I’m set to have four preps next semester (in two languages), two of which I have taught only once before in my life. In other words, I’m going to need be organized. There are a few things I can set up for students ahead of time, a few policies to Read more…
You keep getting the same problems over and over again. You wish you had a stamp made so you wouldn’t have to keep writing the same thing over and over. Maybe you’ve developed a highlighter color code for types of errors. Maybe you have a document of all the comments Read more…
“We don’t remember anything. We just use WordReference.”I died a little inside when Spanish I told me how they felt about Genius Hour. I knew the project was not yet everything I’d dreamed it would be at the novice level, but I didn’t think it was pointless! (Just typing that stings.) Read more…
The next step in my Genius Hour experiment is starting my own e-portfolio to track my progress. The setup doesn’t really count as a genius hour, but it’s necessary to record and measure the success (or lack thereof) in my novice endeavors. I have to establish that I am indeed starting Read more…
I had a pretty good year this year. I had a lot of freedom to experiment and ample access to resources to support the experimenting. We recently started in on some collaborative planning for next year with LangCamp, and it’s got me thinking about what has worked for me this Read more…
Blogging in the L2 is something that I’ve researched a good bit. Vygotsky would say it’s awesome for capitalizing on the social nature of learning, and if I may speak for Sr. Krashen, it’s also pretty nifty in how it helps lower ye olde affective filter. And everyone seems to Read more…
My COMPASS Lab usually gets to choose what to blog about day to day, but today is not just any day. Up until now, we have primarily focused on getting used to reading challenging texts of the prose fiction, natural sciences, social sciences, and practical reading varieties.Today’s article would probably Read more…
Google Reader is making grading blogs possible for me. Other teachers have discovered the wonder of feed readers like Google Reader before, of course, but here are some tricks I have been using with Google Reader to manage my COMPASS mini-class blogs. When I just have a single weekly blog Read more…
Forty-five minutes a day, four days a week, I get to teach a class that is not a class! I will be preparing students to pass the reading and writing portions of the COMPASS test for entry and success in college courses.It is how my new school is dealing with Read more…
I don’t know how I survived midnight feedings without a smartphone and Twitter the first time. During my maternity leave, I have not been as connected to my students as I had envisioned (the Edmodo app was not as…convenient as Tweetdeck for one-handed midnight manipulation by phone), but I have spent plenty Read more…