Spring 2021

One of the greatest tips I've received about using technology is to use it to solve a problem that you are facing in your classroom. Don't use technology just to use it, or because it's the next new thing to try out. Really consider what you want to accomplish with your students, and then try and figure out how technology can help you accomplish that goal. Use tech to accomplish something that you wouldn't have been able to accomplish any other way. That is the basis for the story behind collaborative data sets

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Self-Paced Units

June 19, 2019

Including more student choice in my teaching this past year (2018-19) was well worth the effort. Even just the little bit of autonomy that I was able to offer my students made a noticeable difference. I included choice boards as simple as different ways to review test content, and as complex as allowing different topics and format choices for projects that were created at the end of a unit. But my absolute favorite choice board of the year was the one that I created for Forensics class.

I designed my Forensics class to include a fair amount of student choice and..

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February 2021

COVID brought many issues to the forefront of education. One obstacle we all faced was how to best support students both in person, and online. None of us can be everywhere at once. I knew that there would be students with differing ability levels and even students who normally didn't have trouble with school work might struggle more in an online environment than they would normally in the classroom.

Taking this into account, I created the first version of an assignment that had instructions, but no extra supports. Then I made a copy of that assignment, and added a short audio, or video clip that provided just a little bit of extra support for getting started. For the third... read more

When I first saw a K-W-L chart, my initial thoughts were, "Well, that has to be the most ineffective worksheet I have ever seen". And because my teaching skills were less at the time than they are now, the first time I tried it, it lived up to that prediction. I tucked that "worksheet" away and didn't pick it back up again until a couple of years later.

What I didn't understand at the time was that... read more

June 2019

One of my favorite activities in my Organic compounds unit is having students visualize compound structures by building with molecular model sets. The students usually struggle on the first day trying to visualize the 2-dimensional schematic as something they are building in 3-dimensions, but by the third day 99% of the students understand the spatial relationships and they are quick to build. When I reflect on lessons like these, which is less often than the ones that aren't going well, sometimes I hear myself asking,...

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May 14th, 2019

When I went home last night, in the back of my mind I knew that tomorrow’s class assignment was pretty much just a worksheet. After reading “Shake Up Learning” by Kasey Bell and hours of studying for the Level 1 Google Certified Educator Exam, my mind can no longer just settle. How could I make it all the way through the day knowing that I was just having them do a worksheet. So, during my first period prep...

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