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(cc) Roger Jones

For too long learners have been let down by the way they’ve  been taught math.

In fact, a lack of math proficiency remains one of the biggest single problems shared by learners across the globe, regardless of country.

Sarah Bartram is an online teaching pioneer who is making a difference for hundreds of learners who are fed up and reaching out for help with math - online.

An out-of-the-box thinker, it’s not too surprising that Sarah has chosen to teach online. But it is interesting that her passion and commitment to teaching developed OUTSIDE the expected teachers’college.

Yes, you read that right.

While Sarah is college trained, she is not a “certified” teacher. Instead, she is a woman with a sheer love of mathematics, a person who enjoys helping people understand and solve math problems they find too challenging to solve on their own.

And she’s made it her business to help them!

Learners LOVE working with Sarah because she makes their needs her #1 priority.

It’s easy to see just HOW MUCH they love working with her, skimming through the hundreds of stellar reviews they have left for her on LivePerson.com.

Basing her work on the belief that everyone can learn math, Sarah uses her online teaching business and her face-to-face tutoring practice to make a very decent living doing exactly what she loves most - teaching mathematics.

(cc) Ben Cummings

How simple can you get?

1. Learners ask for and receive the math help they need.
2. Sarah makes a decent living doing what she loves.
3. Things start turning around for learners - Online.

I invite you to listen to Sarah talk about how she’s doing her part to make a dent in a global problem - that really doesn’t have to be a global problem.

…then I suggest you consider how you might start sharing your teaching passions DIRECTLY with global learners - online.

You don’t have to quit teaching to collect on your education!

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How Do We Promote Higher Level Thinking Today?

It’s one thing for educators to teach to tests that offer learners certification that proves they’ve mastered key facts and concepts that panels of experts deem necessary for an ‘educated’ person to know.

It’s another thing altogether to help learners exploit their native curiosity and continuously improve their higher order thinking so they are able to solve the endless stream of complex problems that everyday life delivers. It’s true, as Tony Karreer says, life is mostly an open book test.

For many years, Bloom’s Taxonomy has offered teachers and learners some useful distinctions that help break down complex tasks into structured learning experiences that allow people to build on their success.

The early taxonomy began with knowledge, understanding, and application as lower level skills and cast higher level skills as analysis, synthesis, and evaluation.

However, getting learners engaged - and keeping them engaged - in the increasingly busy and ‘noisy’ information environment of the 21st century seems to be presenting new challenges.

In 2001, Anderson and Krathwohl adapted Bloom’s model to fit the needs of today by employing more outcome-oriented language, workable objectives, and changing nouns to active verbs.

Most notably, knowledge was converted to remember. In addition, the highest level of development is now called create, rather than evaluate.

Recently, Barbara Clark (2007) provided an adaptation of Bloom’s work to facilitate active learning.

This circle is called the Cognitive Taxonomy Circle:

I find Clark’s tool useful when I need to respond to learners’ needs directly, actively, and specifically. I use it to help me meet learners of all ages - and all abilities - where they are in their personal inquiry, not where I am, or where I think they ought to be.

When I’m able to do this, engagement seems to take care of itself.

What tools do YOU use to help you meet learners where they are?

My research process these days has me following the trails of brave explorers, digging deeper when I find something that interests me, sharing it, and getting feedback. Not so surprising for a woman who has decided to park her wagon right close to the end of the Oregon Trail, I guess.

I’ve been so busy that I haven’t posted here… and that’s got to stop today.

So, Jane Hart has been my personal Sacajawea for at least three months now…and she’s just published her Top 25 personal faves from the Top 100 solicitation she does each year.

Here’s a link to the report:
http://www.c4lpt.co.uk/articles/25tools.html

Did she leave out any of your faves? Which ones? I’m rabidly really curious about how people are using these tools - both inside conventional learning systems and outside them.

I spent an exciting morning exploring WebSlides - not on this list.

Looks to me like the next big technology for teachers of all kinds …

WebSlides

What do you think?