I had a very interesting conversation with a colleague the other day. She is a teacher in adult education with upwards of 35 years in the classroom and she said to me that the model we recently used in her class and others, with me going directly into the classroom and working with students, makes…
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Teaching in the dark
Lately I have been teaching in the dark. Our school has no Internet access. The students have none at home, either. What do we do? We read. We have conversations, live conversations, about what we read. We look for solutions together and they are made from the stuff of our brains. Did I mention that…
How I motivate my students and manage my classroom without reward systems
Read the following quotes, I’m going to be reflecting on them in relation to my philosophy of teaching and learning around motivation and classroom management and what all of that looks like in my classroom. Babies cry for a reason. It’s never ‘spoiling’ your baby to take his baby’s cries seriously, and to respond to…
Looking Back: Stop talking about classrooms that don’t work
As part of my Looking Back series, the sentiments I articulated in this post from August 21st, 2010 are still very alive for me. There are classrooms that work, that work very well. Click on the title below to go to the original post with its comments. Here is an example of a ‘traditional’ classroom…
The philosophical bubble of technology in education
I recently wrote a small blog post on BlogHer about using technology in the classroom. Of the 3 comments it received, 2 of them were from concerned parents. They were concerned with how students are encouraged to type on a computer rather than work on their writing skills. These comments mirror those made by some…