When you first learn to design a Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom, you are faced with the paradigm shift of launching each unit of study with an authentic, open-ended, real-world problem to solve. You start by thinking through the problems students could solve at the end of a five-week unit if they learned everything. Designing the problem-based task statement […]
You’re reading a book about gardening so you can plant a vegetable garden. How do you glean the information you need from the text and learn what you need to learn? You might: Use text features as cues Scan the text for the information you need Underline words and phrases Make connections to past experiences […]
revised 11/26/23 What does engagement sound like? Allowing students to have a say in their work is not enough to build engagement. Adam Fletcher writes a great blog on engagement, including this entry: voice and engagement are not the same. In the Learner-Active, Technology-Infused Classroom (described in my books, Students Taking Charge), engagement refers to […]
Like it or not, to most schools, achievement means strong performance on state tests. Some claim to value life preparation and social-emotional growth over test scores, but that never plays well in the annual newspaper articles. What if you could have it all? What if you could rethink success and have happy, healthy, excited students […]
Imagine teaching a short lesson to introduce students to the concept of a preposition: Prior to the lesson, on the whiteboard, write the same sentence four times: The book is _____ the desk. Stand by a desk and hold up a book, asking students to identify the desk and the book. “These are two things, or […]