Jeff Kupperman

Find me on Facebook

Jeff Kupperman — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 23:11:58 -0400

For more recent stuff, please find me on Facebook....

Year of the Ox

Jeff Kupperman — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:34:59 -0500

Ways to assess learning

Jeff Kupperman — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 11:51:06 -0500

I've cleaned up notes from our brainstorming last week. If I've missed anything, please comment on this entry.

1. Tests -- can be involve writing, speaking, choosing (multiple choice), manipulating other kinds of symbols (e.g. math). Aim may be to assess ability to recall information, draw conclusions, synthesize ideas, make causal inferences, and reflect on knowledge. Tests may "unintentionally" also assess knowledge of standard English, experience with "middle class" life and values, fine motor skills, general writing and verbal skills, reading comprehension, the ability to follow directions, general memory ability, access to help outside school, and even the ability to sit still.

2. Performance assessment/Authentic assessments. Aim is usually to assess the ability to perform a particular task or sequence of tasks and respond to problems in the physical world. Outcome may be influenced by more general abilities such as fine motor (physical) skills.

3. Informal observation of activity (individual or small group, or whole class situations). Can help assess group interaction, interest/motivation, and leadership. In group situations especially, what one sees may be influenced heavily by a student's personality -- e.g., how outgoing they are -- or their popularity among peers.

4. Individual interviews. Can probe understanding in ways not dependent on writing skills or peer influences. Still, may be influenced heavily by general verbal skills, and the ability to respond "on the spot."

5. Design tasks. Can assess creativity and problem-solving over time. Depending on the task, may also assess organizational skills, persistence, and interpersonal skills.

6. Portfolios. Can give a big picture of strengths and weaknesses, organizational skills, improvement over time. May be especially influenced by access to experiences and resources outside of school.

Superman and Leaf Pile

Jeff Kupperman — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 12:56:19 -0500

'Nuff said!

EDS 302 Debate 2 Documents

Jeff Kupperman — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 17:50:43 -0400

Critic Profiles

Jane Addams

Catherine Esther Beecher

Joe Clark

John Goodlad

Deborah Meier

John Ogbu

Lisbeth Schorr

Paulo Friere

Jesse Jackson

Ivan Illich

Margaret Spellings

Seymour Papert

Alfie Kohn

John Dewey

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

E. D. Hirsch

Teacher Position Papers

Case 4: Scenario

Case 4: Teacher position

Case 5: Scenario

Case 5: Teacher Position

Case 6: Scenario

Case 6: Teacher position

Welcome to the blogosphere, Max!

Jeff Kupperman — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 07:39:09 -0400

Max's has started his own blog: It's called "Fleb!" and it's at http://wearentthem.blogspot.com.

Go, Max!

EDS 302 book presentations

Jeff Kupperman — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 22:48:43 -0400

One size fits few presentation.ppt

One Size Fits Few

In Defense of Our Children.ppt

In Defense of Our Children

Learning and Forgetting shortened.ppt

The Book of Learning and Forgetting

God’s Choice.ppt

God's Choice

The Mind at Work.ppt

The Mind at Work

EDS 302 The Power of Their Ideas.ppt

The Power of Their Ideas

Little aliens

Jeff Kupperman — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:22:57 -0400

Ollie went over to Seri's house for a playdate, and as Seri chattered excitedly about some new wall hooks that happened to be lying around in the entranceway, her father observed wryly, "Being 4 years old is like visiting a foreign country: everything seems different and interesting, and you feel compelled to remark on every ordinary detail of life."

Truly said!

Where the information highway does not go, try a donkey

Jeff Kupperman — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 14:51:09 -0400

Proving that the internet isn't the only way to spread information through social networking...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/20/world/americas/20burro.htm

Andrew Sullivan on blogging

Jeff Kupperman — Sun, 19 Oct 2008 22:17:21 -0400

Andrew Sullivan writes in the November Atlantic Monthly about how blogging has changed journalism:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200811/andrew-sullivan-why-i-blog

Blogging as a well-known journalist is a different experience, of course, from that of most citizen bloggers, but he has some interesting points about the way blogs have changed the way we create and consume knowledge. Excerpts below:

"It is accountable in immediate and unavoidable ways to readers and other bloggers...its borders are extremely porous and its truth inherently transitory. The consequences of this for the act of writing are still sinking in."

[Concerning logs -- e.g., ship logs -- in general] "As you read a log, you have the curious sense of moving backward in time as you move forward in pages—the opposite of a book. As you piece together a narrative that was never intended as one, it seems—and is—more truthful. Logs, in this sense, were a form of human self-correction. They amended for hindsight, for the ways in which human beings order and tidy and construct the story of their lives as they look back on them. Logs require a letting-go of narrative because they do not allow for a knowledge of the ending. So they have plot as well as dramatic irony—the reader will know the ending before the writer did."

"This is writing with emotion not just under but always breaking through the surface. It renders a writer and a reader not just connected but linked in a visceral, personal way. The only term that really describes this is friendship."

"If I were to do an inventory of the material that appears on my blog, I’d estimate that a good third of it is reader-generated, and a good third of my time is spent absorbing readers’ views, comments, and tips. Readers tell me of breaking stories, new perspectives, and counterarguments to prevailing assumptions. .... Not all of it is mere information. Much of it is also opinion and scholarship, a knowledge base that exceeds the research department of any newspaper."

"[W]riting in this new form is a collective enterprise as much as it is an individual one..."

"There are times, in fact, when a blogger feels less like a writer than an online disc jockey, mixing samples of tunes and generating new melodies through mashups while also making his own music."

"[B]logging suffers from the same flaws as postmodernism: a failure to provide stable truth or a permanent perspective. A traditional writer is valued by readers precisely because they trust him to have thought long and hard about a subject, given it time to evolve in his head, and composed a piece of writing that is worth their time to read at length and to ponder. Bloggers don’t do this and cannot do this—and that limits them far more than it does traditional long-form writing."

"To use an obvious analogy, jazz entered our civilization much later than composed, formal music. But it hasn’t replaced it; and no jazz musician would ever claim that it could. Jazz merely demands a different way of playing and listening, just as blogging requires a different mode of writing and reading. Jazz and blogging are intimate, improvisational, and individual—but also inherently collective. And the audience talks over both... The reason they talk while listening, and comment or link while reading, is that they understand that this is a kind of music that needs to be engaged rather than merely absorbed. To listen to jazz as one would listen to an aria is to miss the point. Reading at a monitor, at a desk, or on an iPhone provokes a querulous, impatient, distracted attitude, a demand for instant, usable information, that is simply not conducive to opening a novel or a favorite magazine on the couch. Reading on paper evokes a more relaxed and meditative response. The message dictates the medium. And each medium has its place—as long as one is not mistaken for the other."