Thanking a Teacher In My Life
This past weekend I heard about a project being run by People Admin. They offered money to hear stories about people who inspired you to become a teacher. So I sat down and whipped up this thank you to a teacher who inspired me to become a teacher. Enjoy —– In 1990, at the age […]
Smart Kids Need Competition Too
http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/maplib/flag.htm Not a very smart title to this post because many of you will have seen competitions such as Speech and Debate , or Robotics Competitions, National Academic Quiz Tournaments, or even Model UN. But there are others who may not realize what these competitions are all about. If you are in that camp then I […]
Still Ripping Educators Off
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/171347960792965587/ I started (this current round of…) getting upset about this (continuing) problem of educators being ripped off for supplies, a couple of weeks ago. I was talking about it with a fellow educator and he reminded me of a time when a teacher went to the vendor floor at a conference. She commented on […]
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. […]
In Which We Are Introduced to My New School
https://goo.gl/xAkChH On August 10 I will be starting a new school year with new students at a new school. But what does that really mean? Every year we get new students. Every year is a new school year. The only really new thing is the school I will be working at – Meridian School in Round […]
Exploring Design Thinking as a PBL Guy
Via Eric White This week I will be meeting with other BIE National Faculty (NF) members at our annual Spring Summit. For the summit we have broken into Professional Learning Communities (PLC’s) and I am with the Design Thinking (dt) group. We will be sharing with the other NF and we are looking at how […]
It’s Time For a Project
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dullhunk/ It’s that time of year again for many (most?) of us in the K-12 world of the United States to deal with standardized testing. And there are many teachers who have been waiting until “that test is over” to start a pbl project. There are some of you who can’t see past the […]
Another Take on Problem Based Learning for Math
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gpforeducation/ I have been wrestling with the marriage of Project Based Learning (PBL) and Math for nearly 8 years now. A few years ago I moved towards Problem Based Learning (PrBL) instead of Project Based for math. It just seemed to make more sense. With PrBL there are shorter time periods to complete a problem […]
What is Essential For Successful PBL?
http://earthmosaic.org/index.html This year the Buck Institute for Education (BIE.org), of which I am on the National Faculty, is re-examining the “Essential Elements” for PBL. As I was thinking about it I remembered that I have posted about these elements a few times, over the years, and I came across this post from July […]
Make That Desert Project More PBL’y
http://goo.gl/XqZSjZ Friend of mine had their son bring home a “project” to make a cell membrane. I sighed. But then I thought about how the teacher could have done something with the same material. And it hit me – science teachers need to see how to take that internet or youtube project and make it […]