In a recent marginal syllabus conversation focused on Linda Christensen’s piece “Critical Literacy and Our Students’ Lives” , I questioned whether teachers need simply more time to design for critical classrooms focused on students funds of knowledge, experiences, interests and, indeed, voices. I wondered whether many teachers also needed increased autonomy or the sense that their efforts […]
Author Archives: Julia.Kantor
Connected Learning for Teachers in Scripted Times
We are now about two months into the school year and, having been in teacher education for about 8 years now, what continues to strike me is the degree to which scripted learning and teaching is going on in the majority of classrooms where I support new teachers. And when I write ‘scripted’, I mean […]
Letting Students in on the Design Secret
I’ve been wondering about how to let students in on the instructional design secret. I know it’s not really a secret, but it often seems like a black box that students never really get to occupy with the teacher. Even when we give them choice in assignments, this isn’t giving them a say in what […]
Design Principles
If you teach, in informal or formal settings, you are a designer. I like this idea because it is at once simple and accessible and quite nuanced. On the one hand, duh. We are making decisions about teaching and learning so this is design. On the other, we must ask the following questions: WHO (whom?) […]