Happy 2013!

I suspended posting my Friday 4 missive over the winter vacation but am ready to make up for lost time! I did a ton of reading over the break and came across a plethora of interesting sites/pieces that you may or may not have seen on your own. I will resist bombarding you with a huge list all at once and will keep a bunch in the hopper for future Friday 4 editions.

So, here are a few finds to start the new year off with…enjoy!

• Got sleep? Here is a recent piece from one of my favorite cognitive scientist writer/bloggers, Daniel Willingham (@DTWillingham), titled “Are Sleepy Students Learning?” This piece appeared in this winter’s edition of the American Educator magazine and is a good overview of the research on sleep and student performance.
• I do not quite remember how I stumbled across this next piece, but it is an interesting read for any classroom teacher. The post is about a legendary horse, Clever Hans, who could perform all sorts of mathematical operations…or so it appeared! The take home lesson in the piece is “never underestimate your ability to fool yourself into believing your students understand something when really what they are doing is watching you.”
• The single best “find” from this past vacation has to be The Learning Pond blog by Grant Lichtman (@GrantLichtman). I spent several days reading his posts from this fall when he visited over 60 schools looking for ways in which educators were implementing changes to prepare their students for the 21st Century challenges. You can retrace Grant’s journey if you start with this post from right before he departed on his trek across the USA.
• “The Need for Innovative Leadership” is the title of a thought provoking post from George Couros (@gcouros) that touches on so many of the same topics that Grant discovers on his journey.

As always, please feel free to contact me or leave comments.