As has happened before in history, in the middle of the 20th Century, a handful of American leaders used their words to convey ideas that created a mental framework that led to one of the more progressive democratic periods of the our nation. Other social and economic factors helped make those changes possible but words…
Continue ReadingEngaging in Development
Check out Dr. Rowe’s feature article on Boston Network for International Development’s blog! Dr. Rowe sums up a couple important notes to remember. First of all, we are all in international development. “Whether we are working locally or abroad, we are all working and having direct implications and effects on other parts of the world…
Continue ReadingA Day at the Open Learning Exchange
Check out our blog post on Boston Network for International Development: Disparity in the world is growing resulting to lack of opportunity. A single donation of money and food without a targeted solution is not the answer to reducing disparity. Give people a real chance! A basis to climb the ladder! Basic education is the…
Continue ReadingJob Opportunity: Executive Director, OLE Kenya
Seeking an Executive Director, OLE Kenya Open Learning Exchange, International, is seeking a passionate and entrepreneurial Kenyan educator to become the Executive Director of OLE Kenya and lead its establishment. This involves leading OLE Kenya’s inaugural one-year program with alumni of the Young African Leaders Initiative while developing and implementing a longer-term strategy for OLE…
Continue ReadingWinning Hearts and Minds
In the New York Times Book Review of General Bolger’s “Why We Lost” [Nov. 16, 2014], the reviewer, Andrew Bacevich, not only critiqued Bolger’s perspectives meaningfully, but also went beyond his thesis to raise crucial questions about the failure of our democratic system—and ultimately of us all—to demand a more effective strategy for responding to terrorism. That fatal…
Continue ReadingThe Challenges and Opportunities of OER in K-12 Education
I have long believed that OER in K-12 education will have a good life so long as it does not directly threaten the commercial publishers of school textbooks. It’s not clear to me when this battle will occur and who will win it but I do expect to see strong opposition to widespread OER for…
Continue ReadingScaling and Sustaining Innovations
One of the great challenges facing the goal of Quality Universal Basic Education throughout the world is how to scale and sustain innovations that are designed to achieve that goal. Having been asked to be on a panel at the 2014 Education Alliance Symposium in Washington this week, I have tried to organize my thoughts…
Continue ReadingRe: Coaching is a great idea but….
In response to Dr. Rowe’s blog below, while I agree that coaching is a great idea, from whom are the teacher trainees supposed to learn? As we have seen in our work in Ghana and from experiences shared by other teachers across the continent and other parts of the world, the challenge comes from the…
Continue ReadingThe Importance of Coaching
Recently a school in Oakland California that is providing “residencies” for new teachers, as a novel approach for teacher training, was featured by the New York Times. This program is modeled after medical training and is based on the truth that the skills required by professionals can best be acquired in real life situations with…
Continue ReadingCoaching – a way to improve teaching and learning
Recently a school in Oakland California that is providing “residencies” for new teachers, as a novel approach for teacher training, was featured by the New York Times. This program is modeled after medical training and is based on the truth that the skills required by professionals can best be acquired in real life situations with…
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