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.
May 15
I was reading Larry Ferlazzo’s post on standardized testing and I thought I’d share it here. He asked his students to let him know their impressions of the test and I must say their feedback is very telling. We all know that one size fits all testing is not an effective way to measure what …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/05/15/standardized-tests/
May 13
We are almost ready for our week-long field trip to gorgeous Lake Crescent for the 8th grade Olympic Odyssey! In case your child has lost or misplaced some of the most recent paperwork here is a link to a copy of the packing list: Odyssey2010FinalRemindLetter And here is a link to the Final Reminder letter …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/05/13/odssey-2010/
May 03
Progress reports are ready so visit this page in case your child didn’t bring home the paper copy I handed out. Students have been learning some great Science and they haven’t had to worry about grades, passing or flunking. Let me know what you think. If you haven’t had a chance yet, take the short …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/05/03/last-midterm-of-09-10/
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/05/03/learn-about-advertising/
Apr 07
I found this blog post by a teacher who is also trying to find ways to assess students better than traditional grading. This teacher from Alberta, Canada, has been blogging about topics such as grading and student assessment for a while now. Here are a collection of his blogs on these subjects. Etta Kralovec on …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/04/07/my-recent-readings/
Apr 07
May 5 is the midterm and June 18 is the last day of school. By midterm and by the end of the term students and parents will get a progress report like I always provide. I can print out paper copies for families that don’t have Internet at home but remember that I publish my …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/04/07/midterm-and-end-of-term/
Mar 20
Monday, March 22, 2010, students were given copies of their final grades for the 2nd trimester. Students received a progress report along with a letter for parents. I drafted that letter after an earlier blog post I wrote about grades. I’ve come to the decision that grading my students is doing harm. Based on conversations …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/03/20/change-in-grading-policy-for-mr-gs-science/
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/03/16/mr-gs-glog/
Mar 06
An Open Letter to Educators (check it out): If you thought that was good this response is also pretty darn good!
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/03/06/worth-the-watch/
Mar 06
I came across this great publication called Reversing Readicide. It’s a must read for educators who see their students turned off to reading. It’s also a must read for parents who are noticing their children getting turned off to reading. The article lists four factors that cause readicide in our students and gives ideas to …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2010/03/06/read-this-about-readicide/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
