On April 10 the science world released an incredible image, the first picture of a black hole. It was such a simple picture that has far reaching ramifications. But for me it was mainly just epically awesome. For more about the photo check out this article from NASA. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/edu/news/2019/4/19/how-scientists-captured-the-first-image-of-a-black-hole/ Black holes are fascinating to me….
Category: Blog
Alternative ways to summarize a text
Summary essays are boring. They are tedious regurgitations of what students have read. Unfortunately, they are also an easy way to measure reading comprehension for many of my students, so as my students were wrapping up their readings of WWII literature circle novels I started to dread the upcoming summary activity. Then I decided to…
My first attempt at Facebook for the classroom
Social media is an ingrained part of most of our lives. Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, it’s hard to keep up. Adding to the challenge, as a middle school teacher I have to balance the effectiveness of social media for students, colleagues and parents. Each group has their preferred social media outlets. Last year I started…
The ISTE Make It Happen Award
A few days ago I had the honor of receiving ISTE’s Make It Happen award at the MACE conference. I was nominated for my effective use of technology both in the classroom (creating awesome Youtube videos, encouraging a wide range of tech tools, implementing engaging writing strategies using technology, etc.) and outside of the classroom…
How's your smoke detector?
At church today there was a marriage therapist speaking about relationships and one of the analogies she made really stuck with me. She described our emotions like a smoke detector. A smoke detector blares it’s alarm full blast if it detects smoke. It doesn’t matter if your house is on fire or you burned your…
Noun, Verb, and Adjective Review
Sometimes things don’t go according to plan. Other days everything fits together like a puzzle. Last Thursday I had one of those days where everything went better than planned. The lesson was a review of nouns, verbs and adjectives. We’ve gone over it several times in class, but the kids were still having trouble…
My New Year's Resolution
Teaching is messy. Just when you think you have things figured out you get a curveball, whether it’s a new student, a new initiative or a full moon. Sometimes as a blogger it’s easy to get caught up in wanting everything to be perfectly written: correct grammar, inspiring message, etc. But that’s not real life….
Perception is a tricky thing
Several months ago my wife and I needed a new car. We did the research and looked at a wide range of cars. We eventually found a car that we hadn’t seen on the road before. It was a Ford Fusion. We love everything about the car and found a dealership that was nearby with…
Kicking off a new school year…
Tomorrow I will begin my ninth year of teaching. This is my 9th year of preservice trainings. My 9th year of new initiatives and new ideas for transforming our classrooms. My 9th year of detailed explanations about why my assessment data should be better. It’s easy to drown in all the minutia of school, the…
5 Tips to Kick Start the School Year
Through podcasts, web pages, mailed invitations, a ‘Meat ‘n’ Greet,’ and a final email blast, you can build up your incoming students’ back-to-school excitement. Source: 5 Tips to Kick Start the School Year
