Tag: 2015

Make Sure Your Child Has A Job

This article on the link of your child having a job and being successful in high school and college was covered in a recent Professional Development.  Ostensibly an AVID assignment, it appears to have been chosen to provide a discussion point for a class.

Young people who have held jobs are better students because they know they can’t do everything at the last minute, all at once or erratically. They whine less, they make fewer excuses and they don’t expect something for nothing — like, for example, an acceptable grade for unacceptable work. They wouldn’t expect to get paid for showing up every day if they didn’t do anything and yet some of their more spoiled counterparts, shockingly enough, actually believe the should get a “pass” in a course simply because they showed up for every class.

I tried it in a number of my classes and the consensus from students that had jobs matched this one, that they could easily spot those who had a job by their work ethic and attitude in school.

Ways You’ll Know You’re Teaching Your Ass Off

This post resonated with me, it was from @TeachThought

  1. You’ve spent as much (or more) time redesigning assessments than you have “re-teaching.”
  2. You’ve cried at least twice.
  3. You know the reading level of every single student, no matter what content area you teach, or how many students you teach.
  4. Students grow more confident as the year goes on, not less.
  5. You realized that your Project-Based Learning unit really should’ve probably been a novel study, and your “poetry unit” really should’ve been a self-directed, Challenge-Based Learning unit, and….well, you get the picture.
  6. You dream in edu-jargon.
  7. You’ve taught before class, during class, after class, during your lunch, during your planning period, in the hallway, before school, after school, via twitter, across email, and through YouTube.
  8. You focused more on learning than teaching.
  9. Your unit and lesson documents have more post-it notes (indicating needs for revision) than original text.
  10. Speaking of post-it notes, they’re making more than 50% of your books unreadable with clutter.
  11. Your instructional coach actually quick-walks the other way when they see you.
  12. You can recall, on demand, more than 75% of your academic standards.
  13. You text with your principal.
  14. You’re out of paper, hard drive space, bandwidth, or email storage by December.
  15. The email address of more than 25 parents “auto-completes” in your email address bar.
  16. You’ve Google’d “instructional strategies” at least 11 times.
  17. Your district technology coordinator is intimidated by you.
  18. You read TeachThought, Edutopia, and Mindshift more than you watch local news, The Bachelor, and Duck Dynasty put together.
  19. You’ve encouraged your spouse, children, or friend to be “data-driven.”
  20. Some students don’t like you.
  21. Your facebook page has more edu-commentary than the YouTube comments section of an Arnie Duncan press conference.
  22. You have more than 3 legal pads full of meeting notes that seemed important at the time.
  23. You’ve spoken to the grandparents of certain students more often than your own siblings.
  24. You’ve “borrowed” someone else’s coffee, tea, or Diet Coke.
  25. You’ve fallen asleep grading or planning.
  26. You’ve wanted to fall asleep teaching.
  27. You’ve noticed a growing suspicion that the “unit” may not be the best way to package curriculum.
  28. Students seem bothered when you’re disappointed in them/their performance.
  29. You literally never stop thinking what you could’ve done better.

Five Ways Students See Technology in School

From @TeachThought

The term “technology” is vague. In the right context, an arrowhead on the edge of a spear is technology.

How learners view technology is often very different than how educators see it–the former often seeing it in terms of social function, the latter in terms of logistics and teaching. The following infographic explores data points for how college undergraduate students see and value technology in the classroom.

Five Ways Students Use–And See!–Technology In The Classroom

1. By Device: smartphones, eReaders, tablets, etc.

2. Through Brands: Apple, Android, Nook, relevant apps, etc.

3. Via Mobile Function: accessing coursework, checking grades, etc.

4. To Access Learning Environments: eLearning, blended environments, formal and informal, etc.

5. For Constant Communication: with peers, with teachers, with institutions, etc.

Infographic attribution bachelorsdegreeonline; image attribution flickr user usnavalwarcollege
Infographic attribution bachelorsdegreeonline; image attribution flickr user usnavalwarcollege