Building a better teacher
by Elizabeth Green · first published 2014
63% recommend25% neutral13% critical
Why HN recommends it
Covers how teaching skill can be learned and taught, including the specialized subject knowledge teachers need to see where student errors come from. It is eye-opening for anyone thinking about teaching.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
"We've all had great teachers who opened new worlds, maybe even changed our lives. What made them so great? Everyone agrees that a great teacher can have an enormous impact. Yet we still don't know what, precisely, makes a teacher great. Is it a matter of natural-born charisma? Or does exceptional teaching require something more? Building a Better Teacher introduces a new generation of educators exploring the intricate science underlying their art. A former principal studies the country's star teachers and discovers a set of common techniques that help children pay attention. Two math teachers
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…begun in many occupations. The article's conclusion about improving the performance of elementary and secondary school teachers in the United States is thoughtful, and also refers to good new books, Building a Better Teacher by Elizabeth Green and The Teacher Wars by Dana Goldstein. Studies of educational effectiveness in the United States consistently show that the variance in teacher quality in any one school swamps the…
on “Getting Better at Getting Better” ↗…teachers are taught how to teach broadly, but not the sort of (more specialized) subject knowledge that lets you get inside a student's head to see where the errors are coming from. Elizabeth Green's book "Building A Better Teacher" was eye-opening to me.
on “How a flawed idea is teaching millions of kids to be poor readers (2019)” ↗…topic, there's an entire field of learning science. For example, Greg Wilson, at Software Carpentry, recommends (http://software-carpentry.org/blog/2016/09/small-teaching.ht... ): > Elizabeth Green’s Building a Better Teacher changed how I think about teaching, and sparked some good discussion in our community. Therese Huston’s Teaching What You Don’t Know had a similar impact a few years earlier, and now there is James Lang’s…
on “Ask HN: Why is learning so painful?” ↗A good start. Building a Better Teacher: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html
on “The Real Problem with Waiting for Superman” ↗…educational system is to teach teachers better ways to teach. Teaching is a learnable and teachable art, even though like all arts, some people will be better (sometimes much better) than others. See "Building a Better Teacher": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html...
on “To Fix America's Education Bureaucracy, We Need to Destroy It” ↗Evaluating teachers is all well and good, but the key to improving our educational system is not that. What is needed is improving teachers. See "Building a Better Teacher"[0] [0]http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html...
on “Gates Foundation study: We’ve figured out what makes a good teacher” ↗Another fix would be to train teachers better: give them actual training in classroom techniques. See "Building a Better Teacher (NYT)[0] & Teach Like a Champion 2.0 [1] [0]http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/magazine/07Teachers-t.html... [1]http://smile.amazon.com/Teach-Like-Champion-2-0-Techniques/d...
on “How Much Is a Good Teacher Worth? (2011)” ↗…Attack' by Kathleen Founds Category: NONFICTION 1. 'American Mirror: The Life And Art Of Norman Rockwell' by Deborah Solomon 2. 'Being Mortal: Medicine And What Matters In The End' by Atul Gawande 3. 'Building A Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (and How To Teach It To Everyone)' by Elizabeth Green 4. 'Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant' by tten and illustrated by Roz Chast 5. 'China’s Second Continent: How A Million…
on “Notable Books of 2014” ↗The article is an excerpt from a book called "Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (And How to Teach It to Everyone)", but it feels like an introduction; it doesn't say anything useful or even give much of a hint as to what the author believes. Certainly it doesn't…
on “Secrets of amazing teachers: What both sides of the education debate get wrong” ↗…they got the final answer? I doubt it, particularly as the impacts of tech is so little understood even now. But they are making progress, at least it seems that way to me. (If you are interested, Building a Better Teacher is a source that would give you more of an understanding of what the discussion is. This article was part of the marketing people's plants for the book.)
on “Why Do Americans Stink at Math?” ↗