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.
Dec 06
We read another excellent article at my teacher leader training, Next-Generation Assessment Systems: Are We Losing an Opportunity? by Margaret Heritage (this one is a pdf file). One thing I took away from the article is how easy it is to think we’re doing formative assessment when we’re not because of the word assessment. After …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/12/06/formative-process/
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/12/06/inquiry-for-teachers/
Dec 04
As I continue to learn more about Assessment for Learning (AfL) I find ways to hone my craft. One of the five key strategies of AfL is to share learning expectations with students. I’ve used rubrics on and off for years not sure if I like the transparency of them or hate how they don’t …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/12/04/sharing-learning-expectations/
Nov 29
Short answer, yes. There is a time and a place for everything. And even with inquiry there is a time and place for structure. I think learning a structure like the one in this blog is great for elementary teachers who teach Science. Is this the only way? No. Should you do this all the …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/11/29/can-inquiry-be-structured/
Nov 27
I’ve used Google Forms to create surveys for my students. I’ve gotten some great feedback from students at the end of course. It was easy to create and I got a spreadsheet with all their feedback. I could read through all the student responses. I never used Google Forms for quizzes but finally decided to …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/11/27/feedback-with-google-forms/
Nov 23
Science kits are great for elementary and many middle school teachers. I’m a generalist (got the early adolescent generalist national board certification before it went away), which basically means I dabble in everything, so the fact that I’m teaching only Science is through some fortunate circumstance. I saw fortunate because I love teaching Science and …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/11/23/extend-the-lesson-for-inquiry/
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/11/14/technology-as-a-tool/
Nov 12
Sometimes I think I’d be a much better educator if it weren’t for being stuck inside the four walls of my classroom. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. There are things that I wish I had done better or differently that just wouldn’t be issues if we weren’t all trapped inside these same …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/11/12/limited-by-four-walls/
Nov 12
One of our high school teachers wrote a letter to our state’s superintendent of public schools sharing her concerns over the state’s decisions for testing Science this year and next year. I asked her if I could share her letter because the concerns that she raised are so blatant and Maren wrote such a great …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/11/12/letter-to-wa-state-superintendent-of-public-schools/
Nov 09
So while my 8th graders were researching the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill a few teams found youtube videos showing how hay could be used to soak up the oil. Yeah, they saw it with own eyes on the video. That was somewhat convincing but they were still curious. Could hay really soak up oil …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/11/09/quick-and-dirty-inquiry/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023 and 2024!
