Nov 14
I had a most enlightening conversation with my advisory group about rewarding, I mean acknowledging, students. Our school is now a PBIS school and part of our efforts to reward positive behavior includes teachers giving slips of paper to students when we catch them engaging in positive behaviors. The slips of paper have the traits …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/11/14/pbis-acknowledging-students/
Nov 13
After last year’s failed attempt at using World of Warcraft in Science to have students learn about classifying living things I finally get a chance to try using World of Warcraft to explore the journey of a hero! I thought the Science angle was a good idea but my 8th graders didn’t really take to …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/11/13/literacy-with-wow/
Nov 12
The crew of the Starship Equinox had to decide whether or not to follow the energy trail from the massive weapon that destroyed the Bombay. After a quick deliberation they recommended to the Captain that he follow the energy trail back to its source to see if they could find what can wield such power. …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/11/12/following-an-energy-trail/
Oct 23
At a summer institute NGSS workshop I heard the presenter say that we could modify the Next Generation Science Standards to meet the needs of our students. So I did just that! We get to visit Mt Saint Helens as part of our 6th grade outdoor education experience to Camp Cispus. Because of that 6th …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/10/23/i-modified-ngss/
Oct 22
After wondering if I was being hypocritical for denouncing the use of rewards systems to encourage positive behaviors from kids yet using experience points and badges in my gamified classroom I had the following Twitter conversation helping me think through PBIS and the use of rewards. This issue, which researchers like Alfie Kohn, make seem …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/10/22/pbis-and-rewards/
Oct 21
I am using this butcher paper poster to collect our room 410 continuing story of the Starship Equinox. I have been adding a story element to my gamified Science course and the story continues. On this poster I am storing all the QR codes that have appeared so far in our classroom in case students …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/10/21/next-episode-in-the-voyages-of-the-starship-equinox/
Oct 20
Sometimes I feel like hypocrite when I denounce extrinsic rewards. I’ve been vocal at my school about my discomfort rewarding students for things they should be doing. Things that many of them do anyways. We even abolished our monthly awards ceremonies and student of the month award ceremonies last year. But now we have become …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/10/20/am-i-a-hypocrite/
Oct 01
After having students make three promises to help us have a safe, happy and fun classroom I made a google form so they could assess how well they’ve kept their promises on a weekly basis. So far many students have taken the assessment two or three times since we drafted the promises. I compared their …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/10/01/behavior-self-assessment/
Sep 30
Here’s a presentation I put together for students for our Mt Saint Helens study after our fantastic trip last week to Camp Cispus (we are very fortunate to get to take our entire 6th grade class to a camp for four days every year)! I added some brief notes explaining what each slide is showing:
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/09/30/mt-saint-helens-2/
Sep 30
I came across this post by George Couros, 4 Reasons People Don’t Blog and Ideas to Help Change Their Mind. He gives some great ideas to the reasons people give. I have to admit that I’ve heard those reasons when I tell people how wonderful blogging is to me. In his post George shares this …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/09/30/sharing-is-a-good-thing/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
