It’s National Novel Writing Month! Your novel is waiting to be written. What...
Hello, everyone! I published this post originally on November 12, 2014, and it is still relevant today, so I am posting it again. – Heather, 11/8/16 During National Novel Writing Month, millions of...
View ArticleProtecting Trump Costs NYC a Million a Day
According to this article from CNN Money, it’s costing New York City more than $1,000,000 a day to have President-Elect Trump and his family stay in Trump Tower. So, let’s get real and compare using...
View ArticleWe Owe Our Children Everything
Children do not ask to be born. We make a choice. From then on, till death do us part, we are forever in their debt. Someday, they will be in debt to their own children. If we have done our job right,...
View ArticleA 20 Minute Introduction to Standards-Based Education
Standards-based education is a complicated departure from traditional education strategies. For many educators, it creates cognitive dissonance, a discomfort one feels when trying to adopt a new view...
View ArticleLearn More about Standards in 11 Minutes, 15 Seconds
During this module, we will investigate standards in more detail. Specifically, we will review: How standards are organized (subject area, strand / standard area, standard) The difference between...
View Article27 Minutes: One Teacher’s Vision for a Standards-Based Classroom
In this presentation, you will learn more about my vision for a standards-based classroom: what it would look like, how it would be run, and how students’ progress would be recorded and reported. This...
View ArticleText Structures and Signals in Infographic Form
Creating Infographics with Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and Finally Canva The image below is a novice’s attempt at creating an infographic. It took over a week to conclude that trying to create...
View ArticleExploring Literary Genres Using Infographics
This post is related to the post published last week: “Text Structures and Signals in Infographic Form. For this assignment, we were asked to create an infographic on literary genres. I used Canva...
View Article5 Reasons and 5 Ways to Use a Classroom Blog during Formative Assessment
Formative Assessment: What is it? If you already know all about formative assessment, I recommend skipping to the next part of this blog post. According to the CCSSO (The Council of Chief State School...
View ArticleJust 1 Article from RE-ENVISIONED – The Movement to Re-imagine Schooling –...
This weekend, an email from Library 2.0 came in with a link to a fascinating interview with Steve Hargadon. Steve is the founder of Classroom 2.0 and co-chairs the event “Hack Education,” among many...
View ArticleSix Facets of Understanding and the All Souls Trilogy
I would like to thank Deborah Harkness, Jennifer Ikeda, Grant Wiggins, and Jay McTighe for making this post possible. Without Harkness’ story, Ikeda’s brilliant narration of that story, and Wiggins’...
View ArticleHow Assessment Was Born
Once upon a time, in a place long forgotten, the first teacher helped a willing and enthusiastic student learn something new. As they proceeded on their educational journey, the student eventually...
View ArticleWaxing Philosophical: The Purpose of Education
There are so many articles, blog posts, and books about the purpose of education that it might seem odd to see yet another one. However, this might be a good exercise for any teacher to try, if only to...
View ArticleWHY TEXT-DEPENDENT ANALYSIS IS MORE IMPORTANT NOW THAN EVER
The explosion of media and technology…has made it all the more important that students master the core skills of gathering and evaluating evidence. Reading and writing with independence and confidence...
View Article3 Things to Think about When Developing Your Own Moodle Site
Recently, I started developing a demo course in a Moodle installation hosted on my site. The latest version of Moodle is so powerful and useful. It shows the dedication of the thousands of people who...
View ArticleAdapt Authoring Tool and Moodle
I have been working with the Adapt Learning Framework and Adapt Authoring tool of and on for a while now. (Follow the community @AdaptLearning to learn more about this “Ground breaking #opensource...
View Article4 Ways to Establish Relevance with Moodle
One of the first things you learn when studying adult learning is that adults need to know why they are learning something and how they can apply it to their lives. In other words, they need to know...
View ArticleLiterature and the Human Condition
We study literature to study the human condition. We engage in conversation with a text, with its context, to understand where we were within our reality, or to understand where we may be going within...
View Article3 Ways Crisis Teaching Is Different and Just as (More?) Difficult as...
This post could have been entitled “5 ways…” or “10 ways…” or maybe even “100 ways,” but the power of three is strong. It craves concision. It requires streamlined thought. It also makes it more...
View ArticleBig Ideas in My Classroom
I created this poster to remind myself of the true value of education, of what it’s all about. As my first group goes into AP® exams this week, it seems important to remember that we don’t go to school...
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