posts related to classroom instruction, or applicable to teachers.
This week begins course registration at my school. As second semester starts we turn our eyes towards next year. But as hard as it may be to get students to think about next year, when this year is only halfway over, we actually need to get them thinking about four or five years down the […]
May is one of the favorite months of the counselors in my building because we get to spend the first three weeks proctoring AP Exams. Let me tell you there is nothing more rewarding than sitting in a room and announcing, you have ten minutes remaining on section 1 (apply liberal amounts of sarcasm here). […]
For each of the past four years my school has been tasked with presenting a drug prevention lesson. Our community, though not necessarily our school, has been faced with a disproportionate amount of overdoses from heroin. And while very few students ever start down the path towards addiction, even one student being introduced to the […]
I’ve been in many English classes where teachers are constantly reminding their students that google is not a source. You may use google to find a reference, but google itself is not the source. It is a hard concept for students to grasp. On the surface google does seem to have all of the answers […]
Last week our school completed their first round of PARCC testing. We were a pilot school for the new Common Core based exams last year, but the first full run proved to be quite different from the small scale practice version our AP English students undertook a year ago. Perhaps the biggest challenge we faced […]
Congratulations my fellow educators we’ve almost made it through half of the 2014-15 school year. Months of lesson planning, grading, assessing and forming connections with our students, have come down to a few more days of final exams. Next week we’ll be home enjoying a much deserved break with our family and friends. But first […]
mas·ter·y ˈmast(ə)rē/ :possession or display of great skill or technique The end of the 2013-14 school year and the start of the 2014-15 school year started off with discussions of the same difficult subject, mastery. The last institute day of school introduced the conversation to our building staff. What is mastery? What does it look […]
I love watching TED Talks. It really doesn’t matter the topic. I could listen to a programmer speak about a technology I have never heard about and still be completely inspired by the presentation. However, ten minutes later I remember I know very little about microprocessors and will likely never use the information again. That’s […]
I grew up watching and listening to School House Rock. When I first started teaching my freshmen English class I often made mention of the songs, or quoted memorable lines from Conjunction Junction, Busy Prepositions, or Verb: That’s What’s Happening. Not all of these were classic hits but they were subject matter relevant. I thought these […]
Today has been a great day of professional development at the ASCA conference. While there was no keynote speaker today, there were a plethora of breakout sessions to choose from. In fact there were several time blocks where I had to choose between some really strong presentations. Today’s sessions were both relevant to me as […]
