Currently I am writing a short book based on my very popular iae-pedia page Good Math Lesson Plans (http://iae-pedia.org/Good_Math_Lesson_Plans). I started to think about the role of Advance Organizers in a good lesson. The idea of an advance organizer is attributed to David Ausubel. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Ausubel. Quoting from this Wikipedia document:

An advance organizer is information presented by an instructor that helps the student organize new incoming information. This is achieved by directing attention to what is important in the coming material, highlighting relationships, and providing a reminder about relevant prior knowledge.

Advance organizers are helpful in the way that they help the process of learning when difficult and complex materials are introduced. This is satisfied through two conditions:

I recently listed to a 15-minute interview with Yong Zhao. The (audio) interview is available at http://bcove.me/3ftbh7c0. The interview presents powerful and well reasoned ideas on how to improve our educational system. I strongly recommend that you listen to the interview ad/or read Yong’s book:

Zhao, Yong (2009).  Catching Up or Leading the Way: American Education in the Age of Globalization Availability. ASCD.  

Here is a brief introduction to the book, quoted from the ASCD site http://shop.ascd.org/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductId=1095&Catching-Up-or-Leading-the-Way:-American-Education-in-the-Age-of-Globalization.

Today I spent some time looking for research literature on the effectiveness of using computerized white boards (CWB) in education. I did this because I had just read an article about many teachers and their students liking the $5,000 CWB and believing it improved education. My probe into the research on actual effectiveness of CWB use indicated that substantial staff development in its use may be a major factor in whether student learning is improved in a CWB environment. It may be, for example, that extensive staff development on how to facilitate interactive teaching is a key issue in effective use of CWB. In any event, this thought led me to looking at some of the literature on staff development. That, in turn, led me to the following report:

Darling-Hammond, Linda; Wei, Ruth Chung; Andree, Alethea; Richardson, Nikole; and Orphanos, Stelios (2009).  Professional learning in the learning profession: A status report on teacher development in the United States and abroad. National Staff Development Council. This 36-page report was retrieved 1/24/2012 from http://www.srnleads.org/resources/publications/pdf/nsdc_profdev_short_report.pdf.

Here is a quote that I consider to be the good news from this report:

As I read about continuing efforts to improve our education system, I am reminded of the following quote:

Today’s teachers are experiencing a new kind of student. I enjoyed the brief summary provided by the following article:

Use of the Information Age Education resources continues to grow. For a list of IAE’s six major resources and data about three of them, go to http://iae-pedia.org/Main_Page.

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You are familiar with the idea of reading and writing across the curriculum. Our educational system helps students learn to read and write, and then expects students to use reading and writing as aids to learning each discipline they study.

Judy Willis has written extensively about recent progress in brain science and how it could and should be affecting instruction in math and other areas. See the References section of this IAE Blog for links to IAE documents that mention her work. This current IAE Blog discusses the following publication:

Willis, Judy (10/5/2011). Three brain-based teaching strategies to build executive function in students. Edutopia. Retrieved 10/8/2011 from  http://www.edutopia.org/blog/brain-based-teaching-strategies-judy-willis.

After completing my doctorate in math (specializing in Numerical Analysis), I became a math department faculty member first at Michigan State University and then at the University of Oregon. I gradually moved into the fields of math education, computer education, and preparing teachers to make effective use of computers in education.

Robert Sylwester has written an article that I believe is quite useful for doctoral students in a college of education. These materials can be accessed at http://iae-pedia.org/Cognitive_Neuroscience_Discoveries.

IBM recently announced that it has developed prototypes of computer chips that mimic the way the human brain works. The development of this chip is part of the work of a $41 million 6-year project being funded by Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.