As we have been exploring ways to report proficiency based graduation requirements, we have started expanding our thinking about what reporting could actually look like. When we first started discussing this, we continued to consider a paper reporting method. When we started getting creative, we realized that reporting could look completely different. One of those […]
Solving Common Groupwork Problems If you have experienced common groupwork issues like one person completing all the work, these high impact strategies can be implemented tomorrow for use with just about any lesson plan you have in mind in order to increase participation, grit and perseverance. If you weren’t planning on groupwork, most lessons can […]
Teachers and school communities are all too familiar with initiative fatigue. The education world is well known for introducing new initiatives and moving from one to the next without fully implementing anything. It’s not uncommon for veteran teachers to become numb to these changes and maybe a little bit cynical. In Vermont right now, we […]
Routines As teachers begin to implement Vermont’s graduation proficiencies, I am getting a lot of questions about teaching transferable skills. I don’t actually think this is new for teachers but since we have never been explicit about addressing skills like self-direction, collaboration, communication or problem solving as a content, so to speak, we haven’t yet […]
I have received two important pieces of feedback over the past several weeks regarding our implementation of #innovationhour to transform faculty meetings. After the first innovation hour, a faculty member came to find me. She said that she is usually so scattered when she is trying to do something new. The commitment to spend innovation […]
A Math Class Where There Are No Right Answers? I have been thinking a lot about right answers this week. If there was no need to get a right answer in math class, how would this change the culture of the classroom? There are a lot of math tasks where the focus is not on […]
There is some very compelling research out there that underscores the importance of making mistakes in learning. It seems like part of the issue in getting kids to have a growth mindset in math (as well as other subjects) is that they consistently get mixed messages. We tell them that mistakes are okay but then […]
Roles Aren’t working? I have had mixed experiences with roles despite the overwhelming evidence that roles are a way to promote productive groupwork. The thing about roles is that many times they can seem contrived or we put them in place but don’t really use them. In Jo Boaler’s book Mathematical Mindsets, in Smarter Together! […]
Despite grappling with the issue of trust and how that plays into learning, I am convinced that trust is one thing that could transform public education. The research shows that the most important thing to achievement is one’s belief that they can achieve; that they are capable; the one thing that creates this belief is […]
During a recent reading of Innovator’s Mindset by George Couros, I came across a quote that really got me thinking. He wrote, “Students need to be empowered, not engaged”. All year I have been focusing on the many ways that we could “engage” students so that learning could be more personal. This quote really made […]
