Jul 18

Mossman Found!

We found the Mossman! He exists!! Background story: At the end of May, on our 8th grade week-long Odyssey field trip, we were taking our school bus to the Hoh Rain Forest. On the way there I saw what I could only describe as a Mossman. I told our bus driver and on the way …

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Jul 16

Gamifying My Classes

I’m taking the leap and am going to try it out. I finished reading The Multiplayer Classroom by Lee Sheldon and I was able to start mapping out how I can gamify my classes. After two and half years of teaching completely gradeless I have found that I still haven’t managed to engage all my …

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Jul 15

My Two Cents on Standards

Okay, so this is a rant. There, I’ve said it. I’ve just been so put off by all this common core (next generation in Science) standards stuff (I didn’t write what I was actually thinking), so I thought I’d put my thoughts here on my place to think things through and learn. What I hate …

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Jul 04

Social Networking for PD

This was cross posted from the WA STEM Blog: Our program to have teachers use social networking to connect and learn from each other continued early this summer. We added six teachers to our mix and gave them a short, two-day immersion into the world of blogging and tweeting to connect to learn. Here’s a …

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Jun 18

When is Extrinsic Motivation Okay?

I’ve been looking into gamification and how it can help motivate students to have fun and learn Science. I would love to make certain lessons, projects, or activities look like a game to motivate students to learn boring things like vocabulary. I’d like to do that without points, badges or too many rewards. I’ve abolished …

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Jun 17

Looking for Ideas

I have this vision of something I’d like to do at the start of each class. I usually start by talking. I remind kids what we’re doing, where they left off the day before, and what the agenda or goals are for the current time period. I find this useful because my students only have …

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Jun 11

2011-12 Parent Survey

I’m looking for some feedback for this school year. What am I doing well? Where could I improve? I’d love to hear from my students’ families. You can take the survey by clicking on the following link: http://goo.gl/WpJ1n Thank you!

Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/06/11/2011-12-parent-survey/

Jun 11

Alternate Reality Game

This past Thursday Nicholas Provenzano hosted a Twitter chat at #NerdyChat on the topic of Gamification (see transcript here). Gamification is the idea of using the best of video gaming in the classroom. Why? Watch a kid play a video game. Video games hook the player and motivate the player to persevere through failure and …

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Jun 04

Real Life

We talk a lot about preparing our students for real life. We entice them with the reward of high marks (A’s, 100%’s, 3’s and 4’s) and we threaten them with failure (F’s, 0’s, 1’s and 2’s). It’s easy to think that enticing kids with high marks works because of the kids who work hard for …

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Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2012/06/04/real-life/

May 22

My Own Children

I blog and share posts about my dislike of standardized tests. I especially hate when these tests are made high stakes to determine what kids know and how well teachers are teaching. And yet both my kids take them. Why don’t I opt them out? My son is 15 years old, a freshman in high …

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