Merit Pay is NOT Enough to Make a Difference in the Classroom.

The National Center on Performance Incentives at Vanderbilt University just reported on the finding of their 3-year POINT project. This research, the first scientific study of performance pay ever conducted in the United States, investigated the foundational question, “Does bonus pay alone improve student outcomes?” Interestingly enough, they found the […]

Millenials: They Have Different Learning Needs

  drzreflects.com                    In the UNI workshop on our Liberal Arts Core, I mentioned the need for educators to consider our students’ needs and address them – not the other way around.   At UNI the average undergraduate student is 21 years old. This places this audience right in the middle of […]

Teacher Education: USING technology is Not Enough, MODEL it.

How do teacher educators use technology?Many of faculty use the BlackBoard content management system for posting grades, emailing their students, providing copies of their PowerPoint presentations and provide assignment pages for students to better understand what is expected in class.They are USING technology but how are they updating their students’ […]

Backchanneling in 1st Grade?

Backchanneling is a process where students converse in an online chatroom, usually while listening to a lecture or watching a multimedia presentation of some sort. We have been using backchanneling with our university students at the University of Northern Iowa. Rob Galloway talks about this on his blog. We have […]

ISTE 2010: What a Wonderful Week!!!

What a Wonderful Week!!! I have just spent a wonderful week in Denver at the ISTE 2010 conference. Formerly known as NECC (National Educational Computing Conference), this event has been running for decades. I first attended in 1992 and have gone every year except once when I was in Malaysia […]