The Specialist

Can Writing Be Taught?

The title of this post poses what seems to be an impossible question. Yet it results in some very objective answers.

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Subscribing to a Global Classroom

I used to feel like I wore an imaginary cone-shaped hat with the words DUNCE scribbled in bright red marker in my mathematics classes. The world of numbers and equations was always troublesome for me. My earliest memory of mathematics involves me crying over my workbook in grade school as I struggled with long division. I still have nightmares about that experience. Read more about Math Phobia here.

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Solving Brain Teasers

Introduction

Society expects teachers to successfully facilitate students’ cognitive development. But cognition occurs when taught material makes sense and is affected by emotional development. Recognizing that neither teachers nor students are educated in pieces, but rather as part of a larger educational system, we must address many variables that affect students’ attitudes, morale, and school performance. One of these variables is the ongoing training in problem solutions in a classroom setting. Lately, I have been thinking about how a student’s intellectual growth and confidence are improved via finding solutions to brain teasers.

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“Imagine a World without Free Knowledge”

For many students (and many people in general!), being informed and engaged in politics can feel intimidating, abstract, or even a big waste of time. But this week, we have yet another reminder that, in fact, “the political is the personal, and the personal is political.” If you weren’t following the news, you may have found out about two bills in Congress merely by visiting some of your favorite websites. Google, Wikipedia, Twitter, Wired and dozens of other sites have been staging protests to these bills.

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