CHRIS FANCHER

Tag: teachers

Too Darn Old

When are you too old to be presenting ideas to teachers/educators? That’s where my head is right now. Part of me wants to be sitting on a seawall looking at the waves come in. The other part of me wonders if I should be looking at options to talk with educators about “being the best […]

Getting to the Root of the Problem

Teaching our students to be better inquirers, in my mind, is one of the most important tasks we have on our educator’s plate. Through better inquiry students should build agency and learn to endure in the face of difficult tasks. There are many ways we can build this ability in our classrooms and the overarching […]

Let’s Make a Maker Space

https://hildakweisburg.com/2016/01/04/on-libraries-makerspace-magic/ Right up front I want to say that any school that has a Maker Space because that’s what great schools have, is missing the whole idea. I think playing with things and trying out things is really cool. I do. But if we haven’t thought through what we will have in our space then […]

Design Thinking or PBL, A Chicken/Egg Scenario? My journey.

http://www.science20.com/gerhard_adam/chicken_and_egg_problem_view_evolution-107927 Last night I missed a great conversation during a Twitter chat hosted by #MeritKCI and involving my friends who frequent the #dtk12chat. As I was scrolling through the tweets from the chat I noticed some discussion of PBL and how different Design Thinking (DT) is from PBL. A blog post that was referenced (and […]

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 […]

Building Empathy Through Interviews

www.floridamemory.com/items/show/32039 7th graders are all over the map when it comes to emotions. So, on one level, you might think that it isn’t hard to get them to develop empathy. But how many of your students, at any grade level, have conducted interviews to gain knowledge of their interviewee? My first semester at Meridian school […]

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.   […]