Classroom Tour

Below are a few photos from my classroom. I usually give an in-person version of this tour on the first day of school with my students. 

Flags - The first thing you'll notice in my classroom is probably the flags. They all represent countries where I have traveled. I'm up to 17 of them and I'm pretty excited at the chance that someday I'll have to buy smaller flags to fit them all around my classroom! 

Desks - My dream is to always have my students sitting in a complete circle to encourage discussion and inquiry, but I often have to settle for two semi-circles. These almost achieve that Socratic ideal of true dialogue, but Socrates had his classes outside and space wasn't such an issue for him!

Memes - In one of my greater lapses in judgement, I decided to let my students put anything they want on our classroom walls. This quickly devolved into a deluge of Brock memes pasted everywhere you can see. Above are three of my favorites, but my top meme of all time has to be the classic "helibroctor" created in MS paint that somehow ended up on my ceiling. 

Wall of Champions - Using standards-based grading is a cornerstone for my pedagogy and I work to incentivize students' efforts in many different ways. The most exciting of these is the "Wall of Champions" where students who get the highest score on unit assessments get to take control of a plastic wrestling championship belt, wear it until the next exam, and they get their picture up on a huge bulletin board in class. They also get a copy of the pic for their fridge at home.