This is the sixth written response to the TFA pre-institute work (responses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). This reflection is on “continuously improving effectiveness.” I can only imagine that getting filmed on your first day in the classroom is incredibly valuable. Not simply because reviewing that tape can help you make important short-term improvements in… Read more »
Posts Categorized: teach for america
Of course I remember having you in my class.
At the beginning of the Great Depression, high school graduation rates in the United States were 30 percent. In 1940, it was 50 percent. This educational leap forward is the lede for David Leonhardt’s piece in the New York Times Magazine on the similar shift during the ongoing Great Recession: more Americans are enrolling in… Read more »
This is how a scholar listens
This is the fifth written response to the TFA pre-institute work (responses 1, 2, 3, 4). This reflection is on “executing effectively.” Well-executed classroom management can look like fascism. Teaching her classroom how to get up from their desks, for lines, and leave the classroom, Ms. Deshpande does a good job recognizing model behavior and… Read more »
Shiny magical smartphones and better tracking data
I noticed on one of my observation visits that the teacher almost never put down her clipboard. On it, she kept a chart that allowed her to track student progress and comprehension, take notes on students who needed additional help after short conferences, and what elements of her lesson plan were working. Over the course… Read more »
Website building and reading comprehension
This is the fourth written response to the TFA pre-institute work (responses 1, 2, 3). This reflection is on “planning purposefully.” Have I ever planned at the level of detail outlined in the TFA training materials? No. In fact, I’ve worked on projects far more complicated, expensive, and involving more people than a semester of… Read more »
Why read? Because being illiterate pays poorly.
While making a classroom observation visit a few weeks ago, I jotted notes about several of the posters and wall hangings in the high school English class. One was a handmade poster with national literacy statistics: the percentage of unemployed people with low reading skills, the reading skills of prisoners, and Americans in general. The… Read more »
Hi, I'm Andrew Plemmons Pratt. I currently teach 7th-grade English / Reading / Language Arts at a turnaround school in Prince George’s County, Maryland. This year, my classroom is piloting a 1:1 iPad program designed to accelerate middle-school literary. I write about education technology here at appratt.com and at the EdTech 101 blog on . I'm a 2010 Teach For America corps member, and before that I was the managing editor at , the science and tech policy magazine at the Center for American Progress, a Washington, DC-based think tank.