As educators, we are constantly searching for new ways to meaningfully engage our students. Amidst a wave of requirements, numerous standards, and unforeseen circumstances, it is easy to get lost in the overwhelming list of “have to’s” forced on us. So much so that when students ask the inevitable “why are we learning this” question, …
Continue reading “Integrating Social Justice and STEM Pedagogy”
According to the Lexico website (a collaboration between dictionary.com and Oxford University Press), the definition for social justice is “justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society.” Often a misunderstood and ambiguous term for most, this succinct definition of social justice provides a foundation for basing social justice education efforts …
Meeting Students Where They’re At So often school has a one-size fits all approach. This is partially because individualizing content and activities is hard and time-consuming. On the other side of this coin, a lot of students aren’t getting the opportunities that they deserve to access their education. This is a broad topic and way …
It’s All About Relationships My principal, Gregory Kroll, is one of my personal and professional heroes. Now, I know longer teach at Martin Sortun Elementary, but, at 8 years, he was my longest running principal. The man gave more than I knew was possible and had a heart to match. Whatever you needed, whatever it …
Continue reading “If You Build It (Relationships) Then They (Teachers) Will Come To You”
Introductory Section In a previous blog entitled Open Sourcing Education, I explored the topic, or “what”, of Open Education Resources (OERs) while this post looks more at the application, or “how”, of OERs. OERs have an intriguing history that is mostly tied to the evolution of the internet with some influences from other open sourcing …
Introductory Section One of the earliest definitions for Open Education Resource (OER) comes from the UNESCO 2002 Forum on Open Courseware: “teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium, digital or otherwise, that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation, and redistribution by …
Games in School? Games in school are, more often than not, a taboo topic. The conversation has shifted, for sure, due to recent research and gradual changes in educator opinions, but games as learning vehicles in the classroom are generally still not taken seriously. Isolated educator success has definitely raised interest but also proven difficult …
LinkedIn for Teachers? “LinkedIn is for business people, right?” That was my first thought as a classroom teacher when considering whether or not to explore the platform. “I guess it’s also for getting a job and I’ll eventually need to change schools,” was my second thought. So, I went ahead and created a LinkedIn account, …
Continue reading “Linking In to Professional Networks for Educators”
Learning Standards for Teachers? One of the more unique aspects of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) standards is the creation of not just teaching standards, but instructional standards that apply to teachers themselves. My initial reaction when I first heard this was probably similar to many educators: why? I have enough on …
Continue reading “Technology Standards and Tools for Teachers”
Live and In-person to Virtual, Remote, & Online Learning Every year as part of my job as a learning designer, I help to design, host, and train teachers that will be running professional development training over the coming year. We do this training in person over the course of a long weekend. So what happens …
