Rejuvenating Education One Day At A Time
The build up to game day has been anxiety riddled. Students have been testing their games, tweeking rules based on data, and working on design elements. I have spent the last few lunch periods at the laminator helping to create "real" game cards, while the students have been working in hallways on FaceTime with their... Continue Reading →
Writing is a large part of a humanities class. For my government class I specialize in informational and argumentative writing. Most social studies classes in America place a heavy emphasis on this type of reading and writing because our English classes cover most other forms. Practicing these skills is not always, or lets say never,... Continue Reading →
Sitting in a meeting about authenticating assessment, my mind wanders to the overall state of education. Here we are almost 1 year into a pandemic. Our systems have been thrown against a wall and decimated. Pivoting in a weekend our normal flow of life came to a dead stop. Everything started spinning and it isn’t... Continue Reading →
With a rush of excitement, a push towards action and an explosion of intellectual growth the Analyzing Revolutions unit is over. The students have completely blown past expectations in the products they have made, the discussion they have led and the skills they have acquired. The last minute push exhausted all of us, but luckily... Continue Reading →
The 8th grade students have decided that this year we are re-writing our Constitution to intertwine it with game design. The students expressed that they wanted to learn design thinking and create games that show their mastery of the U.S. Constitution. Excitedly, I jumped into planning. Content goals first, skill goals second. Every year students... Continue Reading →
Reading the U.S. Constitution is not a priority of my 8th grade students. At this point in the year their genuine interest has built about the Constitution, but the actual want to read a document written in 1787 is not on this "Must Do" list. This year we have the extra challenge of students transitioning... Continue Reading →
When Middle School students are told they are going to engage with a primary source the feeling of the room shifts. The smiling faces disappear. The air becomes stagnant. All joy in the world has been stifled. Not even the worlds most famous break up letter brightens their faces. The Declaration of Independence is not... Continue Reading →
When this year started we all knew we were in for a once in a lifetime ride (hopefully). In South Florida our school year began with two weeks of virtual learning where everyone was home. Teachers and students worked from their homes struggling to get to know each other and breaking the expecations of what... Continue Reading →
SET THE STAGE One of the major skills I teach is argumentative writing. One would think that taking naturally argumentative pre-teens and harnessing that energy with be easy, unfortunately it is not. Students that can argue over grades, the pros and cons of wearing leggings at school and which football team will reach the Super... Continue Reading →
The new unit on revolutions is content heavy. We are exploring the American road to revolution and the Revolutionary War. In the past students have created timelines that are a reference that will be used in the next unit when learning the U.S. Constitution. This year changed the project to involve a larger world view. ... Continue Reading →
