Topic: What should a report card look like to provide information to parents? Since I’m not a teacher and it’s been quite a while since I paid attention to my grades (by college I had stopped caring about grades and started focusing on what I was learning, understanding, and retaining), I didn’t think that I...

guest written by Mike Vigilant Motivation.  What a complicated word. In a recent #edchat conversation on Twitter, the topic of motivation came up, and one of the comments I made was:  “Nobody trains me because I’m the only one at school who does what I do.  If I waited for instructions, I’d be fired by...

Alright, alright! We admit it! He’s actually been back for about a month now, but since the press release only came out yesterday we figured it would be best to wait until things were “official” before we posted the good news. And here it is: Brian Reese, TestSoup’s founder and an active-duty member of the...

Topic: How do we consider time differently to rebuild school schedules and calendars to maximize learning? Sometimes, when I’m out and about on the roads early in the morning, I see a school bus and think to myself, “Why on earth do we make kids start their school day so early?” It wasn’t too long...

guest written by Kimberly Joki of Grammarly. That writing is a necessary professional and life skill is universally accepted.  Interdisciplinary approaches to teaching writing are key to giving our students the necessary experience to grow into confident writers. However, despite increased writing-education efforts, many students are entering into and graduating from university with weak writing skills...

Topic: Which should we support first for the best result? A reform in student learning (teaching methods) or a reform in teacher learning (professional development, or PD)? Back into the swing of things with the first #edchat of the new year! The gang didn’t waste any time getting back in the saddle, either. I saw...

guest written by Wim Coleman of Chiron Books. In my previous post, I wrote about introducing storytelling techniques (especially dramatic ones) as an aid to teaching literature. In my fourth and final post as a guest here, I’ll to share some ideas for using storytelling in the classroom to teach history. I’ve got a powerful personal...

Topic: How are “Best Practices” defined, and how do we use them to improve the effect of teachers? This week’s #edchat was a great example of why “two-part” questions are not always a good idea. The discussion was excellent, and high-level (as always) but there was much more said about the first part of the...

guest written by Wim Coleman of Chiron Books. In my last two posts, I hinted at how storytelling—especially improvisations and scripted scenes—can be used to teach almost any subject. Here I’m going to make some specific suggestions about a widely-taught work of literature. Say you’re teaching Hamlet to your English class. Your students, of course, approach...

Topic: What is the purpose of education now and going forward? This week’s #edchat was truly a test of one’s ability to read quickly and tap out Twitter replies even quicker. I think that’s because the topic was so broad that everyone wanted to weigh in instead of sitting back and commenting only every once...