Back in November I was reflecting on whether or not inquiry can be, or should be, structured. Overall my conclusion was that yes, it can and should, at times, be structured by the teacher. Even with my 8th graders I find that if I don’t structure the activity, project, or lab they don’t take it …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/02/25/when-is-structure-needed/
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/02/25/quick-inquiry-field-trip/
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/02/10/we-are-the-change-we-need/
Feb 06
What Does Good Teaching Look Like?
I’m looking for help from my incredible PLN. My district’s tech committee has been meeting this year and we’re looking to revamp our technology vision and mission. One thing that has come up at these tech meetings is that before we can decide what direction to take with tech we need to define how we …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/02/06/what-does-good-teaching-look-like/
Jan 31
Uploading Photos with the iPad
My students are using two fantastic apps for uploading photos and pictures from their iPads to put on their blogs. If a student gets a photo on their iPad or draws a picture here are two apps for them to upload: The Photobucket app is fantastic! It’s free and creating accounts are free. Students just …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/01/31/uploading-photos-with-the-ipad/
Jan 28
Whiteboarding in Science
Even after almost convincing my 8th graders that air had no mass I still moved them forward and hope that they remember all the different gasses that make up our air and how each gas has an atomic weight, which would lead to the reasonable connection that air does have mass. It is, after all, …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/01/28/whiteboarding-in-science/
Jan 28
6th grade Water Quality
Back in mid-November I wrote about how my students were using technology as tool in reference to the addition of iPads into my classroom. I was able to purchase 12 iPads with funds from Learn & Serve America. My 6th graders have been studying the water quality of our neighborhood creek, Chimacum Creek, for over …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/01/28/6th-grade-water-quality/
Jan 22
Sometimes Science Lessons Just Go Wrong
My Science PLC has a few concepts that we have been reviewing with our students in grades 6 – 12 for the past few years. One of those concepts was brought to us by one of our high school teachers because she noticed that her students were having difficulty with conceiving of air as having …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/01/22/sometimes-science-lessons-just-go-wrong/
Jan 21
Making a Case Against High Stakes Testing
What if you had the chance to speak to your state’s legislators and help them understand some of the finer points of why high stakes standardized testing, especially when your state doesn’t even have a handle on which test are aligned to which set of standards, just isn’t a good idea? Well, one of our …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/01/21/making-a-case-against-high-stakes-testing/
Jan 21
Lessons I’ve learned from my Student’s Blogs
This is a post that I wrote when Joe Bower, who teaches middle school aged children in Alberta, Canada, asked me if I would write a guest post on his blog (see it here – Joe has an incredible blog where he writes often about changing education for the better). I jumped at the chance …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2011/01/21/lessons-ive-learned-from-my-students-blogs/
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I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
Mr. G’s Hobbies
