Jul 23
The 2023-24 school year was the first year since the 1999-2000 school year that I didn’t have grant money to spend (The End of a 24 Year Grant Streak). The bright side of that was that was also the first time in 24 years that I didn’t have to write an end of year report! …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2024/07/23/grant-streak-ended-but-two-more-grants-for-24-25/
Dec 28
The Washington Education Association (WEA) is hosting an AI training for educators starting February 2024! This workshop series is open to anyone and if you are a certified teacher in WA state you will earn 15 STEM clock hours for attending all five two-hour sessions and for completing five hours of exploration of AI tools, …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2023/12/28/weas-artificial-intelligence-ai-in-education-workshop-series/
Jul 05
I thought it was just me. Just my students. Then I read this EdSurge article, Students Got a Crash Course in Tech During the Pandemic. Now Some Want a Break. I had been experiencing a bit of cognitive dissonance because I envisioned more and more teachers and students using tech in school because they experienced …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2022/07/05/do-your-students-have-tech-fatigue/
Apr 12
In my last post I shared learnings and takeaways from some Common Core ELA trainings I’ve attended, specifically implications around the first shift of the common core that states that our students need to be reading complex texts. In this post I’m going share my learning about CCSS-ELA Shift 2. Common Core Shift 2 states …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2016/04/12/text-is-boss/
May 18
One of my blog posts sparked a comment where the question of teacher motivation came up. Specifically if tying standardized test scores to teacher evaluation can be motivating to teachers. What follows is the comment along with the questions and my response: “Good luck with your efforts. Truly shameful that you’re not getting enough support …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2015/05/18/teacher-motivation/
Mar 26
Here’s a copy of a letter I just wrote and emailed to my legislators regarding their upcoming vote on ESSB 5748, which would tie our student’s standardized test scores to our teacher evaluation. We can hold students accountable and track and report their learning without standardized testing. We can graduate students from high school without …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2015/03/26/do-not-tie-test-scores-to-teacher-evaluation/
Dec 10
This past May and just recently in November I was fortunate to be able to present a session at two wonderful leadership conferences for newly certified National Board Certified Teachers or NBCTs. Washington state’s Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession or CSTP invited me to show some of the ways that I was sharing what …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/12/10/navigating-systems-for-students/
Aug 14
I will start off by saying that I have been having an enjoyable summer. Even after spraining both my ankles and being laid out (sprained one and healed it enough to go to the WA state Zombie Run where I sprained the other one on a night run – at least I made it through …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/08/14/getting-ready-for-school/
Jun 05
The week of May 19th six of the ten middle school teachers from my school went to Camp David Jr with our 8th grade students for an Olympic Odyssey outdoor learning experience. It was a fantastic week! Part of our outdoor experience is some hiking. There are some incredibly beautiful places to hike in WA …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/06/05/alone-in-the-middle/
Apr 21
What is the purpose of teacher evaluation? The corporate, privatization, voucher, pseudo-reform movement would have us believe teacher evaluation is to get rid of those horrible teachers who ruined our lives so that we can keep only the best teachers, jam their classes with 100’s of students, and give them monetary incentives to teach those …
Permanent link to this article: https://educatoral.com/wordpress/2014/04/21/teacher-evaluation-no/
I'm a Curipod Ambassador! :)
I've presented at NCCE
2016, 2017, 2019, 2022,
2023, 2024, and 2025!
I presented at WSTA 2015!
