Are you a leader or a follower? Me? I’m a follower, and my students and I are very happy about that. When I say I am a follower, I mean on Twitter. I love Twitter. I would not have said this a few years ago, because I thought Twitter was just a constant Facebook status. […]
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CA Bill Addresses Suspensions and Expulsions
Millions of students get suspended from school every year – and it is mostly students of color. According to the US Dept. of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, 16% of black students are suspended every year, compared to 5% of white students. When a student is suspended, he or she falls further behind in school, […]
Paper in a Paperless classroom
You may know me as a proponent of 1:1 digital technology in the classroom. But I begin my year with two traditional forms of learning: face to face communication and lots and lots of paper. Earlier in the summer I retweeted this comment found through an #edchat: “I teach critical thinking not apps.” This is true in […]
Concurrent Enrollment Conundrums
Many states offer concurrent enrollment, also known as Dual Enrollment (DE) to high school juniors and seniors. This consists of the school district paying tuition for a set number of college hours each semester as long as the student meets the district’s GPA and graduation track requirements. These college hours count towards high school graduation […]
Shifting Our Mindset Around Teacher Evaluations
[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”] During my first two years teaching I have to admit that I often thought of myself as a bad teacher. But fortunately I had an incredible mentor in my instructional facilitator, […]
Teaching Ferguson: Resources for High School
We cannot help but return to school with heavy hearts and confused minds over the events that took place early last month in Ferguson, Missouri. And yet we should not be silent about it in the classroom – for the good that can come out of this is the opportunity to demonstrate for students the […]
Introducing Equivalent Fractions
Teaching equivalent fractions is often a difficult task. In this article I am going to show several methods that should make this task a bit easier. I previously posted an article for using patterns blocks to teach parts of a whole. In order to provide some consistency with that article the first method I will […]
Meet the Parents: A Young Teacher’s Back to School Night
When people find out I teach high school, they often reply with some surprise, “but you look like a high school student yourself!” I sigh, they tell me I’ll be thankful for my youthful appearance as I get older, and we move on – but through these interactions, I am constantly reminded of the additional […]