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.
Aug 01
Water. What lessons do we have to learn from water? I ask that because a few weeks before school let out we had a pipe burst in our hall. Luckily the hallway was the only part of our wing that got wet because several years ago we had a pipe burst over one of our …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/08/01/summer-plans-gone-awry/
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/07/23/rscon3_presentation/
Jul 20
Okay I couldn’t think of a better word than Twitterers because Tweeters just sounded wrong. Our PLC’s WA STEM Grant work has been moving along. At our first meeting everyone started a blog and wrote their first blog post. I wrote about and shared their blogs here: Becoming Bloggers. At our second meeting everyone started …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/07/20/new-bloggers-and-twitterers/
Jun 13
At our final OMSP leadership meeting we read a little bit of W. James Popham’s book Transformative Assessment in Action: An Inside Look at Applying the Process to discuss. We first came up with our own definitions of formative assessment. I thought my team did pretty well. I mean, here we all are, teacher leaders …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/06/13/applications-of-formative-assessment/
May 31
After a stimulating faculty meeting we were given two prompts to respond to as a closing activity. Here is the one I chose and my response. What is it you really wish your students can learn from you? If I had only one thing all year that my students would take away from their time …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/05/31/love-learning/
May 30
Olympic Odyssey is what we call our week-long, outdoor education, 8th grade field trip. We take 8th graders to Camp David, Jr. on beautiful Lake Crescent and use that as our take off point to their odyssey. This is the time of year where some of the things they are learning in school come to …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/05/30/outdoor-education-rocks/
May 13
I found this video on Mr. Bogush’s blog about the Finland Phenomenon aptly called, “The Finland Phenomenon.” I think that we can learn a lot from Finland. From 2000 to 2009 Finland has scored #1 in the world in Reading, Math, and Science. Yet in Finland students start school later, spend less time in school, …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/05/13/finlands-race-leads-somewhere/
May 12
Tuesday night at 6pm Chimacum Middle School hosted a screening of the movie Race to Nowhere. We had 92 people from our community, our schools, Sequim, and Port Townsend attend the screening and afterward many stayed behind to discuss the movie’s content. Speaking for myself, the movie was amazing. At a few points throughout the …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/05/12/our-race-to-somewhere/
Apr 21
On Tuesday, May 10, from 6 to 8pm at the Chimacum Schools auditorium we will be having a screening of the movie Race to Nowhere (buy your tickets here: http://www.racetonowhere.com/epostcard/4935). Tickets to the screening are being sold online for $10, plus a processing fee, per person and will be available at the door on the …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/04/21/race-to-nowhere-comes-to-chimacum/
Apr 15
Cross post I wrote for the Inquire Within Blog. A few years back I was fortunate enough to be able to participate in an online media production professional development toolkit for middle school educators. Vulcan Productions teamed up with Education Development Center to create Success at the Core. Registering for free at their site gives …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/04/15/promoting-inquiry-through-exploring-predictions/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
