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 […]

How is geography different from all other social sciences?

The first chat of #worldgeochat year 3 was this past Tuesday night at 9pm. When I started moderating these chats two and a half years ago I never dreamed that the #worldgeochat crew would grow steadily into a forum that seems to be attracting more voices each week. It’s an unusual chat because it feels […]

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 III: Relative and Absolute Location

In my last post I talked about how to introduce students with a team building game that exposes them to the overall shape and function of the grid. Students are exposed to vocabulary listed on index cards with terms such as: latitude, longitude, hemisphere, equator, coordinate, Cardinal Direction, et al. On day two my goals […]

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, […]

Preparation

You probably felt the dread creep somewhere into your soul this morning. It’s the last week of July and the next school year is still almost a month away (for most of the country, I recognize that many school districts are starting next week in some parts of the country) and yet many of […]

What makes PBL different from doing projects?

After a wedding weekend/boys weekend away I find myself desperately wanting to write. I’ve been doing these blog posts in earnest since the beginning of November and have come to appreciate just how much they mean to me, both intellectually and emotionally. I have this self-realization when writing that I’m doing something worthwhile about my […]

How do we “Let kids be kids” and have fun while still focusing on learning?

O.K., so here we are at a question that I found a little surprising to be in a #mschat. The only reason why I say this is that we middle school teachers are a funny bunch. Most, if not all, of us teach middle school because we are large children. I say this with the […]

How do teachers maintain HIGH professionalism and energy during the winter?

Well, this question I was not expecting in the #mschat from last week. To be honest I can’t seem to find any difference between coming to work and being professional as a banker or a teacher. As @mrgranito said perfectly: “Uh…suck it up! We’re the professionals here!” I’m speaking from a perspective of someone who […]