Education Archives - Page 2 of 2

02 May 2015

So Failing Exams Can Be A Good Thing?

I recently read the New York Times article 'Why Flunking Exams Is Actually A Good Thing' by Benedict Carey. A pretty insightful read. Found things I was doing, things I had done, and things I plan to do. Carey proposed having a pre-course exam could be helpful. He stated: A test can be an intro to what students should learn instead of a final judgement on what they did not. I thought maybe a pre-course exam for my math classes but definitely multiple choice (probably use a Google Form). If not for the whole course, at least for each unit.…

29 Apr 2015

5 Ways To See If Your Students Are Learning

I recently wrote a reflection on a prompt given by our middle school director on how I know students are learning. He's followed up and given us a couple articles to read. I reflected on what I felt I was already doing, what I've done before but stopped, and what I should start doing. The first article was an excerpt from Checking For Understanding by Fisher & Frey. The second article was the New York Times article Why Flunking Exams Is Actually A Good Thing by Benedict Carey. This entry is on the first article. Checking For Understanding by Fisher…

16 Jul 2014

An Educator’s Perspective on ‘To Sell Is Human’

I took the Myers-Briggs personality test in college (or at least a free online version so who knows how reliable the results really were) and I got ENFJ. I read that this personality type is pretty good at getting others to do what they want (for better or for worse). Naturally, moving people has always been something I’ve been very interested in; how to get people to understand an adopt your perspective. As an educator, I’m always trying to sell the students on the idea of working hard, being respectful, helping each other, and taking charge of their own learning. I…

07 Aug 2013

How I Made A Database of Lesson Ideas With Evernote

I finally downloaded Evernote this past June. I knew it was an organization tool but I wasn't really sure exactly what it did. My goal was to try and solve a few problems I found myself running into as an educator. Resources Everywhere One issue I kept running into as a teacher was having resources all over the place. If I remembered that I saw a great idea for a geography lesson, I didn't remember if I pinned it on Pinterest, read it in an email, favorited it on Twitter, bookmarked the website, saw it on a worksheet, read it…

23 Jul 2013

My Flip That Sort Of Flopped

So last year was my first attempt to 'flip' my classroom. I find myself wanting to kind of avoid the word 'flipped,' not only because I want to be wary of educational fads / GAMECHANGERS! but also because I don't really feel I 'flipped' my classroom, I just provided resources for them to learn online. I've read so many things about different people's experiences from: 'I flipped my classroom and 100% of my students passed or got commended on the end-of-year state assessments' to 'I did it, I liked it, I think it may be a fad and I'm not…