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Is The Classroom Culture Ready For PBL? #HackingPBL
Over the next month I will be publishing 5 posts as sneak peaks for our upcoming book, Hacking Project Based Learning, which was written with Ross Cooper (@rosscoops31) and will be released this winter. When you observe the classroom of an accomplished project based learning (PBL) teacher, the joyful rhythm and the organized chaos can be awe-inspiring. It may feel as though the magnificent sight of a fine tuned PBL experience occurred through an act of magic, however, it is actually the product of a carefully crafted classroom culture. A really cool idea and a well planned project can fall flat, if the culture of the room is not prepared. As…
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Busting 5 Myths of Inquiry-Based Learning #HackingPBL
Over the next few months I’ll be publishing 5 posts as sneak peaks for our upcoming book, Hacking Project Based Learning, which was written with Ross Cooper (@rosscoops31) and will be released this winter. A major tenet of project based learning is inquiry and this post helps address some myths related to inquiry in the classroom. The energy in Mrs. Bauer’s sixth grade science classroom is almost palpable. Groups of three to four students are out of their chairs leaning over their tables to get a closer look at a petri dish placed in the center. In the dish, two small insects scurry around. The students carefully move the dish…
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Is it time for a messy conversation?
As humans, we tend to avoid confrontations. They make our pulse quicken and our sweat glands kick in, and they are all around uncomfortable. Our fear of messy conversations keeps us from challenging the status quo. Instead we admire problems and discuss theoretical solutions. The unfortunate truth: we need to wade through sticky situations to make positive change. Having a messy conversation does not mean picking a fight. We have all worked with the person who feels it is their god given role to play devil’s advocate… about everything… all the time. A consistently negative approach and pedantic tendencies will not win any battles (or friends). Two years ago, I…
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3 Instructional Routines to Enhance Engagement
Over the last three weeks I have met with many of our teachers for our year-end meetings. While these meetings are often viewed simply as compliance tasks, I was blown away by the level of reflection shared by so many of the teachers with whom I had the privilege to converse. In my on-going quest to be more mindful and reflective, I took time after each conversation to jot down some takeaways. After reviewing my notes, and also my walkthrough observations, some clear patterns emerged. Based on the work shared by teachers and observations from the year, there are three instructional routines that I have seen consistently garner high quality…
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The End of Marking Periods – My Takeaways
Two years ago, I joined the administrative team at Eyer Middle School. On my first day, principal Michael Kelly (@principalmkelly), filled me in on the work the school had done to improve grading and assessment practices. He shared some research with me, and as a self proclaimed book nerd, I happily dug into the texts. Less than a year later we embarked on an original experience, as we put an end to marking periods and created a continual grading period pilot in our sixth grade. You can read more about the pilot at principalmkelly.com, but the specifics are not the focus of this post. I am writing this post, because…
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Ed Leadership: Balancing Instructional Coach and Evaluator
One of my greatest challenges as a building administrator is balancing my passion for instructional coaching with my role as evaluator. Our teacher evaluation model, while weighted down with cumbersome mathematics and documentation, offers a valuable opportunity to interact with teachers on authentic work impacting their classrooms. Below are the four factors present in the most successful interactions:
