Each school year, as I begin planning my days and units I am amazed at the changes and progression of technology. Last year, I was excited to use iPads, really focus on blogging with my students, and begin our Twitter classroom account. The connections made and sharing abilities proved to be successful, and provided ample …
A couple of weeks ago, a colleague sent me an article from Upworthy about a new kind of kindergarten design at a school in Tokyo (link to full article). The premise of the design is that it takes into accounts kids natural impulses and allows them the freedom that they need to experience risks and …
In one of my master’s courses, we were given the task to create an online learning project. My group decide to create a blog where we share our learning experiences, and also planned to organize a Twitter chat focusing on authentic learning. Our chat was a great success as we were able to share and …
As part of my master’s course, my group is conducting an online project to learn more about authentic learning and what it means. As such, we have create a blog as a tool to share our thoughts and the things that we are learning along the way. The blog will act as a site that …
Last week during class, I was working through a Rachel’s Challenge lesson with my students that was all about goal setting. We discussed goals they have set in the past, long term and short term goals they might have now, and the things that constitute a good goal. Then I asked them the following question: …
“We live in a world that is changing more rapidly than ever before. Today’s children will face a continual stream of new issues and unexpected challenges in the future. Many things that they learn today will be obsolete tomorrow. To thrive, they must learn to design innovative solutions to the unexpected problems that will undoubtedly …
Sometimes I forget what the first week of school is like; the endless questions, the establishing of routines, trying to make connections with every student, and the feeling of exhaustion when I leave the building. This week has been all of that and more! Yesterday I set up my classroom blogs with my students. The …
I am always looking for new ways to “hook” students and make them excited about learning a new topic or unit. As the school year is coming closer to beginning, my colleague and I were brainstorming ideas about how to introduce Spanish class. At our school, when students enter grade four, it’s their first year …
As part of my master’s program, I had a group task that had to tackle an aspect of design based learning. My group decided to create a lesson planning template, which teachers could use to find ways to integrate technology into their lessons in meaningful and engaging ways. We wanted it to be teacher friendly, …
In the article Principled Practical Knowledge, Bereiter brought forth a new theory in the learning sciences that I was unfamiliar with. He challenged readers to think about the “why” in the things we do. Bereiter gives the example and compares two risotto recipes: The first one instructs chefs to add liquid and rice a little …
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