On Friday, I was so pleased to be able to return to one of my favorite days of the year, High-Interest Day at Brookfield Elementary School. This is a day where I have been able to bring the concepts of physics to k-5 graders. You may be asking yourself, "Elementary students doing physics?" YES! Not just experimenting, but understanding the concepts behind the physics of electricity and sound. This is a very special day I have had the opportunity to be involved in since 2017. So, how are we able to bring the concepts of electricity and sound traditionally taught to high school 11th and 12th graders to the elementary level? There are a few keys 1) make it a hands-on experience 2) remove the mathematical calculations and make it practical. In the past, I had the luck of bringing a handful of my physics students with me to guide the elementary students through the concepts that they had learned over the course of the year. But in my new role as a Teaching and Learning Speciali
Having been an educator for 15 years now, I have been to many professional development sessions. Most of them had been uninspiring. This clip is a perfect example of bad PD. (So, the clip I had planned on putting in here would be entirely inappropriate for any blog intended for general audiences. It is without a doubt the greatest monologue from the past 50 years - either in the stage play or the film adaptation. But, again, entirely inappropriate. So in its place, here's a more tame but still edgy version. Please forgive the ad at the front end of the clip.) I was lucky enough to be a part of a great professional development opportunity today presented by the School District of Menomonee Falls. The professional development was focused around the continuous classroom improvement model, CCI, the district has implemented within all classrooms K-12 and across all components of the district operations from facilities management to human resources. In this blog, I