Celebrating Failure in Rm 613

Three years ago, I had the honor to be featured on #edchat radio following an #edchat about authentic learning in Common Core. Below is the audio from the podcast: Do you believe authentic learning can occur within the common core?

In 2014, I have experimented with student blogging and loved it, minus one thing: how long it took me to grade. For each student, I would have to find their blog (typically collected into a Google Form), find the specific post (hopefully I didn't far behind in grading), read it and then find them in the grading system to enter the grade. This became twice as time consuming when I had students commenting on each other's blog as assignments. I tried having students copying and pasting their comments into a spreadsheet so I could keep better track, but many students forgot, pretended that they wrote a comment, or messed with each other's responses since it was an all access spreadsheet. I even tried doing everything in a spreadsheet where each student had a custom tab, but this was difficult to manage with seven classes and I wanted students to actually be publishing on a blog. After about three years, I feel like I have finally perfect system for myself: I have students p...

A new job means changes: new colleagues, new classroom, new students, new way of doing things. I knew Minarets High School was different, but that is an understatement. You don't know different until you have experienced full on #mustangpride and after my first two weeks at Minarets I believe I'm finally overcoming my culture shock. The entire school culture is based around one thing: the students. Its not about test scores, learning strategies, or convenience; its about doing what is best for the students. I didn't think that this would be such a shock to me, but it is truly something amazing to see an entire campus that is focused on the needs and wants of the students. Because students have a strong voice in the school, they have completely different behaviors. For starters, they are incredibly open and friendly. It must be of the confidence of feeling valued that they are so willing to hug you and tell you everything about themselves or even participate in a dance p...