Reflections on Teaching

Lots of stuff happening, and a lot has been coming together is some really nice ways. No major complaints this week.
First up, second graders continued work on their story telling unit (Sharing Stories in Open Court Reading). I started a VoiceThread where I asked students to share lessons learned from the fairytale we watched (Red [...]

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The week went well in general. I’m feeling like I have the basics down in general, but…some of my lessons have been off and need adjustment.
What worked
Sixth Graders did work setting goals. They had already written goals the prior week. This time, I had them view Wil E Coyote, The Fast and the Fury-ous, to [...]

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I love using VoiceThread with students. I find it easy to use, intuitive, and very flexible. It’s not for every situation, but what it does, letting you add photos or video, with narration or audio commentary, it does very well. I love to use it in particular ways, letting students pick pictures to add to [...]

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VoiceThread has honored my students’ work by featuring one of our VoiceThreads in their new Digital Library. The library is a resource to find good examples of VoiceThreads, and to find out how they were made. As you can see in my example, VoiceThread – Digital Library – Third Graders on Friendship, entries tell [...]

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That about describes a lot of the administrative response (and my reaction to it) this year. First we were “failing” then, we were “met AYP goals”, then we didn’t. First we had money for computers, then we didn’t and now we do again. Strange as it may seem, the two are related. Funds were freed [...]

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Lot of great projects underway. It feels like I’ve got a good start going:
Sixth Grade
They are doing a unit on Perseverance. To peak their interest, I showed two music videos, Chris Brown’s Forever, and Rihanna’s Take a Bow. I had students look at the narrative arc of the videos, the visual symbolism, and how [...]

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