4 Ideas for Promoting Creative Thinking with YOUR Content

Leave a comment

Creative thinking

Today is International Dot Day! This is a day to be creative and not be afraid to share what you create! The day is a celebration of creativity based on the book The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. Click here to learn more at the International Dot Day website.

Vulnerable moment: Every single time I write a blog post, at some point I think to myself, “This is dumb.” or “This isn’t good enough to share.” But, just like the teacher in The Dot encourages her student to “make her mark”, I attempt to make my mark with each blog post. I think it is important to model risk-taking for our students AND to give them opportunities to take risks and be creative. These are the life-long skills they will need in the workplace.  Continue reading →

Blended Learning Kindness Lesson Checklist

1 Comment

Blended Kindness (1)

Jumping into a blended learning checklist for the first time can seem super scary! Letting the students complete tasks at their own pace?! How will you keep students accountable? Allowing students to move around the room and chose the right place for themselves? Will they complete their work or just goof off? Allowing them to go in any order they choose? Will the class turn to loud chaos?

These are the most common fears! Continue reading →

The 2 Minute Writing Strategy that can Change Your Class Forever!

Leave a comment

2 minute Writing

What if I told you there is an easy strategy to incorporate more writing into your curriculum AND that it improves student engagement, accountability, and achievement? What’s that you say? You’ve heard it all before? And you don’t have time in your scope and sequence to add in writing assignments? Well… What if I told you this strategy takes LESS THAN 2 MINUTES to work its magic??? Now we’re talking!  Continue reading →

Self-Personalize Any Professional Development You Attend: Reflections from my Week at Harvard

Leave a comment

Self-Personalize (1)

I had the honor and privilege of being selected and funded by Raise Your Hand Texas to attend The Art of Leadership at Harvard University Graduate School of Education earlier this summer. I learned more than I could possibly put into one blog post, but 3 things stood out to me about the training. These three practices are why I believe I came away with so many ideas I feel like I can really implement right away – and these three big ideas will shape how I approach future staff development that I attend. I hope sharing these three strategies with you will help you to make connections with content and get more out of your upcoming professional development opportunities.

Continue reading →

#BookSnaps Google Slides Template

2 Comments

#BookSnaps Google Slides Template.png

Several years ago, while I was an Assistant Principal at Ault Elementary, my awesome partner AP, Julie Clements (@jclements01), and I lead an online book study together. We wanted to have all of our participants create a #BookSnap as evidence of their learning and as a way to process their reading. If you aren’t familiar with #BookSnaps, the original idea was to snap a picture of a page from a book and using the SnapChat app, add annotations, bitmoji’s, and stickers to elaborate, express your feelings, or connect with the quote. Continue reading →

Tap to Reveal Google Slides Hack

Leave a comment

Tap to Reveal

When I was a classroom teacher, I used to love to create games, incentives and interactive lessons using the Smart Notebook software because it gave me options to have students “Tap to Reveal” answers in different fun ways. Did you know this can be easily replicated in Google Slides??? Check it out – click on the balloon to reveal the answer: Continue reading →