What Do We Do Now That We’re Here?

I'm spending a few days at Online Education Symposium for Independent Schools (OESIS) in Cambridge, MA. I'm presenting on the question of how to best use face to face time in blended classes. It's a topic that I think gets less attention than it deserves. I won't be surprised if in a time not so …

NCSS 2012 Blended Learning

Below is the information I'm sharing at the National Council of Social Studies meeting in Seattle. It was a poster session, so the PowerPoint is more text heavy than it would have been otherwise. Diana Laufenberg and I wrote the proposal together, but she couldn't make it, so I included her information in the presentation …

It’s Not Because They’re Mean

I want to reflect on this (and the other reflections from students who taught the class) in a future post, but for now I just wanted to share... I learned that teachers actually have a really difficult job that they make look really easy because they do it all the time. I realized that they …

Hope Realized

As a teacher, you have aspirations, values, and ideas. You try to infuse your teaching with these things, but I sometimes wonder, Do they see it? Are they getting it? Not just the content. Truth is I care about other things much more than that. I want them to love learning. I want them to …

Presentation for NCAIS Innovate

Below is the slide deck for the presentation my Upper School students are giving about our blended learning US History class at NCAIS Innovate today

Inviting Students to Work Alongside Us

When I was an undergraduate, one of my professors invited a law student and I to be co-authors of some entries he was writing for the Dictionary of American History. I'm sure he easily could have cranked out the entries himself, probably requiring less time than meeting with us to draft them did. However, I suspect …

Lessons From the Lessons

We're two weeks into the lessons for the shift project in my US History class. So far, students have taught classes on shifts in alcohol, drugs, transportation, race in sports, and social entertainment. I've been impressed with the way the students have really owned the content that they're teaching and cared about whether others are …

This Is Hard!

Overheard in my high school blended learning class last week... How do you teach someone something without just telling it to them? I want to play a game, but what if everyone else plays games in their lessons and people get bored of games? You're not going to bail us out if the tech fails?! …

Southeastern Brain Conference

I'm presenting at the Southeastern Brain Conference being held at my school tomorrow. I'll be talking about the blended learning class my students and I have been creating (really feels like a collaborative venture) over the past school year. Definitely one of the most exciting, challenging things I've done in teaching. Students are currently working …

Learning Differently

I'm presenting tomorrow to campus visitors about the Blended Learning Environment (BLE) US History class I'm teaching this year. I've posted a draft of the slides I'll be using in conjunction with the class blog. I'm grateful to my students for providing me with thoughtful reflections on the class so far for the presentation. I wish …