It all started with a Facebook post by a friend of mine: “Check out these customer reviews on Amazon! It’s like a whole new kind of writing!” The Hutzler 571 Banana Slicer has generated nearly 3,000 customer reviews that mock the absurdity of this unnecessary product. Ranging from “What can I say about the 571B Banana Slicer that hasn’t already been said about the wheel, … Continue reading Evolution of a lesson
Our junior high semester ends with three days of finals: two classes per day, two hours for each class. I could easily create a semester final exam that would take my students two hours to complete, but I’m not sure that would be the best use of our time (nor am I convinced that junior high students should be taking two-hour finals). So each year I … Continue reading Final Project 2.0
You are frustrated with the testing emphasis in education, and you really resent politicians and non-educators trying to tell teachers what to do in their classrooms. You are especially upset over the shift away from creative, artistic pursuits in the classroom as drill-and-kill math and reading replace the arts. So what can you do to make a difference? Don’t despair, my friend! The Office of … Continue reading A Novel and Most Excellent Cause
I had planned a follow-up to my recent Power of Positive Technology post… but then life happened. The new school year started on a Wednesday, and Thursday night my father died. He and my mom had been living with us for about five months, waiting to move into their new house. Dad had been sick for a long time, and we knew the end was … Continue reading …and then life happened
One more reason to love project-based learning: as the weather gets warmer and the kids’ minds wander to summer, my students stay focused, working hard to complete projects that are due at the end of the semester. Of course one reason they continue to work so hard in spite of rampant spring fever is that their semester grade depends on their performance on these … Continue reading PBL conquers spring fever
We work hard all year, writing and reading and analyzing and discussing and reading and writing some more. And then, all of our hard work and learning are evaluated and assessed in two days of state exams. Multiple-choice exams, mind you, no writing necessary. So we also work hard to create a testing environment that supports our students. We keep our daily routine the same. … Continue reading They’re kids, not Olympians
Kids today are born with a mouse in their hand, right? They navigate websites intuitively, clicking their way around the Internet with their eyes closed. Their teachers are stuck in the binder-paper-and-#2-pencil routine, while the students go home to blogs, wikis and websites. Our students are the digital natives, while we are the immigrants, relying on pre-teens to show us how to tweet and upload… … Continue reading The Myth of the Digital Native
Our frenzied novel writing was repeatedly interrupted on November 30 as students let out yelps of joy when they met their word count goals. Even I disturbed the quiet when I took a writing break, loaded my novel into the NaNoWriMo word validator, and saw “WINNER!” flash across my screen. “I made it!” I yelled, jumping out of my chair and bowing to my students … Continue reading “A, B, C or D? Really?!?”
The bell rings, my classroom door flies open, and Tony comes hurtling through. “Can we write today, Mrs. Bradley? Please, please tell me we’re gonna write today!” He glances at the white board, sees “writing” on the agenda, and throws his hands up in celebration. “Yes!” In 20 years of teaching, I have never seen students this eager to write. Sure, I have had success … Continue reading “Pleeeeze, can we write today?”
Although I have conveniently forgotten most of my student-teaching experiences (oh, the magnitude of what I did not know that I did not know), there is one critical piece of advice that I have tried to heed each year since: on the first day of school, do something that makes the students want to come back on the second day. Our students might be required … Continue reading Hook ’em on day-one
Laura Bradley 