March 2013 Blog Posts (45)

 I have just finished working with the most wonderful people! They are all pitched in and worked together to get this project off the ground and up and running.  Simply fantastic-hope to work with them all in the future! Thanks to all of you!

  At the beginning of this project one of the main questions that I had was what kind of project do we want to design and implement. I also wanted to know what I needed to do in order to contribute or be a resource for the project. Another…

My Thoughts on Year One of 1:1 in Grade One

Silos.

Educators live in them largely because of the pedagogical walls built individually over the years to teach children narrowly focused content using textbooks.  Even within a school there is little communication between educators leading to closed practices.  Further complicating this is the unwillingness to reframe…

Cultural Projects

Over the years, I’ve noticed how one question can change the dynamics of any situation. Everything might be moving along quite nicely at the dinner table, everyone’s happy and laughing but one question can send those same smiling faces into a frenzy of shouts and upset.

This also holds true in a classroom. Students may be working quietly and the teacher might be content but one question or comment from a student or the teacher can turn…

I posted my ADE Application on my blog: Caffeinated Teaching

Looking for some feedback - Thanks!

Several from our class worked together on this challenge.  I have never met any of the people I worked with personally but we made a great team.  Everybody added to the project and it came together really well.  Thanks to each of you for allowing me to be a part of this project.  You can see it at: Challenge 13.

Classroom Leadership

As children, young children, everything meant playing and art. We saw the world as a playground and a canvass. It didn’t matter whether or not we could actually draw. What mattered was the thrill of creating something beautiful.

We were all artists. We still are.

So reminding students that inspiration matters, that art lives and breathes inside every segment of education also means tweaking your lessons a bit. Switching your…

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During a recent class session, my students stared at me with blank expressions, glassy eyes, pasty and pale skin, and jowls drooping. I think I even saw a string of saliva hanging from the corner of one student’s mouth.

I was reviewing plot structure. It was perfect except for the fact that I was boring them to death. So I blurted out, “No wonder you like The Walking Dead, you look like zombies.”

Suddenly, the students sporadically…

For the challenge 13 we were to suggest or join a group to pursue a plan for global collaborative classroom project in a content area that interests you.  Using the strategies we learned from in the chapter.  

My group included Danje Morris, Lori Gibson, and we worked to collaborate at:  http://challenge13.wikispaces.com/

Our content area was science and our topic was : erosion.  Everyone contributed to following the…

I have been absent from the blogging world for far too long.  I have taken a position working with a Turn Around school in Indiana overseeing all the teachers and curriculum.  The year has been crazy and since I have been so busy I have not been as active as I would like.  I have learned a few things so far this year that I wanted to share in regards to new teachers and professional development.

1. New teachers are eager to learn.
2. New teachers need to know it is okay to…

Lately, I have been grappling with the question of how meaningful change happens. The gap between the kinds of schools our kids need and the kinds of schools we currently inhabit seems vast and daunting.

I have always felt uncomfortable with the image of the heroic figure who single-handedly "make things happen." It seems that the changes that we need to make -- to shift our paradigm and create truly innovative learning for our students -- are both larger and deeper than one…

"Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than one's fear."  -- Ambrose Redmoon

In my work, I frequently hear profound trepidation about the big, wide world of social media. The chorus of voices bemoans the ubiquity of Facebook and issues cautionary tales of how social sites are…

Global competency is a 21st century skill. Students need these skills in order to compete in the job market.

The Peace Corps have thus created the Worldwise Schools curriculum, a way to bring global learning into the classroom. The program provides easy-to-integrate lesson plans to teachers and tons of creative ways to connect students with issues facing the global community. These lesson plans directly relate to course content!

All of the resources are…

I found a great site that provides teachers with quick resources you can use in your classroom to reinforce the importance of global competency among your students.

1. BBC News Daily Pictures- provides 10 images from the previous day, highlighting key newsworthy events, celebrations, or geographical wonders. 

2. GapMinder- an online program that takes valid international data from various sources, including the UN, World Bank, and government files, and…

When the school year begins, teachers spend a lot of time getting the classroom ready, planning lessons, and getting to know his/her students. The following list includes 20 ideas that you may not have thought of in terms of a successful classroom arrangement or organization.

Each item takes no longer than an hour and can make a big difference throughout the year.

Action #1 Set up your classroom in an “active learning” format…

Kaizen refers to improvement of both processes and people. For schools, the philosophy of Kaizen aims at improving all aspects for all time. Thus, is it is never good enough and never ending. Kaizen seeks ongoing improvement and change for the better. Schools and teachers should think about how to do it, not why it cannot be accomplished. In implementing Kaizen, schools will have to question current beliefs and practices, and draw upon the knowledge of many not just one. Administrators,…

This post completes a trilogy of reflections on the Connecticut Academic Performance Test (CAPT) which will be terminated once the new Smarter Balance Assessments tied to the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are implemented. There will be at least one more year of the same CAPT assessments, specifically the Interdisciplinary Writing Prompt (IW) where 10th grade students write a persusive essay in response to news articles. While the horribly misnamed Response to Literature (RTL) prompt…