The Busted Lesson

When the proverbial $#*t hits the fan. Let’s face it. Lesson planning takes time, effort, attention to detail, and long hours of thinking about all the ways it could blow up in your face. That being said, even the most fastidious, dedicated and detailed oriented educator can not, and will not, think of everything. An […]

My favorite teacher

There is always that one teacher in your past. That one person that if it weren’t for their presence in your life, you may not be the person you are today. I was fortunate to have that teacher when I entered the 5th grade. Herman Bowden was one of the single most important people that I’ve […]

The Grid Part II: The First Activity

When I first wrote up my latitude and longitude activity for this blog, I thought it might be helpful to a few geography teachers and that was about it. I never expected that the post would become an example of modern teaching in practice. Never did I imagine that teachers would be asking me to post […]

How do you prepare your classroom?

When do you find time to conceptualize the layout of your classroom? In a perfect world, there would be scheduled time for teachers to organize the space in which they create learning. The reality however, is that the first few days before the school year starts is over packed with meetings, more meeting, development meeting, […]

How do you keep students motivated on a cold winter day?

I love technology.It allows me to catch up with things I just didn’t have time for in the moment. For example, I’ll be playing a benefit concert this Saturday afternoon/evening and won’t be able to watch the Patriots playoff game. Not to worry! I’ll be able to record it and watch it on Sunday with […]

How can we add student voice to celebrations in learning?

This is the third of my reflections from last week’s #mschat on celebrations in the classroom. I have to say this will probably be my shortest reflection and post so far in my blogging career. When the question came up, I honestly couldn’t believe it was even part of the discussion. In what ways can […]

How should we celebrate learning?

The second question of #mschat from Dec 11, 2014 dealt with how to celebrate learning. the moderator @blocht574 started the round off with some exemplars to help the conversation with this tweet: How should we celebrate learning? Individual, group etc? The reality is that not every class will be the same even if the teacher […]

Why you need to visit another classroom

It is so hard to get out of our classrooms these days. With the amount of grading, planning, meeting, and TEACHING that teachers accomplish on a daily basis it is no wonder that once you enter your classroom at 6:30am, you might only leave it to go to the bathroom around noon. These expectations seem […]

Agendas in the classroom. Use them.

If you are new to teaching, you’ve probably had dozens of veteran teachers tell you that having your daily agenda posted in a highly visible place is essential to having regular success in your class. They’re right, you know. An agenda board is not just for your students to have a reference point for the […]

Why grading should be about effort.

I’m a big proponent of standards based learning. Having benchmarks for students to reach for is something that instills intrinsic motivation and helps them set goals that are often higher than the ones teachers or parents set. What gets lost in all of this is that each student learns in a slightly different way but teachers are […]