Mastery Based Grading is an approach to gathering data that reflects what students know, rather than the scores students have received on assignments. In other words, Mastery Based Grading is about what the score represents, rather than just the score itself! Here are five reasons you should give this a…
Flipping your classroom can be difficult for any teacher no matter their experience level. A flipped classroom experience challenges traditional learning environments by delivering much of the instruction online outside of the classroom. The in-person classroom experience is then designed to provide ample time for students to dig deep into…
As an elementary student, some of the best experiences I had in a classroom were the days when we played review games. Motivated by points, leaderboards, and badges, the classroom quickly became excited and ready to work to determine the content “genius”. Inspire your students through traditional instruction by gamifying…
In the past, students had paper folders follow them from grade to grade, with samples of their writing. With today’s technology, we can allow students to compile a digital portfolio full of all sorts of skills that THEY want to highlight. The flexibility and ease of digital portfolios allow for…
Project Based Learning provides an immersive learning experience in which students learn THROUGH a project, instead of learning before completing a project. This isn’t your typical space unit with a mobile at the end! Here’s how it works: Students work on a project for an extended amount of time that…
Part 3 of a 3 Part Implementation Blog Series 21st Century skills are all about student creation! We can assess them all we want, but do we actually see what students are capable of if they’re not applying the information to develop an end product? Inspire your students and their…
Part 2 of a 3 Part Implementation Blog Series Teach, assess, reteach, reassess; it’s the endless cycle that makes your kids go crazy! Data driven instruction is considered best practice, but all the assessing can make teachers and students begin to forget what learning is truly about: the experience! Assessment…
Part 1 of a 3 Part Implementation Blog Series In today’s society, students must know how to collaborate with others. There are few professions in which people are able to sit quietly at their desk and not communicate or collaborate with anyone. So, why would we want our students doing…
Bloom’s Taxonomy, the learning hierarchy that consists of understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, and creating, has hit classrooms by storm over the past few decades, many of which are focused on school turn-around. As much as it streamlined my lesson planning because I could easily determine the rigor of the lesson, it also…
Technology has completely transformed the way we see and communicate with one another. It has taken a very big world and turned it into a very accessible world where we can experience one another’s culture with the click of a button. One of the many concepts that has suffered a…