A teacher in our local school district recently posted a question on one of our discussion boards: “I’m having a difficult time coming up with ideas on how to give my students more responsibility and freedom in my classroom. I am very structured and organized -- how can I give my eighth graders a little freedom in the classroom and retain structure and organization?”

My summer-reading list included the autobiographies of Mohandas Gandhi and Malcolm X, as well as a book about John F. and Robert Kennedy called Brothers, by David Talbot. Part of my motivation for reading these books came from a desire to understand the process of social change and how, perhaps, that process can help us change schools.

My two favorite times of the academic year are the beginning and the ending, and one of the best things about working in education is that we get all summer to recharge. As I gear up to start a new school year, I've been thinking quite a bit about beginnings.

The report “A New Day for Learning,” recently released by the Time, Learning, and Afterschool Task Force, argues that we must redefine the school day if we are to improve student achievement in the United States. The authors of the report, funded by the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, lay out five elements of their proposed new learning system.

Many people believe that a high-quality teacher-education program must include field experience for teacher candidates in all education courses. Organizations such as the National Network for Educational Renewal and the Association of Teacher Educators strongly support this concept.

One of the instructional strategies often supported on this site is project-based learning. PBL has been at the heart of vocational agriculture programs since the beginning. All vocational agriculture students participate in the Future Farmers of America’s Supervised Agricultural Experience Programs, which consist of projects carried out individually or in groups.

I teach an online graduate class titled Technology Tools for Teachers. Most of the class members are practicing educators with several years of experience teaching in rural areas.