Ask yourself: What are we grading for? During our workshops, grading is one of the topics most commonly brought up. We as teachers have an obsession (and rightly so) with how any activity, instructional method or new tactic fits into that little book (or software) where we calculate student grades. If you think about it, grades mean so much to teachers because, … Read More
How to Make Professional Development Worthwhile for Teachers: 3 Things to Remember
As I sit here and write this blog, I am at a district mandated professional development (PD) day… Yup…you guessed it, more downtime than productivity or learning. I am currently residing in the equivalent of adult babysitting. For professional development to be worthwhile for a teacher it needs to provide them with value. In order to increase that value and eventually … Read More
Focus on your Students Learning Today, Not Your Plans for Tomorrow.
Teachers have crazy schedules, and if you ask any of them one thing they want more of, the answer will undoubtably be TIME. We’re always looking for more time. More time to grade papers. More time to spend with our students. And, if you’re like me, more time to plan for tomorrow. When I was a first-year teacher, this was … Read More
The Power of “Genius” in Your Classroom
If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time, money, and effort trying to figure out how to reach the bottom 10% of our students in your classroom. Honestly, it’s a great place to expend your resources because those are the students who probably need it most. However, when we shift all our focus this way, a lot of students who may be … Read More
Making Mastery Learning Make Sense
One of the most common questions I get from other teachers is why I chose to use mastery learning in my classroom. To be honest, there are a lot of techniques, best practices, and research studies out there, but for me, mastery learning includes and incorporates the most successful and practical pieces of all of them. Mastery learning makes even … Read More
