“We didn’t ban calculators. We taught math differently. We didn’t ban the internet. We taught research differently. So why are we trying to ban AI instead of doing the same?” We’ve been here before. I was a young teacher when the internet showed up in classrooms in the 90s. Educators panicked. Teachers worried it would make students lazy, that it would only be used for cheating, and that memorizing facts and dates would go out the window. They were right. Sort of. The internet did change things. But it didn’t destroy learning. It made us rethink what was worth teaching and how we wanted to spend instructional time. It pushed us away from memorizing trivia and toward analyzing, questioning, creating, and connecting. The same thing happened with calculators decades before. There was real fear that students would lose the ability to compute. But what actually happened was that students stopped getting stuck in multi-digit calculations and started spending more time doing real math. They m...
"Embracing Change in Education: Overcoming Contraction Bias” Or "Future-Proofing the Flock: When Sheep in Educator's Clothing Resist the New Wool"
"In the classroom, the only constant is change, but our brains might be playing tricks on us, convincing us that new teaching strategies are just old wine in new bottles. Let's debunk this myth and dive into the curious world of contraction bias—where progress may be more than we think." Part of the “Barriers to Professional Learning & Doing” series… First, my introduction to the Contraction Bias (CB) Support Group: Me: “Hello, my name is Robb and I have CB” You: “Hello, Robb” What the heck is CB? It stands for “Contraction Bias” and it’s one of the reasons why we aren’t making headway in education reform in our districts and schools. I’m worried that I may have been part of the problem! [Enter sad face here!] Let’s talk about this for a second… What is Contraction Bias? According to ScienceDirect, “One commonly observed perceptual distortion is the contraction bias - the tendency of observers to underestimate stimuli that are larger ...