Award Winning Teacher – International Speaker – Author
Are my students being adequately prepared? This seems to be one of those questions and conversations that always come up in school. How are you preparing your students? When they are in elementary school we are trying to prepare them for junior high. When they are in junior high we are preparing them for high […]
Continue ReadingIt is that time of year again. The time where we set aside a day and allow students complete control over their learning at our annual Innovation Day. Year one, two and three were great but this year might have been one of our most successful ones yet. As with Rocky, the 4th installment is […]
Continue ReadingThis post originally appeared on Angela Maier’s Blog but I wanted to repost here to share with my readers as well. Those of you that know me know that I run. I run a lot. On December 11th, I hit my 700th consecutive day of running without missing a single day. For those of you […]
Continue ReadingThere have been numerous people doing the More Homework Meme and a few folks have tagged me. However, I am complying with the homework that my Twitter Best Friend For Life, Lyn Hilt, assigned me, as she was the first to tag me. I think it is a great way to get to know our […]
Continue ReadingLately in my language arts class our focus has been on listening and speaking skills. Specifically, we are working on public speaking, which can be very difficult for some students…and adults. I model and help them along the way as best I can. We start out with doing some silly speeches, which are short with […]
Continue ReadingIf you speak to educators at any level they will inevitably tell you they want to prepare students for the “real world”. I too have claimed that my goal is for students to be able to manage and thrive within this realm of future realness. Funny thing is, we all have a different definition of […]
Continue ReadingI used to think bad teachers needed to be fired. Now I realize bad teaching largely exists because of a lack of exposure to good teaching. I used to think homework was the way to reinforce learning. Now I realize it a tool used to coerce compliance and reinforce the notion of haves and have-nots […]
Continue ReadingLately, I am seeing a troubling trend that I am sure is not new, but as a “younger” parent I am starting to take notice of. Many of my friends have kids starting back at school as well as countless members of my PLN online. My inboxes, streams and updates are flooded with great back […]
Continue ReadingTonight when I got home from work my sons asked me if we could head down to our neighborhood park and ride bikes. Knowing it was one of the last free afternoons before school got started for them and me, I naturally said yes and we headed out. Now this particular park is a playground […]
Continue ReadingThis past week I was happy to share and present at the SDEConference in Chicago and had a great time with all four sessions I presented. As promised, here are all the resources or videos I shared in my sessions. The first two sessions I did were PBL – Making Literacy Come Alive and Student […]
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