You See, It Takes Time
https://www.flickr.com/photos/badboy69/ We are seeing a real dichotomy in education these days. Thanks to social media we are exposed to teachers, at all levels, doing wonderful things with their students. We’re seeing students doing incredible things that they have chosen to do – not because they are completing an assignment that they have to do. […]
The Future Look of My Edcamp Presentations
Original Central Texas Edcamp First, we all need to agree that one should never, NEVER, do a sit-n-git session at ANY professional development. This is especially true for edcamps. Just putting that out there. If, for example, you have to start a portion of a PD with the phrase, ” I apologize, but for the […]
PLN’s Help When You Least Expect It
On October 3, 2007 I opened my Twitter account. My wife had been on for a while (since it was introduced to the public the Spring before at the SXSW conference). If you go onto Twitter and look me up (@cfanch ) you’ll see that I have one list of people to follow: Edpros. Most […]
Nothing to Write About Today…
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mbgrigby/ I really want to write a blog post today. I wanted to write one yesterday. This past week was pretty busy so I didn’t think about it. But I wanted to write a post last weekend too. It’s not like I don’t have anything to say about PBL. It’s not like I haven’t read […]
Problem Based Math For Intervention Groups
Fancher Photo This week I’ve been working with 7th grade students who have been identified as having the potential to fail the state standardized math test if they don’t receive some extra practice. I have been a proponent of using Problem Based Learning (PrBL) in math classes since I saw an overview of it at […]
Change Can be Scary
http://www.flickr.com/photos/purplemattfish/ Our teachers are pretty darn good at what they do. Oh, we have a few who are struggling with classroom management and a few others who aren’t the best team players, but overall they really come together for our students and that’s what it’s all about – the students. Next school year our teachers […]
“Doing PBL” Isn’t Automatic
http://www.flickr.com/photos/track24/ I’ve been meeting with my 6th grade science teachers in the last few weeks as they get ready to start a project. We’ve looked at the standards that they want to cover and brainstormed scenarios. What I’ve discovered, as a first year instructional coach, is that some of my teachers need more help than […]
It’s All About the Conversations
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rominasantos/ Anyone who has ever attended an Educon event knows that conversations are the key to having successful learning experiences at conferences. In the standard conference we attend sessions where people talk to us, in a lecture format, and there may, or may not be time for questions. To truly have time to discuss what […]
Chat Overload!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/andresmusta/ The other day I saw a great tweet and noticed the hashtag for a 1:1 educators chat. Then I saw another great tweet with a hashtag for a Nebraska Educators chat. And then I saw 2 or 3 other chat hashtags fly by and I realized that what was once just “Edchat” has really […]
Umm…That’s Not Exactly PBL
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rosasay/ Have you ever had a teacher tell you a plan for an activity she was going to run in her class and she emphasized the fact that she loves “doing PBL?” This “project,” that will last 3 days, is having the students demonstrate what they have learned in her 6th grade math class over […]