaborative approach ... Merrylands East Public School principal John Goh argues that strong parental input is essential in the running of a school. Photo: Wolter Peeters CHANGING a school's hours is not a decision to be made lightly. The principal, John Goh, and the school community are considering a plan in which lessons are held from 8am to 1.15pm and students will then work at a homework centre until 3pm. In another unusual move, six years ago the school decided to concentrate on sustainability and had 36 solar panels installed. When money was allocated under the Building the Education Revolution program, Merrylands East negotiated to be allowed to manage its project. Advertisement If Merrylands East is any guide, it appears that determined public school communities can make decisions about a great range of matters. Yet school autonomy remains a hot potato. The NSW Education Minister, Adrian Piccoli, is unequivocal. But there is deep suspicion in the public system about this.
The H-Blog» Blog Archive » TeachMeet – The Story So Far….. I was recently invited to write an article on TeachMeets for the School Leaders Scotland “Scottish Leader” magazine, and it was fascinating to do. I learned so much doing it, and promised to post the article on my blog (the article was produced under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share-Alike license). With the #tmfuture debate starting off tonight, I felt it may be an opportune moment to post it – so here goes! TeachMeet – the story so far. Have you ever heard of TeachMeet? But the signs are clear – that’s all likely to change, and probably very soon. But what exactly is TeachMeet? Tim and Moby appear courtesy of BrainPop UK, all rights reserved. Tim and Moby show off the range of TeachMeets currently on the wiki Image courtesy of Iain Hallahan and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share-Alike license From humble beginnings in Scotland during 2005, TeachMeet has both grown and spread very quickly. Spot the difference? Links
Developing Students' Academic Vocabulary Helps Beat Achievement Gap At a small school district, I faced the challenge as an administrator of diminishing the achievement gap in the student scores, especially in math and science. For example, we noticed that in science there was a 40-point gap between Hispanic students passing the test versus the number of white students passing. Having been in the classrooms and having observed teachers teaching, I knew that they were not treating Hispanic students any differently than the white students. We wrestled with this question for a while. Sheltered Techniques & Marzano Sheltered instruction is designed with the idea of helping teachers of regular subjects to accommodate for English language learners in their classroom. We learned a few things in the process of increasing the vocabulary readiness of our students. As a Spanish teacher, I learned early on that the mouth is connected to the brain, and if the mouth could not say the word, then there was little chance that the brain would remember it.
The 13 MUST Know Professional Development Websites for Teachers 1- Education World This is a great website that offers all the resources you need to grow professionally. It has different sections with each one full of PDFs, books, articles an many more . 2- Discovery Education There is no way that you did not hear about this awesome website. 3- Staff Develop This is another great resource for professional development.It provides articles, books, workshops, and many resources links. 4- Ed Week Ed Week is a also one of the leading websites in education. 5- Educators Professional Development The title says it all. 6- Read Write Think This has a separate section dedicated to professional development resources . check it out , it is really great. 7- Teacher Vision Teacher Vision provides a wide range of professional development resources for educators such as articles, lesson plans, links and many more. 8- Teachers Domain This is a free digital media service for educational use from public broadcasting and its partners. 9- Getting Smart 10- Common Sense Media
Curriculum Leadership Journal | Scootle: a one stop shop for online curriculum content Educators are now well aware that we live in a world that is ‘both technologically rich and information-rich’ (MCEETYA, 2005). The education community is still exploring how to apply this wealth of new knowledge most usefully within schools, and individual teachers are also finding their way within a range of programs, policies and research findings. The Le@rning Federation (TLF) has developed Scootle, a website to allow jurisdictions to give their teachers a quick, approachable way to find and use digital curriculum content in their classrooms, and their school leaders a means to oversee this usage and draw on it for future school-level planning. Scootle helps educators to provide individualised learning to cater to students’ diverse needs, facilitate collaborative student learning and create additional means for teacher collaboration within a school. What is Scootle? Scootle learning paths In the collaborative workspace, students can: Using Scootle as a school leader Who can access Scootle?
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