How to get rid of comments and related videos on YouTube
YouTube is a great resource for bringing the real world into your classroom and having students publish and share their work. However, many teachers are hesitant to visit YouTube with classes because comments displayed under videos and the related videos that display on the side of the screen can be unpredictable and distracting at best [...]
21st Century Classroom community building – Design a logo for yourself
Design – whether it’s artistic design, designing solutions to problems, or designing interactions – will be increasingly important mindset for my students. Thinking of this new reality, I wanted to play with the concept of creating a personal brand or logo with my students as a community building activity.
Teach students how to ask their own questions
“The ability to ask the right question is the single most important skill.” -Clay Parker CEO of BOC Edwards Chemical Engineering In a tremendous talk on the purpose of education, Noam Chomsky explains that, “The highest goal in life is to inquire and to create; to search the riches of the past and try to [...]
The Hunger Games as a metaphor for high stakes standardized testing
The Hunger Games is actually a pretty fitting metaphor for high stakes standardized testing. Granted, there’s a big difference between testing and blood sport, but the similarities start becoming to eerie to ignore.
In Command, out of Control
Meeting expectations is boring. I’ve decided to allow my students to amaze me by relinquishing Control of my classroom and focusing on staying in Command instead. Could this shift in mindset work in your classroom?
How would you start the conversation?
After getting the opportunity to talk with a group of student-teachers who are just a month away from graduation, a few of their questions stuck with me:
“How do I approach a teacher in my same subject area or grade level if I want to try something new?”
“How do I let a teacher know that they’re doing something that seems like it’s not right for students?”
“How do I motivate an experienced teacher to make even a small change that will help students?”
How would you answer these questions?
Learning is changing. Are we?
It’s obvious that the way our students learn is changing rapidly and dramatically. As the capabilities of personal technology increase and personal devices spread, cheating is taking on a new look and feel. What are students doing to cheat? Find out what simple shifts teachers can make to engage students turn these “cheating” practices into powerful learning experiences.
Lessons from video games: Getting students invested in learning
In good video games, as in school, true learning only happens when students are able to situate learning with experience
Teach like a video game: Put students in the story
Dylan Mansur, a former student of mine who now designs video games, believes that both gamers and students ask themselves the same question early on in their experiences: “What does it mean that I’m here?” The question seems simple enough, but it took me completely by surprise. As a teacher, I’ve spent hours pondering what my [...]
