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The New MYP Humanities
If I haven’t said it before, I’m a big fan of MYP. Content takes a backseat to concept-driven curriculum. Skill development is more important than memorizing random facts. And right now we’re going...
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Going Old School: Syria and Current Events in MYP Humanities
cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by ndbekah I started my grade 10 MYP Humanities class with one of the most “old school” assessments in a long time. It required glue and notebooks and...
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What are we afraid of?
I was privileged to be a leader at Learning2.0 this October in Beijing. I still need to write a post about the experience, because “amazing” might be an understatement. But one thing that I will always...
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Textbooks and the 21st Century Student
Over the last 20 to 30 years, textbook publishers have become averse to bold historical narratives for fear of being labeled as too liberal, too conservative, too patriotic, or too sexist….Instead they...
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Things I know and things I don’t know: COETAIL edition
Wordcloud of every single COETAIL post. In less than a month, I’ll be presenting my final COETAIL project. Eventually I’ll have something in the mail from SUNY Buffalo saying I have earned a...
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What I wish I could write in reports
I’m in the middle of writing reports and I’m stressed* . I’m writing paragraphs about each student and I’m trying to convey to parents (and anyone else who reads it) what the kid has learned this...
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Zen and Connections in Theory of Knowledge
My goal of my COETAIL final project was simple: Have my Grade 11 Theory of Knowledge kids do something is now second nature to my middle school students. The rest of this post is a long discussion of...
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7th Graders (And One Teacher) Learning with Minecraft
Grade 7 seems like the wrong grade to pilot using Minecraft as a learning tool. This is an age where real-world interactions are difficult enough and empathy is sometimes lacking due to the fact that...
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Sustainabilty and Inquiry: Asking Questions, Failing and Learning
My kids are failing and struggling and I’ve never been more proud of them. We are in the midst of a project and I don’t know if they are going to get done what I thought they were going to get done by...
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Rewards of Learning
Every single professional success or accolade has started with me wanting to learn something new. Every single time I have said “Let’s try it and see what happens” I have been showered with the...
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A Teacher Thinking Visibly
See, Think, Wonder Back in February, I signed up to take the Making Thinking Visible course offered through Harvard Project Zero. I had seen the teachers in the elementary school at YIS go through the...
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Tall Poppies And Google Teacher Academy
It was from my Australian friends that I learned the phrase “Tall Poppy Syndrome“.* So it’s somewhat appropriate that I try to write about my time at Google Teacher Academy in Sydney with a measure of...
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See Think Wonder: Digital Literacy and Visible Thinking
Teaching is easy…Learning is Hard. At Google Teacher Academy, I had the honor of presenting an inspiring idea about how I use technology in the classroom. I really wanted to talk about how I try to get...
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Learning to…
Two days after arriving home from Learning2.0 Singapore, two tweets seem to summarize how I am feeling… Happy to be back at work but think I’m suffering from a #learning2 brain hangover. Anyone else...
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Creating Questions: Ideation in a MYP World
My students spent a week coming up with a good question. A single question – average around 10 words – took my 8th graders a week to come up with. In comparison, my students will spend a week actually...
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Gamification: An Epic Quest
This blog is crossposted on the COETAIL site The Game of School The particular offense of playing the Game of School lies in the disengagement of our intellect and our feelings from tasks that deserve...
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Get Up: Taking Breaks and Acting Silly in a 1:1 Classroom
I’m not embarrassed to say that often my students look like this when they are working. Or like this Yes…his face is blue. He’s a smurf of course. Or like this Girls helping each other out during...
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Throwing Ideas Out There: Design Thinking and Professional Development
As part of my Professional Growth Plan , I am going to be doing the periodic blog post on how I am trying to integrate Design Thinking into my teaching and learning environment. To learn more about the...
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Empathy and a 7th Grade History Class
This post is part of my Professional Growth Plan documentation on how I’m using Design Thinking in my classroom One Grade 7 assignment I have done the past few years is a trial set during the...
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The Simple Flip
I finally found a sensible and easy way to use video of me talking that my kids can watch again and again until they get it*. I’ve flipped the rubric. In MYP the rubrics for students can be...
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