Mar 28
Chimacum Middle School 6th graders have been monitoring our neighborhood creek, Chimacum Creek, for the past 15 years! When asked to to develop an integrated STEM unit this year for our 6th graders I went to my fellow 6th grade teachers, the Humanities teacher, Ms. Langston, and the Math teacher, Mr. Meacham, and asked them …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2017/03/28/a-stewardship-stem-project/
Jul 08
The Common Core English Language Arts (CCSS ELA) standards were developed to provide our kids a relevant, engaging, rigorous education. At the heart of the standards are three major shifts to the way we teach our students. This year I have been fortunate enough to have one of the bloggers on our state’s CoreLaborate blog. …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/07/08/the-core-shifts-the-way-we-teach/
Jun 01
CCSS-ELA Shift 3 states that students need to be, “building knowledge through content-rich nonfiction.” Is this shift making a case for an integrated approach to teaching? It sure seems like it. I mean, in a Science or History classroom using content-rich nonfiction to have students learn Science and History makes sense. Using fiction in those …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/06/01/building-knowledge/
May 05
In my last post I shared learnings and takeaways from some Common Core ELA trainings I’ve attended around the CCSS-ELA Shift 2 (students need to engage in, “reading, writing and speaking grounded in evidence from text, both literary and informational”). This post continues with more about Shift 2. Questioning!Now that you’ve selected the perfect complex …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/05/05/backing-up-claims/
Mar 02
Common Core State Standards-English Language Arts (CCSS-ELA) Shift 1: Regular practice with complex text and its academic language. In the last post I shared some of the research from a 2006 ACT study that found text complexity determines whether our students will be successful beyond high school or struggle. Students who did well with complex …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/03/02/implications-for-text-complexity-post-is-out/
Feb 16
Standards, right?Standards have been around since way before the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). Standards are a reality for classroom teachers and personally, for me, I can teach using Standards as guidelines. I trust that people smarter than me chose the standards, taking into account what kids need …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/02/16/ccss-ela-shift-1/
Jan 13
Just this past weekend I attended a Common Core English Language Arts (CCSS-ELA) training put together by the Washington Core Advocates from Achieve the Core Student Achievement Partners. Because of my work with the OSPP I was invited to attend this fantastic training. I had the choice of going to the Math training or the …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/01/13/wa-core-advocates/
Nov 17
I read this article in the Instructional Leader on Text-Dependent Questions. As part of the WA STEM PD grant that my school got we are working in our grade level PLC (Professional Learning Community) for one cycle followed by departmental PLC. There’s a different dynamic to PLC work when you meet with your grade level …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/11/17/text-dependent-questions/
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I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
