:Roll up your sleeves and get messy

“Reading” Sebastien Wiertz Close reading is one of the “strategies du jour”. From the Common Core State Standards in ELA: 1. In addition from the Harvard Writing Center: The second step is interpreting your observations. In pretty much all trainings and presentations I deliver about STEM learning, I stress how STEM is language intense. STEM learning is somewhat its own enemy because often the activity or experience involved is so interesting, intriguing or engaging (or all 3) that the students get excited and talk about it excitedly (and often parents voice how excited their child was when they came home) and teachers assume everything (or enough) important was learned. This is a powerful learning opportunity missed. I point out repeatedly how too often field trips or major hands-on activities (doing or making activities) are planned to be experienced as either stand alone experiences or end of unit experiences with little to no emphasis on how they tie to the overall learning plan.

Hooda Math Blog Cathy Jo Nelson's Professional Thoughts Education Week By Catherine Gewertz April 7, 2015 at 11:20 AM Ohio joins a small but growing number of states that are seeking or considering federal permission to excuse some schools or districts from state-mandated tests. By Liana Heitin April 7, 2015 at 9:52 AM Just a heads-up to readers that Ed Week is offering a package of articles about math instruction, several of which focus on the Common Core State Standards for math, for free until April 15. By Jacob Bell April 2, 2015 at 6:24 PM Utah Gov. By Liana Heitin April 2, 2015 at 9:52 AM When exactly did the acronym for science, technology, engineering, and math enter the educational lexicon? By Catherine Gewertz April 2, 2015 at 9:14 AM It would be an understatement to say that it's been an eventful five years since the feds offered $350 million grants to states to design tests for the common core. By Catherine Gewertz March 31, 2015 at 3:45 PM By Catherine Gewertz March 31, 2015 at 12:08 PM By Liana Heitin March 31, 2015 at 9:06 AM

Tales from the School Bus A Year of Reading Education Week By Jennie Magiera May 21, 2015 at 8:19 AM On April 12th, my students threw down a challenge to the world: Create a video about coding and/or creativity and send it to us. They would then pick the top video and the winner would receive two new robotic friends that inspire us to code: Dash and Dot, courtesy of Wonder Workshop. The loved all the submissions so much and had a hard time narrowing it down... but ultimately they made a decision. Read on to see the winning student videos and my students' response! By Jennie Magiera May 8, 2015 at 9:28 AM Happy Friday everyone! By Jennie Magiera May 7, 2015 at 10:22 AM Thursday's Teachers Who Inspired Teachers guest blogger Carolyn Skibba - an amazing educator and edtech rockstar - tells us all about a teacher who inspired her as a middle schooler and continues to breathe wisdom into her life as a teacher today. By Jennie Magiera May 6, 2015 at 9:45 AM By Jennie Magiera May 5, 2015 at 9:59 AM By Jennie Magiera May 4, 2015 at 11:23 AM

Just a Substitute Teacher..... Not your Traditional Classroom, Not your Traditional Teacher Our classroom at times looks chaotic, messy and noisy. Well, it looks this way MOST of the time. Visitors to our school have different reactions. I am not a traditional teacher and I am proud of that. I don't have a fancy mark book. I don't make cute worksheets. I don't teach from a textbook. I don't teach in themes. I don't use technology to say I use it. I don't have my students in rows or even desks. I don't have perfect bulletin boards that I have bought from a teacher store and plastered all over my classroom. I don't have a quiet classroom. I do teach my students to colour out of the lines. I do encourage collaboration. I do a lot of one to one or small group instruction. I do let my students sit at tables, lay on floors, and sit on comfy couches. I do have sticky notes, Evernote spreadsheets, shared google docs with comments, grades and next steps for my students. I do know my students, I know their strengths, weaknesses, what sports they play and what motivates them.

Regurgitated Alpha Bits the reader leader’s hat | 500 Hats Being an “independent reader” is much more than the mastery of the mechanics – it involves having an emotional attachment that makes the experience a part of who we are as a person, embracing the affective domain as well as the cognitive and the physical. Being an independent reader means developing a lifelong habit that continues because we want to read and not because we are required to or have to. It means that we read even when daily support such as dedicated in-class reading time such as the DEAR and USSR programs are no longer available. In her book Reading in the Wild , a professional text that has had the greatest impact on my beliefs and actions of any I’ve read for a very long time, Donalyn Miller identifies five key characteristics of an independent reader… Read the research All should be on our professional reading lists. As well as formal research there are also some professional texts that should be a core element of your personal professional collection. Think like a reader

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