Friday 4 – February 15
If you are like me, the winter term months are some of the most challenging as a classroom teacher. The excitement of a new academic year is a distant memory, the hours of daylight are disturbingly low in number and the interruptions (snow days and breaks) to any kind of “flow” in the classroom are too frequent and many to count. During the winter doldrums, I like to read articles/blogs/pieces that are more reflective and inspirational in nature in the hope that they will get me through the cold, dark, lifeless winter and excited for the upcoming warmth and optimism that spring tends to bring. With that sentiment in mind, I offer up a few items that I ran across this past week that got my juices flowing in anticipation of the start of spring and the baseball season.
- 25 Things Successful Teachers Do Differently is a piece from the the TeachThought blog that made me reflect on my own teaching practices and ponder some changes that I could make. There are several other pieces that are linked off of this post that are worth exploring as well.
- 7 Essential Principles of Innovative Learning is a piece that dovetails well with the findings of Grant Lichtman and his journey across the country looking for ways in which schools are being innovative.
- Chris Lehmann (@chrislehmann) wrote a nice piece on his blog titled Humanity, Community and Technology in School that I think is spot on.
- Grant Wiggins (@grantwiggins) recently wrote a thought provoking piece on the use and design of rubrics that made me take a hard look at the tools I use to assess student work.
As always, I hope you enjoy this week’s tidbits. Hang in there, spring is coming!