These blogs have to do with education as a whole. I write about different topics concerning ed reform and educating our 21st century youth.
Jul 08
Ever since I heard about 20% Time projects, Genius Hour, and Passion Projects I wanted to provide those opportunities to my students. The idea behind giving students class time to work on topics that truly interest them aligns with my views of education and schooling. While I do believe that kids should be exposed to …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2019/07/08/20-time-reflections/
Apr 07
Ever since our district made the decision to reconfigure our main campus from a grades 3-5 Elementary, a grades 6-8 Middle School, and a grades 9-12 High School to a grades 3-6 Elementary and a grades 7-12 Jr/Sr High School I have been thinking a lot about next year. The reconfiguration forces me to choose …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2019/04/07/a-student-comment-has-me-thinking/
Mar 11
Teaching the engineering and design process is all the rage in the classroom right now. We focus heavily on helping students identify a problem, conceptualize a solution that fits within given parameters, help them test their model, and then encourage them to modify their design based on the results. These are all very important skills …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2019/03/11/guest-post-communication-an-important-part-of-engineering-challenges-in-the-classroom/
Feb 09
My school district, Chimacum School District (CSD), has been experiencing an unprecedented decline in enrollment for the past bunch of years. When I started teaching at Chimacum Middle School (CMS) in 1997 there were about 370 students in grades 6 through 8. We had four classes at each grade level with approximately 120 students at …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2019/02/09/im-drawing-a-blank/
Jan 30
For years I’ve been wanting to give my students 20% of their class time to work on projects that matter to them. Call it Genius Hour or Passion Projects or 20% Time, it’s something I’ve been wanting to offer my students, but I never did. “How can I prepare kids for state exams if I …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2019/01/30/genius-hour-is-as-cool-as-i-thought/
May 31
Yesterday I wrote a post about partnerships especially as they apply to projects teachers are creating for their students. Having a local partner, such as the North Olympic Salmon Coalition (NOSC), work with my classes has helped make my Environmental Stewardship Project better than I could have made it alone, and has made the project …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2018/05/31/getting-even-more-money/
May 29
If you subscribe to Dan Pink’s email updates, his From the Desk on Daniel Pink, then you came across this Jeff Bezos memo that Dan shared on May 15. (Jeff Bezos is the founder, chairman, and CEO of Amazon in case you didn’t know.) I agreed with Dan that Jeff’s memo was totally worth reading. …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2018/05/29/success-secrets/
Apr 05
When I first heard that Storify was stopping its services I too was wondering what I would replace it with, and I only had 13 stories saved on Storify! I can’t imagine all the folks who had dozens or more stories saved. My concern was mostly for the blog posts I had written and embedded …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2018/04/05/my-storify-replacement-alternatives/
Mar 25
On March 14, 2018, Chimacum Middle School students gathered by the track in honor of the 17 people who died in the Parkland, FL shootings. It was amazingly well organized and students were attentive and open to listen. Not all students chose to come out. It was by choice yet most of the middle school …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2018/03/25/our-schools-march-14-walkout/
Mar 08
I finally got to see Black Panther! And I’m so glad I went. It was GREAT! So well done and the movie did a fantastic job of bringing the Black Panther characters to life. I’ve been a fan of the Black Panther superhero since I was reading comics growing up. After watching the movie I …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2018/03/08/black-panther-movie-engineering-quote/
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I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023 and 2024!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
