I teach 5th and 6th grade STEM in the lovely Pacific Northwest in a small, rural town called Chimacum. My goal is to help students discover that all learning is life-long and that 21st century tools can be used for work as well as fun.
Jul 21
I’m taking an online course, Formative Assessment and Standards-Based Grading, from the Marzano Research Laboratory, and it’s reinforcing what I’ve believed about how subjective it is to grade and score kids on their learning. As teachers we strive to assess our students’learning as accurately as possible. The truth is that an A in my class …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/07/21/the-inaccuracy-of-tests/
Jul 20
After retweeting this Science Teacher’s blog post on Twitter about sharing standards with Science students I had this conversation with David Grossman: Letting Students in on the Secret | Science Teacher In Training #scichat #afl http://t.co/ALfC9NqScC — Alfonso Gonzalez (@educatoral) June 21, 2014 @educatoral Sometimes I want students to discover the concept like a …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/07/20/sharing-learning-expectations-2/
Jun 18
I’ve been reflecting on my first attempt at using a commercial off the shelf (CoTS) game in class for student learning, in this case World of Warcraft (WoW). I took a risk and tried to use the power of WoW to leverage some Science learning, in this case classification of living things. There are many …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/06/18/gbl-with-wow/
Jun 05
The week of May 19th six of the ten middle school teachers from my school went to Camp David Jr with our 8th grade students for an Olympic Odyssey outdoor learning experience. It was a fantastic week! Part of our outdoor experience is some hiking. There are some incredibly beautiful places to hike in WA …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/06/05/alone-in-the-middle/
May 17
Source: CheapestColleges.org Use of the above infographic does not constitute endorsement of the authors/creators of the infographic. I was merely giving credit to the owners/creators.
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/05/17/the-need-for-technology/
Apr 27
I’m finding that the hallmark of 21st Century learning is a move away from the traditional, 19th and 20th century focus on the three R’s (Reading, wRiting, aRithmetic) and a move to the C’s. I say the C’s because when I first read about the 21st Century C’s there were three, Connect, Collaborate, Create. The …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/04/27/the-cs-of-the-21st-century/
Apr 22
Last year our middle school staff agreed to stop choosing Student’s of the Month and to stop giving out monthly awards for behaviors in which we want our students to engage. My advisory students conducted a survey and we found out that a majority of students reported feeling left out and not appreciated by our …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/04/22/craving-acknowledgement/
Apr 21
What is the purpose of teacher evaluation? The corporate, privatization, voucher, pseudo-reform movement would have us believe teacher evaluation is to get rid of those horrible teachers who ruined our lives so that we can keep only the best teachers, jam their classes with 100’s of students, and give them monetary incentives to teach those …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/04/21/teacher-evaluation-no/
Mar 25
I need a fresh perspective on something I’ve been struggling with this school year. My reason for gamifying my courses was to motivate and engage more of my students whether they are gamers or not. Last week I reiterated something in blog post that I’ve learned in over 22 years of teaching, that no ONE …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/03/25/what-am-i-missing-here/
Mar 24
I put together this Prezi with my thoughts and takeaways from this year’s NCCE Conference. I will be sharing this with my District Tech team as we work to make a new district tech plan. The conference was a great experience full of great learning and great people. Here’s a link in case the embed …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/03/24/my-ncce2014-takeaways-csd49/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023 and 2024!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
