Monday night Mark Barnes held a Results Only Learning Environment or ROLE Twitter chat based on his book, ROLE Reversal. I read his book earlier this summer and I’m totally going to transform my classroom into a ROLE classroom. I’m actually quite close to having a ROLE classroom. For years I’ve been trying different things …
Category: Grades & HW
These are blogs where I write about grades and homework in an effort to challenge the traditional use of the two.
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/08/13/results-only-learning-environment/
Jul 26
Growth Mindset
[This is part of a series of posts I’m writing as I reflect on another online course I’m taking this summer, Stanford University’s EDUC115N How to Learn Math. Sure, I’m a Science teacher but I have taught Math so I’m familiar with Math instruction. Besides, we do use Math in Science so it’s not like …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/07/26/growth-mindset/
Jul 25
Teacher Moves
[This is part of a series of posts I’m writing as I reflect on another online course I’m taking this summer, Stanford University’s EDUC115N How to Learn Math. Sure, I’m a Science teacher but I have taught Math so I’m familiar with Math instruction. Besides, we do use Math in Science so it’s not like …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/07/25/teacher-moves/
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/07/24/changing-math/
Mar 13
Gamification Alternative to Grading?
One thing that’s really cool about Twitter is that you’re allowed to be nosey. People know that anyone who follows them can read what they’re tweeting. Now that may be obvious to everyone but I tend to by shy even online. I know, it’s weird to me too. It’s way easier for me to lurk …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/03/13/gamification-alternative-to-grading/
Jan 25
Student Survey Time
Midterm is upon us and I reminded my students of how things are different at this time in an ungraded classroom. I hear them talking about what grades they are getting in their other classes because at midterm teachers prepare progress reports for families to see how their child is doing halfway through the trimester. …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/01/25/student-survey-time/
Jan 24
More Reasons to Go Gradeless
I came across this post on SmartBlog on Education written by Paul Cancellieri (@mrscienceteach) on grading. Paul makes another great case not only for NOT using grades as carrots and sticks but also for doing away with grades (my take away from reading his post). Here’s his post: Grades as Measurements
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/01/24/more-reasons-to-go-gradeless/
Jan 22
Why Go Gradeless?
 Coming up on three years ago, after 19 years of teaching, I began to question grading. I wrote a blog post titled, Do Grades Help or Hinder Learning? I knew that grading, the ways I had tried it until then, was not working. Grades were not motivating all of my students, it was the focus …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/01/22/why-go-gradeless/
Jan 06
HW and Trust
Thinking about homework again I’ve heard some of the reasons for giving homework and it boils down to trust. It seems, by the way some teachers talk, that they don’t trust that parents are properly preparing their children. Some teachers worry that parents don’t read to their kids or don’t encourage their kids to read …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2013/01/06/hw-and-trust/
Oct 15
Letter to the President
Diane Ravitch writes, speaks and blogs about education reform. Not the kind of reform that jeopardizes education but the kind of reform that will make education a priority for all children (click on my education reform tab for more info). Ravitch is coordinating a Campaign for our Public Schools on her blog. She’s urging us …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/10/15/letter-to-the-president/
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