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Rubrics – Killing Creativity?
If you are at all like me, you have sat through a student presentation that left much to be desired. When sitting down to apply a grade to the student’s work, they score surprising well on the rubric. The student managed to stumble through a presentation, barely grasping the concepts, and then scored surprising well…
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What Our Curriculum Needs
Over the last few weeks, I have had the opportunity to dig deep into the ISTE Standards for Students (aka MITECS here in the Mitten) and the ISTE Standards for Educators. While everyone is recognizing that technology is becoming ubiquitous in our society, we still aren’t emphasizing the skills necessary to leverage the technology in…
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Focus & Engagement with Students
It is has been a while since I posted. Wanted to get back into it during the busiest time of the year! In the last few weeks, I have been reflecting on a couple of books and a training that I went through almost five years ago. I was fortunate to attend a Schlechty Center…
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Change – Do Something Great
It’s been a little while since my last post. I have been extremely busy. Between ISTE and hosting the Lake Michigan Tech Conference, much has been happening. Much has been happening in my local district as well. Change is an inevitable part of the educational process, in fact, we hope for change from day one…
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When a Grade is more than Academics
At the 2018 MACUL Conference, I joined a conversation around the topic of grading in the classroom, and one thing that popped up in the conversation was the idea of compliance-based grading. This was a topic that I have heard and dealt with before, but this renewed…
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Design Thinking Workshop at Idea Week
In late April, I had the chance to attend part of Idea Week, a collaboration between the IDEA Center, on the campus of Notre Dame, and the larger Michiana region. The event brings in many national leaders, innovators, and entrepreneurs to share their insight with the students of Notre Dame and the Michiana community at…
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MACUL 18 Recap
As the month of March winds down, I am wrestling with a lot of big thoughts in my heads about grading, grades, school culture, design thinking, and school climate. I am really wrestling with it. I can’t quite get it down coherently at this time. So, instead, you get some resources from an event that…
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Happy Valentine’s Day! Don’t Forget to Show Love to Your Students!
It’s Valentine’s Day! A day of love. A day of chocolate. A day of flowers. A day of little candy hearts with cute sayings! A day of expressing your feelings! While love is essential for all outside of school, we can’t turn that off when we come to school. While all the above are important…
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Goal for 2018 – Don’t Be the Sea, Change
While I am not one to set resolutions that the start of the year, I was able to travel to Eleuthera in the Bahamas over our winter break. We visited a beautiful place towards the north end of the island called Queen’s Bath, a formation that has been carved out thousands of years that has…
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Response to Ideas That Will Break Education
About every quarter, a group of tech coaches and integrators meet and discuss current projects, struggles, and what is happening in our schools at the Regional Education Service Agency. One of the county consultants shared Terry Heick’s 12 Ideas That Will Break Education. The goal was to have conversations around some of the items. I…
