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...

For whatever reason, I have always wanted my students to do a children's book, but never found the time. Then, with the SBAC testing and my department's agreement to try out project based learning, I threw my project idea into the ring and we decided to do a children's book regarding a US topic during the Cold War. I imagined using Storify to have students create their books, since my goal is to integrate technology whenever possible, but with no technology access during SBAC testing we decided to go "old school" and I'm so glad we did. I don't think my students would have been as creative and free to express their ideas if we had used technology. The first step of project was to have students select their Cold War topic, which they did using Google Forms. I was eager to try the Choice Eliminator, but found out quickly that the add-on does not work as quickly as I hoped so I ended up having to quickly problem solve and adapt the form so students made the...

“Picture a classroom...the first thing most of us think of is a square room with rows of desks….this traditional classroom space is the product of an industrial-era model education. Just like factories, schools were designed to categorize students by age and (supposedly) ability, then deliver curriculum in an assembly line format.” As a history teacher, this statement made by Kevin Brookhouser in his The 20time Project hit me in the gut. While my classroom does not look as Brookhouser described, elements of my instruction still did. I was increasing rigor within my content, but I still had to teach my students in way for them to do well on our CST style benchmarks despite the recent inclusion of short responses. This had been weighing heavily on my mind so when I heard this quote at the Google Summit in Minarets, I felt guilty and ashamed that I was not making my students "future ready." Thankfully, I was not alone in my concerns and convictions regarding the way to teach...

Dates. Names. Details. Facts. No debates. No discussion. Just dates, names, and details. This is how history was (and probably still is) taught. Due to the expectation of the state testing, teachers had to follow the strict pacing guide in order to ensure that students will absorb the necessary information to pass the tests. Thankfully, things are slowing changing because of Common Core. Even so, I’m still faced with the struggle of quality and quantity of topics as a history teacher. My department has been flexible and accommodating to the new expectations of CCSS; we are adjusting our pacing and tests almost weekly to emphasize the quality of information rather than the quantity, which has been a big stress reliever.With testing season upon us (CAHSEE this week, SBAC next week, then SBAC again in May), I can’t help but worry that I won’t be able to cover all the major topics with my students. What if I let my juniors out into the world without understanding how various minority ...

History has been in a very interesting situation the last two years. With the introduction of Common Core and the dissolving of CSTs, history teachers have found themselves in a realm of possibility with no clear set of content standards. Maybe “realm” is too powerful of imagery for some, but for me I have found Common Core to be a blessing within my history classroom.  Within the last year, my department has been evolving with finding the balance between old content standards and the new CCSS. Since CCSS implementation has been relatively vague for history, we have began experimenting and one of our earliest experiments was with Document Based Questions ( DBQs ). The very first DBQ I did with my students was: Needless to say, the first DBQ was filled with failures, both mine and students'. The biggest failure of all was when I saw how much students struggled to critically think. The Hook Activity, for example, became a painful process when I had to slowly pull the answer...