I just finished reading The New Pillars of Modern Teaching by Gayle Allen as a part of an awesome online book study facilitated by Region 10 in Texas. In the book, Allen compares the amount of feedback teachers typically get in a year to the amount of feedback Uber drivers get with this table: Continue reading
I am currently participating in a book study on The New Pillars of Modern Teaching by Gayle Allen facilitated by Kathryn Laster @kklaster of Region 10. The book challenges educators to provide learners with choice in the time, place, medium, and socialness of their learning. Kathryn and her team have done an outstanding job of giving book study participants like me power over their learning in each of these areas throughout the book study. Continue reading
As we plan for improvement, writing is at the forefront of everyone’s mind on my campus, in my district, and across our state. We have been brainstorming practical and meaningful ways to incorporate more writing across academic areas in order to bolster and strengthen students’ skills. As I began brainstorming today, I realized that just writing more won’t entirely solve the problem because students who are struggling with how to write a complete sentence, for example, aren’t going to get any better at this skill by just being required to write more. And we’ve already got quality first instruction in place as well as small group interventions. Continue reading
Every minute we have with our students has value. I am always looking for ways to get the most out of every moment. As an elementary school administrator, I walk through numerous classrooms each and every day. Something that inevitably occurs in every class, even with the best planning and execution, is the teacher’s desktop from his or her computer is occasionally projected big and upfront for all to see. Even if it is only seen for a couple seconds while switching between programs, often all students see this image (or something similar) multiple times per day: Continue reading
Whenever I attend any sort of conference where there are sessions happening simultaneously, whether an edcamp or a tradition conference, I always experience FOMO – Fear Of Missing Out! Even if I am fully engaged and learning things that blow my mind, somewhere, in the back of my mind, I’m wondering what others are learning in the sessions I am missing. Continue reading
I recently gave a math student who had completed all of his work and had a bit of extra time on his hands an extension assignment using emojis. I asked him to create a math problem and gave him the example below which was inspired by the #mathmoji hashtag on twitter: Continue reading
Have you ever seen a flyer, template, or quote graphic and thought, “How did they make that?” OR if you’re me… “How did they make that SO CUTE?” Continue reading
