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Week in Class: Week Six 2013
Lots of good stuff going on but hard to find the time and energy to write about it. The times when things are going well are often the hardest to motivate myself to blog about. I spent some time out...
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Week in Class: Week Seven 2013 from Cursive to Keyboarding
This week, I’ve been thinking about writing. The process of writing that happens in the brain, how that is translated into a fine-motor activity to express those thoughts, and how to do this...
View ArticleThings I hear…
When everything new seems like something old, sometimes it isn’t… You should go in and observe teachers with seniority, not new teachers, because when I talk to them, they are very excited about being...
View ArticleWhat if we reduced testing, and focused on teacher created assessments?
The case for this (from three testing experts: MT: What is your advice on the right balance between validity and reliability, especially if we want to embrace the goals implicit in the Common Core? HE:...
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Week in Class: Week Nine 2013
Actually, this is week eight too, but this photo was so nifty I had to use it… I missed posting last week because I was in Los Angeles all weekend, participating in the California Teachers Association...
View ArticleReflecting on Common Core RL Standard 5
Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the whole. - Common...
View ArticleYou can’t ask them to think about text that gives them nothing to think about…
Lately I’ve devoted a lot of blog space to what I’ll refer to as “stupid Common Core tricks” that usually result from being overly attentive to the standards, and not giving enough attention to...
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Week in Class: Week Eleven 2013
About this time of year, I’m feeling as distressed as the paint on this picture. I’m tired. I’m really tired, I’m ready for my first “break”, and thank the gods that we now have the whole week of...
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Sometimes more is really less
Sample Items | Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium The item above comes from a sample item on the SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium) website, and it’s supposed to assess the writing of...
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Week in Class: Week Twelve 2013 – What’s the Question?
My previous post looked at a badly done task via Common Core. To cleanse my palate and focus on the positive, I’d like to share some of the questions that I’ve heard and asked, in my classroom as part...
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Week in Class: Weeks 13-20 the Lost Files
I have been a super-bad correspondent since winter break started over a month ago. For this I will apologize. Writing about what I am actually doing in my class is important, and not just for the...
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Week 20-24: Where did the hours go?
So between a week up at Sly Park in the Sierra, parent conferences, and the craziness brought on my an early spring in California, I have become a very poor correspondent about goings on in my...
View ArticleHuman Rights lesson done right…
So way back, in the dim mist of time (before winter break), I finished a unit on human rights loosely based on an idea from a really poorly executed unit that I first heard about here. The unit had...
View ArticleCommon Core Mathematics
This is in response to Mercedes Deutsch’s call for input from teachers on our experience with Common Core Mathematics The Standards: Is it really thinner? Going from California to the CCSS-M standards...
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Week 28 in Class: The YouTubes
This week’s share will be YouTube videos. YouTube videos can be a great source of short videos on topics that can help illuminate a larger topic you’re teaching. Here’s how I used them: Right now...
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Week in Class: Week 33 Primary Documents
Since we’ve finished with our Language Arts text for the year, I’ve been trying to implement a “replacement” unit for Common Core featuring closed readings. The examples modeled centered on short...
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Is the glass half full?
Student: My school district hires too many white teachers – The Washington Post is a really thoughtful first-person piece from a student in the New Orleans school system that was posted in a private...
View ArticleEnd of Year Reflection on ELA, History and Science: 2013-14
What do I know – my weekly assessments, my unit planning I have been using Understanding by Design planning for over five years. It’s taken me about that long to use it somewhat effectively. There are...
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Week in Class Week One 2014
Due to family concerns, I’ve not been able to do as much writing as I would have liked in August, but I did want to share about my great first week of teaching. First, I like my class. They seem to be...
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Week in Class: Week Three 2014
I missed out posting for Week 2, but things were pretty similar in both Week 3 so this will do for both weeks… I’m establishing the day-to-day, and more importantly for my style, a weekly routine. One...
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