It was me and two other English teachers. We about had a knock-down-drag-out with a teaching guru visiting our district who told us in no uncertain terms: RUBRICS ARE BAD. We were told that the rubrics were slayers of creativity, that they stunted our students, and moreover, they were for Read more…
I blame Snapchat filters and Carmen Scoggins. First of all, Snapchat filters are fun, and even with two teen wannabes at home, I wish I had more excuses to play with it. So what did Carmen do at our FLANC spring fling? Give me the excuses. The filters are kind Read more…
In case you were wondering what kinds of resources I have in my store before the Cyber Monday sale on TeachersPayTeachers, I’ve made a list of links to all of the good stuff! Save up to 25% next Monday and Tuesday (or check the bottom for a few free things Read more…
So you make a template–with instructions repeated on the template–and they still get confused. I mean, I thought portfolios could have been smooth sailing if I could have just shared a template on on Adobe Spark or Blogger or VoiceThread. I thought Google Slides might FINALLY be able to offer that perfect mix of customization Read more…
My thinking was that video portfolios would be nice polished products to wrap up students two years of Spanish exploration. I was thinking that they would be a nice simple way to combine everything into an orderly presentation where they could easily and elegantly show their progression. I gave them Read more…
Things were going pretty smoothly with my Can-Do based portfolios and Flubaroo badges. But not smoothly enough. Not for me. This has been a common theme for me this year, despite admonitions from some of the people I admire most not to “sacrifice the good on the altar of the Read more…
It’s 2017, but these tools served me well through 2016. No, these are not the cool new tools that came out in 2016: these are the tools that I relied on to survive 2016. Maybe they can make 2017 smoother for you too! 1. Google Classroom Where would I be without Read more…
ACTFL Can-Do Statements are holding my students back. I’ve been using them to evaluate porfolio submissions and award badges, and the badges just aren’t matching students’ abilities this way. I need a system that connects what we know about proficiency with what students can and want to do with the target language. Read more…
In which I get some relevant tips on encouraging critical thinking in the target language. [View the story “#FLANC50 Sessions: Round 6” on Storify] In which I am moved to engage hearts and minds from the beginning and to scaffold experiences to build confidence instead of stress. [View the story Read more…
I strongly believe that everyone–teacher, student, artist engineer–needs a record of how awesome they are. When it comes to language, they need a record of what they can DO with the language, in case, you know, they have something to prove when someone has a job or a scholarship or Read more…