Monthly Archives: October 2011

A better way of deciding who’s fit to be president … or fit to teach

Posted on 25/10/2011 by essdee| 2 Comments

After watching the final TV debate among presidential candidates, I have to agree with my colleague on Inside Education, Barry Hennessy, who says that the debate format is not best the best way to decide who is fit to be president of Ireland. One limitation, according to Barry, is that the order in which you are asked the questions determines how original your answer sounds to the audience and how much time you have to think of a response to a particular question. Continue reading →

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Posted in Assessment, Teacher Education

Teaching Practice changes will help bridge schools and colleges

Posted on 20/10/2011 by essdee| 1 Comment

Changes are afoot in how schools and teacher education institutions interact with one another. The changes are set out in the Teaching Council’s document on Initial Teacher Education: Criteria and Guidelines for Programme Providers  and they are intended to benefit schools, student teachers and colleges. Highlights of the required changes are as follows: Continue reading →

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Posted in Continuing Professional Development, Teacher Education

10 Questions about influences on Irish Education

Posted on 12/10/2011 by essdee| Leave a comment

Last week The Irish Times claimed to be “the first to identify and rank the main movers in Irish education” in its list of the fifty most influential people in education. This is indeed an interesting task to take on because if we know who shapes education, we know who influences the next generation of Irish citizens and who thereby leaves a substantial legacy behind them. Continue reading →

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Posted in Education Policy, Practice of Teaching

Differentiating instruction in mathematics class (3)

Posted on 10/10/2011 by essdee| 1 Comment

In the last two posts I made suggestions for differentiating instruction in maths class. In this final post for now on the topic of differentiation, I present a third approach. Unlike the other two, which were whole-class suggestions for differentiating instruction, this one requires particular knowledge of individual students and obstacles and strengths to learning that they possess. Continue reading →

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Posted in Practice of Teaching, Teaching Maths