As I have been ticking through my to do list today, I’ve had my playlist on random. Every once and awhile, I’ll hear the voices of my students as they perform on “Element News” or other projects that we’ve done. Every once and awhile, I hear that song that we listened to what seemed like …
Mathews writes that he was at first impressed with “the brain power and good intentions” of the new standards and thought they would “elevate instruction” and help low-achieving states do better. But after talking to Brookings Institution scholar Tom Loveless, he has concluded that the new standards represent “another big disappointment we should have figured …
Maybe students should be writing the Common Core Standards Read More »
If we can’t answer this for our students and for ourselves as teachers, then we are shooting aimlessly everyday in our classrooms hoping that we will hit on something that students will need later. Kinda a big risk, don’t you think? What if you could know that what you are doing in the classroom will …
Although I am a huge advocate for digital literacy, what I do not advocate is how that looks in your classroom. I can tell you how it worked in one of my classrooms with one group of students and one school context, but that’s not your classroom and not your context. I can provide examples …
I couldn’t have said it better myself. Gamers understand to make a successful game, they need to do the following: Design the game with the user in mind. Provide continuous feedback. Make it challenging enough that the user is interested, but not impossible that they will quit in frustration. (Flow theory) Work with an end …
Communicating with someone is never easy whether we are face to face or communicating through a screen. Communication is one of the most important things we do everyday. It’s done formally through great teaching practices, emails and one on one conversations we have with parents and professional conversations with colleagues. Formal communication is a part …
I have to admit that I often forget about #edchat on Tuesdays nights, but as I check Twitter I always check in on what people are talking about. I found this jewel last night from one of my favorite authors, Kylene Beers: Let’s stop hiding behind “best practice” label. We’re often behind in ed because …
Reading articles like this, just reminds me that when people are passionately engaged in a topic or area of research, they will go through any lengths to continue to learn. Any one of them could have stopped us at any point along the way, and there were many anxious times when we thought the exploration …
My strong opinion about the importance of digital literacy is centered around the class experience that I had with my 5th graders as their technology teacher. I started the year with certain expectations that I wanted my students to understand. We started by explaining the importance of email accounts and the difference in how you …
I don’t know if you saw this conversation yesterday via Twitter, but there are apparently states that are offering scholarship money for students to graduate early from high school. The participants say that the incentive of offering money motivates parents and students to work harder to get their students finished with high school earlier. Is …
