Thanks-living
Black Friday was a week ago. Which means that Thanksgiving–a day we set aside for “thankfulness” — is shrinking in the rear view mirror. So, what difference did it make? Thanksgiving, that is. Did you take a moment to: Say [...]
Home » The Shift
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Arguing with success
Data. As soon as you’ve crunched the numbers, you know. Your students are performing well in subject A, but not so well in subject B. Your data shows improvement in this area but a slight decline over here. If you [...]
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Expectations: A new paradigm
When it comes to expectations, most teachers will tell you, “When in doubt, raise ‘em.” Often, I think that works. I’ve seen it in my own teaching . When I set, articulate and work toward higher expectations, things generally turn [...]
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Who wrote your list?
If I ask you, of any of the hundreds of daily tasks you perform each day, “Why are you doing that?” How often will you say: “It’s in the curriculum/schedule/contract. I need to do this for my principal/PLC/RTI/a mandate/progress reports/awards [...]
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Listen up! Boys and girls hear, read, learn differently
New research is proving that gender differences are real. Boys and girls are different. From the way their brains are organized to the types of cells in their eyes, groundbreaking studies are showing us just how different the genders really are. In this article, Chris Wondra explains how boys and girls hear differently, and what this means for the way our children and students learn to speak and read.
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The Future: Where “winging it” becomes best practice
The problem with blind spots is that you don’t know you’ve got them. I mean, it’s obvious to us today that students weren’t going to need a slate or homemade ink in order to be successful. But imagine living in that time. There was no way those people could have foreseen the changes that make us snicker at those statements today.
Might we also be clinging to faulty beliefs about what will make our students successful? But how do we identify them? What beliefs do we throw out? Which ones do we keep? What skills and content are we teaching that will be irrelevant in five years? What tools are we still using that are already outdated?
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Preparing students for the new media
Clay Shirky, a leading authority on the Internet’s effects, argues that emerging technologies enabling loose collaboration will change the way our society works. In this video, he notes that we are living through “the largest increase in expressive capability in human history.” If this is true, how do we prepare our students for this new, emerging and ever-changing media landscape?
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Parker Palmer and “The Courage to Teach” renew teacher’s spirit
The pressures of teaching can often leave even the veterans among us feeling frazzled and confused. So it’s not surprising that newer teachers often begin to question their decision to enter the profession. Yael Grauer, a second year teacher in Tucson Arizona, recently overcame her own feelings of doubt during a recent Courage to Teach retreat, developed by educational activist Parker Palmer. The insights she gained through professional reflection left her refreshed, renewed, and ready for a new beginning.
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The Library of Congress is Using Flickr: Shouldn’t Teachers?
In recent months, the Library of Congress has piloted a new photo series on the photo-intensive website, Flickr. If you’ve never been to Flickr, it’s essentially a website where photographers from around the world are uploading and sharing their photos, and commenting on the photographs other people post.
In this case, Flickr has teamed up with an unlikely photographer (or should I say archive of American historical photography), and the results are literally breathtaking. One example alone is Jack Delano’s “In the waiting room of Union Station”, taken in Chicago, Illinois. The photo features two officers who create shadows in spotlight-like beams of sunshine coming in from the gothic windows above.
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How a Master’s Degree Changed My Instruction
Receiving a Master’s degree from the University of St. Mary’s has been an immensely satisfying experience for me. I’ve learned and changed and grown in innumerable and meaningful ways. But when it comes to professional development, the St. Mary’s program is second to none. I have applied my new learning and confidence directly to my classes and my students have benefited. St. Mary’s breaks their program into four IDEA categories: Instruction, Discipline, Environment, and Assessment. This article outlines the effect this program has had on my instruction.
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