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Reimagining the Survey
We have three survey courses that make up the core of the history curriculum, followed by semester electives that students can take in their senior year. I have been dissatisfied with the mile wide and...
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EdCamp is Habit Forming
On the way home from EdCampIS yesterday, I was feeling great. I had a wonderful time sharing ideas with colleagues, most of whom I did not know, about common issues. When I thought about what I would...
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The Agile Mindset: EdCamp Meets Mr. Penumbra
There are always those snippets that stick in my mind at the end of a conference presentation or in this case, en EdCamp session. Listening to Don Buckley describe design thinking, I latched onto the...
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Dangers of Overprescriptive Teaching
Students need structure, especially students who struggle. Students need very clear expectations from their teachers so they know what to do. The more clarity and specificity in the directions the...
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Where do I stand? Aside, Beside or in Front?
I am a teacher – that is what I tell people who ask me about my job. That is also what my students and colleagues would say. But lately, I have been struggling to think about my role in the classroom....
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Value Added or How I Learned to Stop Reinventing the Wheel
Disclaimer: I know there is value in having students start something and build it from the ground up. There are times when I still do this, but I want to focus on an increasingly important skill set –...
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How Google has made me smarter.
There has been a lot of attention to the potential downside to Googling. It promotes surface exposure. It makes us lazy about remembering things. It devalues deep thinking. But, it also presents a...
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Shadowing for Empathy
While it can be nearly impossible to walk a mile in someone’s shoes, it is possible to walk a mile beside them. We talk about how important empathy is, and we encourage kids to feel it, but it can be...
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Keep on Learning
I am afraid of burnout. There, I said it. For my colleagues who may be reading this, I want to assure you that I do not feel close to it. I am tired, of course, as I am every Memorial Day weekend. Yet,...
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Life is Group Work
I was having lunch with a colleague the other day. She told me how she wanted to create a class log to keep track of what happens in each class next year, and she wanted the students to take turns...
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Teaching Students about their Brains
We spend a lot of time teaching kids to use the tools in their backpacks – textbooks, calculators, computers, tablets – and the tools available to them like databases, the Internet. But we spend very...
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Thematic US History – Part I – Decisions, decisions…
Our US history team has set aside two days this summer to revamp our curriculum to move from a chronological approach to a thematic one. We had already chosen two books, American History: A Very Short...
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If there were no tests and quizzes…
students would not ask if they needed to know it for the test or quiz. Students would not be gaming out whether or not something is worth their time based on whether it will be tested. Most teachers...
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Thinker Spaces
I have read Invent to Learn about creating a maker space in the classroom. As much as I find to admire about the maker movement and agree there needs to be maker spaces in schools, I do not imagine my...
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Summer Limits
I am not going to learn how to code this summer. I am not going to read several of the work-related books on my list. I will not spend too many hours prepping and planning for next year. I will honor...
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Start with the Story
Start with stories. Novels, short stories, biographies, autobiographies. Of these I prefer novels and short stories. Historical events, concepts and themes matter when they connect to people. We value...
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Change of Plans
All plans should be contingency plans, in case something better does not come along. Consider them to be Plan B. We are bound to miss so much, if we stick to our plans. I noticed this today, as summer...
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Reflecting Back & Moving Ahead
I just finished what is becoming an annual tradition, reading my blog posts from the previous school year to reflect on what I want to accomplish, where I fell short, and what I want to be mindful of...
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Thematic US History – Part II – Some Nuts and Bolts
Yesterday, I gathered with my US history team for the second time this summer to work on our switch from a chronological to thematic course. We had decided on the structure of the year, so we set down...
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The Passenger Seat
At the start of my Modern World class today I began by explaining the plan for the day. I was not standing at the board. A student raised his hand and asked me where in the room I would generally be...
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