I was very happy with the personalized Genius Hour IPA last year, but I was more than a little discouraged by the overall listening performance. I know they could do better than Novice Mid! So if their abilities weren’t the problem, then what was it? It was the videos. The videos Read more…
SAT Prep doesn’t have to be about the test. Especially with the new format, it comes down to what students need and why. If they need to parse scientific, literary, or historical texts, WHY do they need to do it? What situation in their lives might demand it? What do Read more…
Ohhhh, I wanna dance with somebody…somebody who’s in my district! Sandbox PD is the only way to go. Surround yourself with a few good brains, zero in on a few good goals, and play. And that’s just what we got to do in Pinnacle this week. So here are my Read more…
TPaCK: Three ingredients blend for masterful instruction.[image from Umpqua Dairy] Pinnacle Personalized my Learning yesterday! I took a quiz built with a few Google Sheets formulas and Google Add-Ons (Copydown and AutoCrat), and it told me what I needed work on! Apparently I needed work on understanding the TPaCK framework Read more…
High school sophomores might not be ready to change the world. And novices are really only qualified to talk about themselves. That’s why, as the King of Pop said, I’m starting with me. Well, yo. The point of Project-Based Learning is learning, yes. But more than that, it’s about doing. Read more…
Would you look at that? The majority of my babies performed at Novice High or BETTER at the end of Spanish II! Except listening. Ouch. What you see is a graph of the results based on the personalized Genius Hour IPAs Spanish II completed during the week before exams (reading Read more…
Each of my students gets his or her very own personally tailored final exam this year. Students have spent the last three weeks prior to exams rounding up resources (infographs, articles, videos, and contacts–to say nothing of the Pinterest pins and Diigo list from earlier in the Genius Hour process) and Read more…
Today I am awesome. I have plenty–PLENTY–of days like my amiga Amy describes, but today? Today was not one of them. Brace yourself for a lot of typing in capitals. Today easily 90% of the class was in Spanish. Though I only actually caught about 1/3 of them using 90% target Read more…
From here on out, it’s all portfolios and passion projects. We accomplished our two big PBL projects (and took home a few trophies!). Both whole-class projects were time sensitive, so we couldn’t start with full-throttle Genius Hour, but these were my Genius Hour guinea pig kids last year, so unlike Spanish Read more…
I’ve been assigning students to assign themselves their own weekly homework assignments based on ACTFL Can-Do Statments this year. My goal was for students to get some extra practice with the language, maybe find some enjoyable real-world application, and feel better about their skills, all while creating something they could stick in their Read more…