Arts Education

A few nights ago an  Eric Sheninger   tweet  caught my eye.  It referenced a Muse article called " 10 Annoying Buzzwords the Whole Office Would Be Better Without ."  I am a bit of a junkie for lists like this.  In fact,  this  is my favorite of these types of lists; reading it has become a New Year's ritual for me.  I keep waiting for the annoying habit of adding -out to verbs (like "share out" and "tweet out" - why do we need the out?) to end up on this list, but, no luck so far.  Anyway, I couldn't help reading the article. The article highlights a lot of jargon-y words that people use, like leverage and disrupt and iteration, more often than they should be used.  A new one for me was "double-click" to replace one of my hated phrases, "drill down."  I hope I don't have a mouthful of diet coke the first time I hear someone say they need to double-click an idea in a meeting.  A spit take is likely. I couldn't disagree wi...

One of my constant sources of inspiration is the work of Dan Meyer .  Dan's recent post "If Math is the Aspirin, Then How Do You Create the Headache?" explores the idea of how to introduce a concept or stir up interest in a concept so that math is authentic.  I struggle with this a lot in chemistry, especially since students begin the year with very little foundation on which to draw. As I planned my acids and bases unit this spring, I was trying to incorporate an inquiry-based lab that involved the properties of acids and bases.  Initially I thought I would give students unknown solutions and some equipment and ask them to identify the substances as acids, bases, or neither.  Maybe I would make it more relevant by using household or common substances.  I opted against that because it felt too elementary and, if I am being honest, wouldn't they just measure the pH and call it a day?  I had to miss a day for inservice, so I left them a great PhET simulation...