Today is the National Day Without a Stigma, a day to mark mental health awareness by the group Active Minds, a student-led group that works for mental health advocacy and education. I’m lucky enough to work at a school with an Active Minds chapter and am impressed by how our community spends time talking openly […]
I’ve been back in the classroom for over a month now after being out of it for three years, when I worked as a high-school instructional coach. I’m absolutely loving the freedom and creativity of classroom teaching again and have never been so motivated to go to work. I’ve been using Spider Web Discussion nearly […]
I’ve been thinking a lot about talent development lately. I’m back in the classroom after three years as an instructional coach, and I’m loving the job more than ever. Just yesterday, I asked my eleventh-grade American Lit students to do an activity in which they did some individual, personalized analysis and then paired up to […]
Like many educators, I want school to be a place where students’ lives are changed, where their innate talent is sparked and cultivated by the educators and programs around them. I know many educators who feel the same way, whether they are in Bangkok, Madrid, or Houston, and who are looking for a network to […]
When was the last time that you felt dumb? Really dumb? Felt that feeling in the pit of your stomach and that flush in your abdomen, that panic that rises as you think: “I don’t understand this and I am supposed to. Why am I such an idiot?” The last time I felt this feeling […]
Lately I have been thinking about audience and purpose, and how critical an issue this is to education. As a high-school English teacher, I liked to post Essential Questions on my wall that were used as anchors for content and skills throughout the course. One of them is, “When I write or speak, who is my audience and what […]
This summer I find myself in a strange position; for the first time in almost fifteen years, I am not preparing my classes for the coming year. I will be leaving the classroom for a full time position as a high school instructional coach. I first read about instructional coaching in a New Yorker article by […]
I first heard about Genius Hour via Twitter, and I was intrigued. Anything that allows students to be highly engaged in their own learning gets my attention. I did a little research on it, and most of what I have found is geared towards elementary and middle-school students. I modified some existing resources I found […]
Some tricks I have invented, heard of, or stolen over the years to help me reduce my grading time. 1. Frontload: do as much formative assessment as possible. The paradox is that it can be more efficient and effective to use the first third of class time to assess students’ work and give brief, specific feedback […]
The thirteen things I wish I’d known when I started teaching ten years ago: (Why 13? Because it’s my lucky number!) Don’t do anything but assess the first month of the school year. I only discovered this wonderful piece of advice in the last couple years, and it has really changed my teaching. Instead of […]