Thoughts on 21st Century Teaching and Learning
Most educators might agree that opportunities to connect with students are the real gold, the real richness of the work. Not just being witness to those amazing light bulb moments, which are also pretty powerful, like my friend and colleague, Dan Kerr, just wrote about, but participating in that moment directly, helping to manufacture the opportunity […]
In the course towards my M.Ed. in Ed Leadership, Diverse Learners, we’ve been asked to consider the data on learning an different racial and ethnic groups at our school. The degree program is through the American College of Education, and so it has a US focus, where it’s typical that historically marginalized groups show an […]
As I was preparing for my workshop, Get Connected! Your Students and Colleagues Need You at this year’s AASSA Conference, a workshop that intended on getting teachers connected via Twitter, and would help them create a professional e portfolio, I knew I wanted to include some evidence of the assertion I was trying to make. […]
Sometimes we hear education buzzwords and descriptions of practices, but don’t always understand “how” to engage in a particular practice. Given the work involved in teaching a classroom of students, it’s hard to find the mindspace to understand enough to engage in new ideas. I recently had a conversation with colleagues about the difference between […]
As Rick Stiggins writes in his 2008 Assessment Manifesto, “to support learning, assessments must move beyond merely informing the instructional decisions of teachers and school leaders to informing decisions made by students, too.” Providing formative feedback, allowing for, creating, and supporting the necessary accommodations and modifications, and including students in the process of defining how their […]
It’s here! School starts this week. Well not quite. Our admin team gets started just a bit earlier to be here to support the arrival of new teachers who arrive ahead of the returning team. So, almost. Anyway, as I’m thinking about this week and the excitement that we all feel, especially our newbies, I’m […]
I’ve been hung up on an idea. I’m hoping to see how we support teacher’s professional growth at our school change. I’m driven to see them creating and maintaining a professional eportfolio of their work. I see that eportfolio functioning as evidence of achieving their professional goals for evaluation and supervision, but more importantly as evidence of […]
The funny thing about momentum is that it works in the opposite way, too. Objects at rest, etc. So much has happened since the beginning of this school year, it’s hard to know where to begin. So why not start at the beginning. New Teacher Orientation This year was my first real opportunity to […]
Day 2 of our Collaborative Learning Plan, which, if you didn’t attend the AASSA Looking for Learning pre-conference would be Day 1, but anyway.. (here’s a look at my Day 1, pre-conference reflection) I just couldn’t keep up. I had committed myself to read and respond to all of our team’s reflections and as many […]
Wrapping up the first day of our Collaborative Learning Plan. Here are some quick thoughts. It’s taken quite a bit of my attention to follow the group attending the conference today. Not sure if it is realistic for other teachers at AC to do the same while they are in the middle of their […]