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 are students motivated if behavior is not part of the grade?

We are up to the fifth question of last week’s #mschat and this one deals with motivation. The question of motivating students is another one that is near and dear to my heart and I was pretty excited when I found out it was going to be part of the #mschat. Now that I am […]

What is the Role of Summative Assessment with regard to grading?

Before I start with my reflection today I want to begin with a comparison from Carnegie Mellon University Eberly School for Education’s definition of summative assessment. I’m putting this at the top of this post for anyone to refer back to and compare some of my thoughts and Twitter posts by #mschat participants. Why Carnegie […]

Have at least one meeting a week with NO notes

Have at least one meeting with no notes per week…just a conversation of ideas. Education has entered the world of big data and data driven education. Overall this is a very good thing for getting quantitative information about the performance of students (and in some cases teachers) in a wide variety of situation. The idea […]

Creating your first Google Earth content is harder than it looks.

The first time your create content in Google Earth it will be awful. I mean dreadfully awful. Sorry to break it to you but just like learning calculus or Roman History, it takes a little bit of time immersed in a thing to ‘get it’. Just like we tell our students, this about learning the […]

What’s wrong with the A-F grading policy.

The case for Pass/Fail in Secondary Schools When my wife told me that most medical schools in the US are pass/fail, I was dumbstruck. “What do you mean?”, I asked incredulously. How could the smartest people in the country take their classes pass/fail? Wouldn’t they just start skipping class since there was no more competition? […]

Student Voice in class. What does that look like?

There is so much talk about giving students a voice in the classroom these days but very little tangible evidence of what it looks like. What are specific examples of student voice in class? How is it accomplished and made to be part of the routine of a high functioning classroom? It takes a teacher […]

How to get a classrooms’ attention.

Most teachers have encountered a class that starts off a bit rambunctious and needs some extra convincing to get down to business. I have seen a whole host of different techniques over the years that have all worked to varying degrees of success. Usually it depends on the teacher in question but often the tactic employed has just […]

What does curiosity look like in the classroom?

I ask myself that question constantly. The look of engaged students chomping at the bit to ask more and more questions. Kids getting into arguments about hypotheses and debating all sorts of ideas. This is student led learning at its best. But how do we as educators actually create that in the classroom? What protocols […]

“You want me to join Twitter”?!?

That was my response to a woman I only vaguely knew at work about three years ago. She was having a meeting in my classroom (it was not being used during that period and just happen to be open) and I walked in as she was concluding. We got to talking about teaching and pedagogy, […]