July 15th 2011
A few years ago, I discovered word clouds in a training that discussed Wordle. I have enjoyed this website for years and have a gallery of pictures to prove it. (In fact, I have several since my students could never remember what exactly my gallery title was. This past year, as I met some [...]
Read On
1 Comment
July 14th 2011
A wonderful part of teaching is the opportunity we have to finish a year, take time to plan, and begin anew the next year. Teaching is like the ultimate performance assessment – everything we don’t get just right this time, we can do it again better next year! One of the areas I always struggle [...]
Read On
2 Comments
May 27th 2011
There are three aspects that make a teacher – the art of teaching, the science of teaching, and the calling to teach.
Read On
No Comments
May 11th 2011
You don’t really understand human nature unless you know why a child on a merry-go-round will wave at his parents every time around – and why his parents will always wave back. ~William D. Tammeus Many people have commented on raising teenagers throughout the ages. Lately, with the rise and fall of a focus on [...]
Read On
No Comments
April 12th 2011
Goal 28: Teach Digital Citizenship As our world continues to unite through the various medias available – MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter, Skype, Edublogs, etc. – we have an even greater moral obligation to teach our students appropriate social norms. These common courtesies that we expect in our students should not be assumed. We need to teach them [...]
Read On
No Comments
February 21st 2011
Goal 7: Play and Have Fun! #30Goals Quote “We spend the first twelve months of our children’s lives teaching them to walk and talk and the next twelve telling them to sit down and shut up.” by Phyllis Diller I was sitting in a classroom the other day observing. During the debrief, I had to [...]
Read On
2 Comments
February 15th 2011
Goal 3: What Do You Believe About Learning? #30Goals Recently, I am sure you have been asked a question similar to this. Have you taken time to truly contemplate your answer? With the new observation rubric, peer/mentor evaluators and administrators are no longer focused on teaching except when it impacts student learning. We, myself included, [...]
Read On
2 Comments
February 14th 2011
Goal 2: Re-Evaluate Value #30Goals What is value? In our schools these days, especially high school, most seem to define value with a numeric code … “did I earn enough points for an A? … How many points do I need to complete/pass the test? … What is the score needed for graduation?” Do we [...]
Read On
2 Comments
February 12th 2011
In a recent professional learning community, I mentioned that writing blogs was difficult because I felt like I had no original thought. As a matter of fact, I am having a difficult time writing this blog. My colleague answered my dilemma, by describing her definition of original thought (and hopefully I am restating it clearly) [...]
Read On
No Comments
February 6th 2011
As a mentor and teacher evaluator, I have learned so much about what research proves is effective teaching. In our district, we have recently adopted the Charlotte Danielson Framework for teaching (http://www.danielsongroup.org/) as a rubric for teacher evaluation. The rubric provides many valuable tools for improving student achievement since the focus of the observation is [...]
Read On
No Comments
