For 14 years I reinvented my instructional wheel each summer to build student achievement. I’ve used creative images and rhymes (anchors), interactive games (engagement), 3-Acts, Notice & Wonder, Front Loading, and constant review. However, I am not happy with just high scores on state exams. What I teach, too often, doesn’t stick in the long-term…regardless … More 5 Concerns for Inquiry-Based Instruction
A lament was recently posted on Twitter by a teacher I have long admired. He had been dealing with a student complaint, “Why don’t you just tell us?” The student had become quite vocal. Fortunately, he has enough support, experience, and confidence to know that easy learning is often useless. But I wonder if other … More Why make it harder than it needs to be?
As a former Nearpod-Peardeck user, I have been studying the functionality of Classkick which is also pretty much free–scroll down to see basic vs. pro (https://app.classkick.com/#/order). I didn’t know it, but years ago, the infamous Dan Meyer was calling attention to Classkick. (How’d I miss that?!) Anyway, I am blown away. BUT, some of you … More Classkick or Google Slides?
I’ve been checking on my high school students by phoning and emailing them and their parents. Only about 3% have reported significant struggles due to COVID-19 and even those are starting to find the strength to carry on as they get emails and phone calls from school, encouraging them to do what they can and … More Social-Emotional Compassion: can there be too much with COVID-19?
Last week I brought a favorite team activity online, and my students seemed to enjoy it even more in Zoom breakout rooms with their classroom teams than they normally do in the real classroom. Maybe it’s the challenge of tech work-rounds, figuring out how to share their screens, or just being bored at home, but … More Inequalities Genius
We see a need to do things differently but have concerns about a parental revolt. At that point, education leaders (teachers, principals, etc….”eds”) must make a choice: devise a plan that might convince the parents do what parents think they want to see, and make it appear successful With the threat of being on the … More Who will tell the parents?
For almost two years, I have been working on integrating STEM and social emotional learning in my inquiry-based collaborative math teams. Some days have been more productive than others, but I have not been losing ground as far as content mastery…at least not until COVID-19 hit. My first thought was to just post the videos … More Joy + Accountability in COVID-19 Learning
Someone recently posted a question on the NCTM Community Forum, “How do we get our high school staff to understand the shifts in (Common Core) math? They do not like the strategies taught at the elementary levels.” I’m thinking they don’t ever “notice and wonder,” use “Kagan” strategies, have blown off McREL, and never heard … More Helping Math Teachers to Shift
While I agree behavior should be reported separately from academic progress, I have not found a way to accept late work without hijacking time from somewhere else. Here are the systems I have thought of or read about (please add your own to the comments and maybe we can rewrite this post together!): Wait until … More Late work & logistical nightmares
It is completely understandable for a teacher to wince when they think about how many students these days have Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). There seems to be more and more IEPs every year. While it is great that students receive the special care they need, I have some concerns that at some point, IEPs could … More IEP for Everybody?
“If I could change anything about our class…” About half the responses to that question, mentioned homework. My students are expected to complete an average of about 40 minutes of algebra homework pretty much every night. In a decade where the anti-homework voices seem to be gaining momentum, it can be difficult for my students to … More Why I Assign Homework: Dear Students, I love you…
