Mo Physics Mo Problems

Yesterday was the second year I've introduced the idea of a passion project to my AP students after hour AP test has been administered.  I have to say that although last year was a success, this year feels infinitely more exciting.  Why?  I think we had a better kick-off/brainstorming day than we did last year. I have to thank at  Denise Krebs  and  Gallit Zvi   at T he Genius Hour Guidebook and Don Wettrick at The Innovation Teacher for their tremendous ideas and resources. First was defining the purpose of the passion project. It is a matter of framing the project time as time to for learners to do something for themselves, not time to create something for their teachers.  Compliant students are very quick to see this as a task to be completed rather than an opportunity for themselves. I ran into that in a handful of situations last year, and it really bothered me.  I wasn't prepared for it. I didn't realize that many times, student...

Yesterday, I attended the 1st of 2 sessions on the Next Generation Science Standards . These K-12 science standards ask educators to reframe how the approach instruction in the classroom. Before you tune out non-science teachers, don't. When I think about my classroom my units are framed around the units learning outcomes the drive everything that is done in the unit. Although I have done some redesign last summer, the outcomes are pretty much set per unit and we progress to meet those outcomes through the course of the unit. The NGSS framework has 3 main sets of standards: 1) Disciplinary Core Ideas (these are your traditional content specific outcomes) 2) Science & Engineering Practices (this are skills that are used in all disciplines) 3) Cross Cutting Concepts (these are big ideas that can be seen across all science disciplines).  The NGSS are really powerful in their goal to have students learn about the core ideas through the practices.  Also, connect their...

When I think back to where I was 4 years ago, I would have to say I had an extremely limited professional learning network. I communicated within my department, but rarely outside of it. Since then, my desire to dramatically shift the learning model in my classroom and my increased use of social media tools have transformed me into a networked educator with a PLN that functions in many different spheres. The value of my PLN cannot be underestimated. They have improved my practice with new ideas, feedback on my practice, and emotional support when I need it most. Rather than waste your time reading about how much I value each distinct voice in my PLN, why don't you check them out for yourself. Use the Thinglink below to explore my PLN. As I said my PLN covers many sphere and topics.  Building Level I’m fortunate to have a very progressive building administration and department staff. It’s been great to have likeminded educators who are taking risks in their cla...

The purpose of personalizing learning is for learners to take more ownership over the learning process. It is not an all or nothing proposal. It is not a process of giving up control but designing opportunities. When I look at my current classroom, I look at areas where I’ve been able to give student some opportunities for ownership, but there are many areas in which they are bound to a rigid structure I impose on them. When looking at learning through the lens of Universal Design for Learning, as suggested by Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey, there are 3 areas we can focuses on when promoting ownership: Access, Engagement, and Expression. In my classroom, I have worked to allow students more opportunities in how they demonstrate mastery of content outcomes.  But, this comes at the end of the unit.   Currently, when students engage with content in my classroom, they have options in how they work on the same required assignment. This could be a problem set or a l...

It's been a couple of weeks since we successfully launched EdCamp Elmbrook. Some of our planning team sat down to look at our survey data and reflect on the successes and some of the challenges.   Over half of our attendees were kind enough to complete our feedback survey.  The data presented below reflects the results of those surveyed. As it is an event we will be continuing in 2018, we hope to build on this year by highlighting what worked and finding ways to address somethings that didn't go as smoothly.  Celebrations 100% strongly agreed that the registration process was simple and easy .  This is a credit to how wonderfully Eventbrite is in terms of signing up and day of event check-in.  Not to mention our great team who was checking people in.  100% strongly agreed that the  facilities set-up was adequate and appropriate for the event.  This speaks to a couple of areas.  Our custodial staff did an excellent job of settin...

It's been a while sine this original post about my favorite educational podcasts was posted. Epiphany Learning | Why Podcasts are My Primary Source of Professional Development for Personalized Learning and EdTech It's usually best practice to address the why first, but before we do that we need to be clear on what a podcast is. In the simplest terms, it is an audio program (or it could be video) that is available to download (or stream) to an portable audio player or computer to replay at your convenience. So, I wanted to take the opportunity to update my list of go to podcasts to stay informed.  There are a few new ones and some others that are still going strong. I'll let the podcasts speak for themselves. With spring break a week away for us, I'll be catching up on a lot of episodes as I do some spring cleaning in and out of the house. I look forward to catching up with members of my PLN who don't necessarily know me, yet.

On March 25th, we held our first ever EdCamp Elmbrook.  I didn’t realize it then but was reminded that it was something I had initiated 8 months prior in July of 2016. That was a long time ago and it took a lot of work from a lot of different agents to make it happen. EdCamp Elmbrook The 1st Step I’ll be happy to take credit for putting forward the idea of running and EdCamp in our district. But without the OK from my building principal Brett Gruetzmacher and our Assistant Superintendent of Teaching and Learning Dana Monogue, the idea would have stalled right there and then. How Do We Put On An EdCamp? As EdCamps continue to increase in their popularity as a form of professional development, more resources are available for educators to learn from others.   The EdCamp Foundation has a wonderful website that helped guide our planning process. A Great Team Once I got the ok and began searching out planning resources, I sent out a call for help to s...