I attended several sessions on Teaching Mathematics for Social Justice at this year’s NCTM Annual Conference. I noticed similar faces in all of the sessions I selected. This meant that hundreds of other faces had completely excluded this topic as one of value to their pedagogical growth. I started wondering how this important work would […]
Instruction & Curriculum
Posted inClassroom Management, Elementary School, Instruction & Curriculum
Packing Up Your Clip Chart
My philosophy in teaching, and in life, is to leave things better than you found them. Each person is placed here for a purpose and a reason. As an educator, it is my role to foster the strengths within each student and help them reach their potential. This task, while difficult, is best done with […]
Posted inFine Arts, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy
April is Poetry Month: "Look in Thy Heart and Write!"
April is Poetry Month. What should you do about this? Take advice from Sir Philip Sidney and “Look in thy heart and write.” Sidney composed “An Apology for Poetry” (Defence of Poesie) in 1575, and in this essay he maintains poetry combines the liveliness of history with philosophy; this combination is more effective than either history or philosophy in inspiring readers. According to Sidney, poetry […]
Posted inElementary School, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy
Literature Connections with Poetry
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”] For the past couple of years, with a push from common core, I have been incorporating poetry into my guided reading groups. I am teaching students who are reading above grade […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum, Middle School, Social Studies
My first day at the Organization of American Historians 2014 Conference in Atlanta
April 11, 2014: I am excited to be at this conference. I am a huge history nerd, so of course going to a conference that helps fulfill that love is nice. I am also an educator so I am interested in how this conference of historians could relate to my and other’s educational practices. My […]
Posted inAdult Learning, Featured, Instruction & Curriculum, School Improvement
Gaming as the Future of Learning: The Truly Epic Win [Part 1]
What if the future of learning is not measuring student achievement in high stakes standardized testing? What if, instead, the future of learning is in the magic of a great game? Ever since the 1983 “A Nation at Risk” report on the American education system, policymakers have consistently insisted that more and more high stakes […]
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Languages, Middle School
Poesía en la clase de Español
“¡Otra vez!” My students were so used to hearing these two words (another time) in between choral recitations of our daily poem that it had unfortunately become a bit sing-song as they mimicked me. Pick your battles; I thought . . . here I stood, in front of 26 eighth graders as we recited a […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum, Mathematics, Opinion
Math Principles to Actions: An Invitation and a Demand
I heard a refreshing voice today. One that silenced the annoying diatribe I have encountered in the past regarding the mathematics dilemma. (Caution: a moment of personal trajectory coming in 3…2…) As an African-American woman, I am twice marginalized by the discipline of mathematics, and yet access to it has catapulted me to levels of […]