This year’s ASCD Conference in Los Angeles was weighed down by sessions about the CCSS and flipped classrooms – topics that reasonably should have been big 3+ years ago. But there were a few diamonds among the rough; educators who presented with prescient understanding oncoming issues that the education community must face. One of those […]
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Posted inCommon Core, Current Events in Education, Uncategorized
Begin March Madness: Testing and the Smarter Balanced Assessment
[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”] March Madness is not exclusive to basketball. March Madness signals the season for standardized testing season here in Connecticut. March Madness signals the season for testing in 23 other states as […]
Posted inChild Development, Featured, Middle School, Opinion
What 'The LEGO Movie' Can Teach Kids of All Ages
Spoiler Alert – If you haven’t seen The LEGO Movie, plot lines will be shared in this article! I can’t believe I’m saying this, but as my wife and I left the theater after watching The LEGO Movie, we were jaws agape. What The LEGO Movie Can Teach Kids of All Ages As self-proclaimed LEGOphiles, we […]
Posted inParents
A Little Spring in Your Break: Continued Learning Outside of School
[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”] Winter seems to be lagging along across the US, but soon schools everywhere will close down and students will exit to Spring Break. Teachers find this time refreshing as they can […]
Posted inHigh School, How to Fix Education, Uncategorized
Vouchers vs. Charters: Comparing Quality School Choice Policies
I work in a charter school, and unlike a teacher in a traditional district school, the students I see every day are not sent to our school based on their street address. Â Some live down the street and some drive 30 minutes both directions. We have students that come from both private and public […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum, Literacy
Comma, Comma, Comma…Comma Cameleon
Have you ever read the book, Flowers for Algernon? It is the story set in the 1960’s of a special needs adult man named Charlie who undergoes surgery to increase his intelligence.  At the beginning of the story, Charlie can write much as a young child can write, but he does not understand the concept of commas. After the […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum, Social Studies, Technology
Week 5/6: iPad Rollout- Differentiation
Living in Vermont means making amends for educational productivity when a perfect snowstorm blankets the state. Students and teachers embrace the cold powder while it lasts. We ski, we snowboard, we play hard. No wonder Vermont supplies a proportionate number of Olympians. At school we gained one actual snow day and then a week of […]
Posted inFeatured, Principals' Corner
Decreasing Our Drop-out Rate
In the U.S., one student drops out of school every 12 seconds. Too often we assume that students drop out because they are disinterested or lazy. Maybe we should be looking at our traditional high schools to see if they may be the problem. One model program that has been working since 1995 is Big […]