Hold My Chalk

As a teacher our primary goal is for our students to learn the content we teach, but develop a desire to learn on their own in the process.  Did you ever think that your actions might actually be hindering learning even though you aren't doing anything that is necessarily wrong? I guess I should clarify a little bit.   What I am referring to is more along the lines of a lack of action on our part.  Until recently I had not really fully considered some of these issues and what I could do to assist in these areas.  In a nutshell there are some tips and tricks we can apply to our digital content that can increase the number of people that can successfully use our resources.  I want to share with you some of those tips and tricks that you can use to benefit your students, parents, guardians, administrators, faculty members and any other stakeholders that access your materials.  This will be a topic that I will come back to over the next several weeks becau...

This post is coming to you a little late, but it still counts for my Monday Minute for this week.  I really am striving to stick with my professional development thread for my blog and maintaining positive posts going forward.  It is easy to look at the world around and focus on the negative aspects of everything.  Even when the world seems to be falling apart, I want to try to bring out the positive.  The best way I can think of to do this is to help others hone their craft. I recently ran across a post listing the top ten education podcasts and there were several that I subscribed to in an attempt to broaden my horizons and thought I would share one of them with you this week.  Not just share a podcast, but a particular episode that I found extremely motivating and it left me wondering what aspects of what they discussed could be applied in my district. The podcast is "The Google Teacher Tribe Podcast."  The episode that I recommend you listen to is episo...

We've all been there.  You have a class activity planned, but a few students are keeping the class off track and you can't seem to get anything accomplished.  Or maybe a couple of students misuse your class resources.  As a result, you stop everything and the entire class pays the consequences for the actions of a few students. Why do we do this? There are several reasons/possibilities: We hope the offending party will feel guilty and self correct because the don't want the entire group to suffer the consequences.  (This rarely works, because the person is actually happy to see they have succeeded in pushing your buttons or they got what they wanted don't have to do any work.) We hope the community will handle the situation.  One person acts out, the group helps to correct the behavior.   We feel that our control or authority is threatened. We revert back to how we may have been taught.  If it worked then, it should work now. None of these reasons...

Here are a few links from this week that you may find interesting. The first is jumping on the "Tidying Up" bandwagon and can it be applied to your classroom. I Marie Kondo-ed a Cluttered Classroom, and Here’s What Happened I also enjoy reading Richard Byrne's blog whenever I can.  Here is one of his recent posts I think you might find useful. Try These 6 Things When a Website Doesn't Work as Expected I also really liked this tweet from George Couros this week.  It is worth the read and take the time to listen to the video. A couple of thoughts: 1. Traditional practice does not equal bad practice. We can't use the terms interchangeably. 2. Innovation is ONLY innovation if it leads to something better. "New" is not enough. #InnovatorsMindset pic.twitter.com/2VcFbuFcVp — George Couros (@gcouros) February 13, 2019 This final link is a recent blog post from @mradamwelcome .  Kids Don't Care Hope everyone had a great week and thanks for taking the time ...

As I have visited with other administrators at conferences and school visits I have discovered some great ideas that deserve to be passed along.  Here is the first of what I hope will be many.  Positive Notes-I have heard of this one being done several ways.  The basic premise is that you leave notes of encouragement for others.  It could be in the form a post-it in the mailbox or on the desk.  It could also be in the form of a traveling notebook. For the notebook version, you would pick a person and write something great or encouraging that you want the other person to know.  This could be something you noticed about what they were doing in the classroom or in passing.  Then you give the notebook to the person you wrote about and instruct them to pay it forward.  Each person receiving the notebook will more than likely read all the other notes and hopefully be encouraged by the one about them and all the others.  I have tried to think of way...

It seems like everytime I turn on the news I see a story about some teacher making poor decisions or committing a criminal act.  With most news outlets having a social media presence we often see the story followed by multiple comments about how terrible teachers are or some other disparaging remarks against the profession.  It is frustrating to see all educators painted in this light. Often you will see such stories followed by comments about teachers not deserving to get paid a decent wage because of the actions of a few.  In reality there are those committing heinous crimes in every profession.  They could be ministers, doctors, lawyers, politicians, teachers, daycare workers, grocers, law enforcement, etc.  Bottom line there are people in every profession that violate the trust of those that depend on them. In education, and especially in this state we have seen a drastic exodus of educators, roughly 30,000 over the last six years.  Some of those were t...

At various times throughout the school year you may sense your students begin to struggle and the climate in your classroom begin to change.  When that happens, try these steps to root out the cause. Physical Space :  Have you changed the physical arrangement in your classroom?  If you were a student in the room, how would it feel to enter and sit at one of the seats in your room?  Are there clear paths to desks, storage, tools, and stations? Can you see the screen? Do you have some “private” space? Procedures and routines: When was the last time you reviewed procedures with the students?  What do you want students to do in each section of class time? How do they know what the procedures are for doing each activity?  How have you informed new students of all your procedures? Rules and consequences: What are the basic rules that are needed for instruction to take place? (Remember the difference between a rule and a procedure)  What happens if a stu...

Today marks the first day back to a regular work schedule after a week at TCEA in San Antonio, Texas.  This week was marked by keynotes, a massive exhibit hall full of vendors, some great sessions and two of my own presentations. For the weeks to come I will be processing and analyzing many of the things I ran across while there. One of my focuses while there was (and continues to be) improving the security of our network and student data. To begin my recap of the week, I will share the notes from my presentation Google and The Busy Administrator/Teacher .  This session was centered around some apps and extensions that could be used to help streamline some of the tasks you do that are often repetitive or time consuming.  Some of these do require a few steps to setup, but once setup you can forget about them. Have a great week!