Don’t forget to share your experiences with implementing the Common Core State Standards this year. Your input could result in a free book in the Upper Grades Exchange blog’s Common Core Outcomes giveaway. Leave your comment at the link before 11:59 pm EDT tonight to be eligible! The winner will be announced Monday.
Education Reform
Common Core Outcomes Giveaway
Your time at the end of the school year is valuable. So this will be a short and, hopefully, sweet blog post. Roughly 97 ideas crossed paths in my brain at one point this morning (not unusual, really), and I was left with the following questions that I want to ask you: Did you incorporate…
Time Out for Test Prep
You learn some interesting things sitting in the bleachers at a little league baseball field. While your children practice the fundamentals and intricacies of baseball, you get to commiserate with other parents about all kinds of things. This weekend, for example, a number of parents chatted about EOGs—the universal End of Grade tests administered in…
To Code or Not to Code
One of the most beautiful things in the world is the IBM Selectric typewriter. It looks like a work of Mondrian, sounds like a tango, smells like the future, and responds like a thoroughbred beneath one’s fingertips. (That covers four out of five senses. I’ve never tasted a Selectric.) When I was quite young, I…
It Was Black and White and Read All Over
Newspapers. You may have heard of them. You may remember them. Some of you may still receive them at your home every day. On television and in the movies, they’re something dad reads every morning over breakfast while the family buzzes around him, or on the subway to work as he is jostled and pickpocketed….
Take the Tech Outside
It’s that time of year. Take your students outside for fresh air and supercharged STEM learning! Courtesy of the STEMblog, here are “5 Ways to Take Technology Outdoors.” 1. Mobile Devices – Smartphones and tablets, with their wide array of apps, a camera, and GPS abilities, are great tools for documenting outdoor observations. As a…
I Am a Daydream Believer, and You Should Be Too
We sure do make life hard on ourselves, don’t we? For example: the afternoon nap. Ah, glorious afternoon nap, how I miss you! Oh, sure, it’s a good and important thing for preschool children, and it’s excusable when it’s Grandma Madeline in her La-Z-Boy. But for the rest of us? Sorry, no. And daydreaming? Whether…
How Fast Is the Future Arriving?
Mix tapes. They were the best. I used to spend hours and hours putting together what I consider to be some of the world’s best music mixes ever. Ever. Without dispute. I was to the mix tape what a modern deejay like Deadmau5 is to electronic dance music. The advent of the recordable CD (or…
Blinded by Science Standards?
The only things I love more than science itself might be mad scientists and evil geniuses. Dr. Emilio Lizardo, Dr. Moreau, Dr. Frankenstein (that’s Frahnk-uhn-steen), Dr. Joyce Brothers, Dr. Scholl’s, Dr. Strangelove. Mad, I tell you! But if none of these villains have done the job of motivating more young people to take an interest…
What, Me Worry?
I may be a bit old fashioned when it comes to my philosophy on education. And while the jury is still out, I do remain uncomfortably curious about what a Common Core future means to young learners. My initial reaction sees a narrowing of the curriculum, and I feel like lodging complaints like an old…