Like many high school students, I made my college decision during the spring of my senior year, but I think I reached 90% certainty about which college I would attend at least one year before then, when I attended at shadow day at my future alma mater, St. Norbert College. I followed a sophomore around […]
I came across one of those well-intended but ultimately wrong-minded tweets today while scrolling through Twitter. It offered advice for “ELA teachers” from someone who isn’t one. It suggested encouraging students to try out a new Microsoft Word feature that will basically auto-suggest (or replace, if I interpreted the gif correctly) segments of student writing […]
This series is called “Just Like Starting Over” because there are points throughout the semester (breaks, starting new units, abandoning disaster situations, etc.) in which we are given the opportunity to start over. In this series I’ll be asking a few important questions of myself, and in turn, of you, dear reader: what if you […]
For those who’ve been following the ongoing adventures (exploits? misadventures?) of my focus student, Troy, and me this year, be aware that I’m taking a blog off from that beat. Troy and I are kind of in a holding pattern right now, and we’re also in between writing assignments as a whole class, so as […]
My husband is fond of using the phrase “Read the room” with our children. Have you seen your mother’s face? Now isn’t the time to whine. Read the room. Did you notice the dishes in the sink, laundry piled on the couch, and overflowing garbage can when you asked if you could go to your […]
Last June I discovered a woefully neglected plant in my house. My husband urged me to toss it out, but I was sure I could bring it back to life. Sure enough, by August, a little sun and tlc had it flourishing again. I posted the comparison pic on Twitter and someone pointed out that […]
In my previous post, I wrote about how providing multiple access points for feedback enables students to take more ownership over their learning. And I would like to continue along this vein, but dig a little deeper. I want to find ways to hack the feedback process while still maintaining (or rather increasing) its effectiveness. […]
This semester, I’ve been writing a series of posts about the role of vulnerability in coaching. The idea is, if we’re not aware of the underlying vulnerabilities in our conversations and our practice, we’re not going to be able to grow. So far, I’ve written about two different vulnerabilities that I’ve recognized in teachers and […]
“Praise addressed to students is unlikely to be effective, because it carries little information that provides answers to any of the three questions: Where am I going? How am I going? and Where to next?, and too often deflects attention from the task.” – Hattie & Timperley: The Power of Feedback If you aren’t already […]
I used to work a very structured private school. It was a school for students with ADHD and learning disabilities. The structure was part of the programming there that served to support these students as learners, not just at that school, but if they returned to public school classrooms. Though I teach much differently now […]
