This blog is about 3 stories.

1. The start-up year for a very different sort of Graduate School of Education. It's a tiny subset of...
2. ...The much larger, national effort to transform teaching and teachers. That is a big subset of...
3. ...A multi-kajillion-dollar effort to improve the ludicrous odds (7% or so) of a poor kid ever getting a college diploma.

Contest! Rename This Blog

Posted: February 24th, 2013 | Author: | | 14 Comments »

We’re not starting an ed school anymore, Dorothy. It’s started.

Here’s my first blog entry, from January 2010. What I’d described as a “yearlong journey” took 2. But we’re up and running.

So I think this blog is ready for a new name. I’ve brainstormed. So far, I’ve got “Mike G’s blog.” And that’s it.

Would appreciate other ideas. Winner gets to name his/her price*!

While I will continue blog about ed schools, rookie teachers, and teacher prep, I’ll also continue to write about other topics, too. On my mind:

1. Ed-tech. Which tools help kids and make schoolteachers’ lives easier, not harder? How will MOOCs change teacher prep, if at all?

2. Pleasure reading. How to flip more reluctant readers into what Kimberly calls “voracious” pleasure-readers?

3. Parents. How can we knock down the “Teacher-Parent Berlin Wall,” so it’s much easier for us all to work together?

4. College success and failure. How do grit (Dan W: drink!), knowledge (ahoy Robert), and $ affect college outcomes? What can we do to raise a kid’s chances of success, both during K-12 and once in college?

5. The mostly barren world of p.d. and the promise of 1:1 teacher coaching. What works?

6. High-dosage math tutoring. My colleague Alan is leading work in this area, along with several friends. It. Is. Spreading. How can do better?

7. Understanding teacher time. Many things teachers are asked to do may (if done well) raise student achievement, but also make a teacher’s job harder. Can we make teachers lives easier without diminishing student learning? Example: Grading. Anything that would help our 4 million teachers have more choices on how they might invest their limited and valuable time, both in and out of class.

All those edu-puzzles and more.

As for blog name ideas, so far besides Mike G’s Blog (sound okay?), my 4 year old suggested “Something with Thor in it. Or The Hulk.” Maybe you can do better.

*So long as it’s cheap.

14 Comments on “Contest! Rename This Blog”

  1. 1: CB said at 11:18 am on February 24th, 2013:

    my first reaction, sort of like a one word answer to question…

    THE MOST IMPORTANT TASK

    ” far more important task of trying to explain the wide variation in measured charter and other reform efforts performance in terms of concrete policies and practices, which can inform all schools, regardless of their governance structures. Such must be possible and cost effective…

  2. 2: Hawke said at 2:50 pm on February 24th, 2013:

    Sadly, most of the good names (e.g. badassoftheweek, HawkeTalke, TMZ) are all taken. You may as well use your license plate because, at this point, all of the vanity names are gone.

    Some ideas:

    Flying Double Blind (merging your pioneering work with your love of scientifically rigorous studies)

    The Goldstein Standard (a Bond-esque reference to your drive to determine best practices in education and ed-related fields)

    Mike G’s Blog (For the record, I probably thought of this one first)

  3. 3: Luke said at 5:55 pm on February 24th, 2013:

    The What Might Work (Given Condition X with Caveat Y Plus Did You See This? Interesting) Clearinghouse

    Has a certain ring to it, I dare say.

  4. 4: mathteacher said at 9:03 pm on February 24th, 2013:

    Fast Forward: musings on how to change urban education NOW.

  5. 5: lauren said at 1:27 am on February 25th, 2013:

    You said it yourself: Edu-puzzles. Done.

  6. 6: Robert Pondiscio said at 9:26 am on February 25th, 2013:

    Perhaps not a good blog title, but let me propose “Ending Ed School.” A fair amount of the dynamism in education in the last decade has come not because of schools of education, but in spite of them, yet they have been largely given a pass. The spirit of the age in education would suggest that we can and should explore ways for teachers to self-direct their development beyond the gravitational pull of ed schools and their too-often deleterious effects.

  7. 7: Emma said at 3:10 pm on February 25th, 2013:

    Curric-in-a-Blog

  8. 8: Ben said at 10:58 pm on February 25th, 2013:

    The Examined School?
    Starting a Better School?
    1001 Comm Ave?

  9. 9: Bridget said at 5:30 pm on February 26th, 2013:

    A few ideas:

    Eduexperiment
    Open Source Success
    Better Ed
    Solving for Ed

  10. 10: Jen said at 9:39 pm on February 26th, 2013:

    I like “The Most Important Task” or something like it.

    Maybe a word cloud of a year’s worth of postings and pick the top phrase or word combo?

    Improving Ed << I like that it sounds like there is an Ed out there trying to get better.

    I'm partial to the Comm Ave one as well.

  11. 11: Neerav said at 1:42 pm on February 27th, 2013:

    You should create three blogs, all with the exact same content, but with different names / websites. After three months, keep which ever one gets the most hits.

    Relinquish naming to the people!

  12. 12: Ben Riley said at 7:44 am on February 28th, 2013:

    Three people will get it, but My Pedagogic Screed would be a clever blog title.

    MikED Up

    Goldstein Standard suggested above is good.

  13. 13: ray said at 9:13 am on February 28th, 2013:

    1001 ed thoughts.

  14. 14: Michael Goldstein said at 11:28 am on February 28th, 2013:

    Other ideas I’ve gotten:

    Ed-Jew-Wonk

    Tinkering With An Ed School

    Matchinations

    Edu-Nut (my brother’s idea)

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