Latest posts
-
Make Your Students Earn Their Investments with Jumpstarter and Teacheon (New Classroom Templates!)
Last Monday, I shared the GoFundMe in the Ditch That Textbook online community. (You should definitely join!!!) When I shared it, I described it as “an off-the-rails idea for a ‘social media’ template,” and a “shower thought meets asking Claude some questions meets Canva during my plan.” I expected some nice engagement. Maybe a few…
-
You Are Not a Vending Machine: Emotional Labor, Compassion Fatigue, and What “Remember Your Why” Gets Wrong
Some mornings, I walk into my classroom before my students arrive and I tape a sign to the board. Several years ago, it started on a large Post-it pad, the kind on a wheeled easel — on a morning when I had planning period first, and I knew, before anyone walked through my door, that…
-
The GoFundMe Activity: Crowdfunding Mastery in Any Content Area (Classroom Template Included!)
As you may have noticed, I’ve continued combing the wide world of the internet to find social media and/or website templates to manipulate into a tool for students to showcase their content mastery. While I’ve typically grabbed “safe” websites that feel like they have an obvious connection, today’s is something that came at me from…
-
We Blamed Google. Now We’re Blaming AI. We Need to Stop. A Case for Intentional Instructional Design in the Age of AI
I was a senior in high school in the fall of 2001. The internet’s influence was growing. Google was becoming more mainstream. And the adults in charge of education were absolutely losing their minds about it. The concern, stated with full sincerity by serious people in serious publications, was that students would simply Google everything,…
-
The First Thought Is Just the Beginning (Project Zero Thinking Routines Pt 4)
We are four posts into this series now, and I want to take a second to zoom out. Post One was about giving students the tools to recognize that they’re already thinking. Post Two was about teaching them to slow down and notice things… really notice them, the way you notice a piece of art differently on…
-
We Schooled the Curiosity Right Out of Them
Will Ferrell once played legendary Cubs announcer Harry Caray on SNL. If you’ve never seen it, the bit is basically: Harry Caray is a man completely unmoored from social norms, asking the most unfiltered, bizarre questions imaginable: to scientists, to astronauts, to anyone fortunate enough to sit across from him, with zero apology and maximum…
-
Does the Unessay Help or Hinder Teachers on the Hunt for their White Whale? (Part 2)
On Monday, we explored the concept of the unessay. In short, the unessay is an assignment concept forwarded by Daniel Paul O’Donnell in 2012. O’Donnell used unessays to question the overall role that formalized academic essays had played in education throughout the history of the system. Specifically, he argued that traditional essays are a “static…
-
Exploring the Pedagogical Prowess and Peril of the Unessay. (Part 1)
Since the dawn of the assigned essay, educators throughout time have been chasing their white whale. An essay assignment that students cannot find a way to cheat on, regardless of how the assignment is constructed. From students copying encyclopedia pages at their local library, to copy/pasting in full Wikipedia pages and forgetting to remove the…
-
Is Your Friday Looking a Little Freaky? Give Your Students an Un-Quiz!
So, the vibes at school are very weird today. Students know that after today, they only have four days until break. The weather is supposed to be stormy this morning, beautiful this afternoon, and stormy again after dinner. There’s also a lot of buzz surrounding our Girls’ Basketball team making it to the next round…
-
Discovering Connections: My First AMLE Conference Experience
On last week’s episode of Plai Around and Find Out, I talked about my excitement for this weekend’s AMLE (Association of Middle Level Educators) conference in Nashville. Not only was it my first conference of the 2024-2025 school year, the first conference focused on middle school of my career, but it was also my first…