A Broken System. This is something that I’ve heard a lot of college professors utter when talking about lesson planning or unit design: “teach to the middle.” This idea makes sense in a more traditional lecture based instructional model, but fails to meet the needs of the modern student. This also only makes sense if we want to continue destroying … Read More
Stop Hoping For Better Students and Focus on Better Teaching In Your Classroom
Quit Complaining About “These Kids.” Seriously, stop it. We spend a lot of our days visiting districts, observing classrooms, and talking with teachers, and I’m starting to hear something more often than I should. I keep hearing teachers say things a long the lines of: “This would work, but ‘these kids’ can’t do it…next year will be better.” I’ve had … Read More
3 Things I learned from Teaching in A Fishbowl.
In case you don’t know what the term means (you probably do) teaching in a fishbowl is when your classroom is being observed by other professionals, administrators, colleagues, and stakeholders constantly. Essentially it means that your teaching is always on display. Now, I know you are thinking, “I would hate that!” but I assure you it has its benefits. When I … Read More
“Hey Teacher!” Why you should never hear that again.
“Hey Teacher!” You’ve probably been there before. A student, frustrated with their hand in the air decides it’s all of a sudden ok to yell across the room “Hey Teacher!” (they might use your name, but you get the point). There’s a good chance this isn’t a rare occurrence in your classroom. You’re awesome, so you probably manage your classroom well … Read More
Let Your Students FAIL
The Cycle of Failure: We’ve all been in the situation with that “difficult” student in our classroom, where they shut down, let out a sigh of discontent, and throw an assignment aside while saying something like “I’m not doing this!” I know this can be frustrating as an educator, but I want you to think about something other than trying