Let’s be honest about something. We continue to perpetuate a culture that believes an individual is born with some inherent trait that allows them to be “good” at Math. We even talk to kids about how well they do in some subject areas as opposed to others. This is all straight bunk. Even worse, we [...]

Class size discussions fascinate me especially when we start talking about making students “independent learners” and when we want to expand learning “beyond the walls of the classroom” by introducing technology and, especially, social media tools. It even fascinates me so much that I wrote a post in early January talking about “How Class Sizes [...]

Isn’t it fascinating how there is more reading material and alternative viewpoints available to students, teachers, administrators, and society in general today than any other time period in the history of the world yet we continue to perpetuate a system of compliance and uniformity instead of questioning and original thought? Not really. I would surmise [...]

This post will kick around ideas based on one of two questions that I posed yesterday (Simulations In The Classroom- Two Questions). Before we dissect the first question, everyone should check out the links that Bill Chapman left me yesterday and today. He was kind enough to share the following simulations from his website: Classroomtools.com. [...]

Yesterday I was standing in Colonial Williamsburg when one of the artisans came over to me and said, “no Spring Training for Ramapo Baseball this year?” I looked at him startled, and he motioned down to my jacket. I had forgotten that I was wearing my Adidas travel jacket from my baseball playing days at [...]

In a previous post, I spent some time discussing “Misconceptions of Cooperative Learning” where I talked about the need for assignments to actually show some type of cooperation. In other words, rather than just throwing a name on something, I would advocate that we actually instill the practice and teach our kids to work together. [...]

I hope that you never tell kids something to the effect of “that’s not a good idea” (unless it relates to their behavior or something that could be physically harmful to them). I don’t think there is any way to kill people’s ability to be innovative or unique than to chastise them for poor ideas [...]

Before the first group assignment that I work on with my kids every year I make sure that they understand two guiding principles about cooperative learning or group projects. The “All Flash & No Cash” mentality should not and must not exist. Somewhere along the way, we became more concerned with the glitz and the [...]

Every student I have ever had has benefited from learning how to generate sub-questions in an effort to break down complex wording and create highly complex connections between topics and ideas. I find that when students are uncertain as to WHAT the question is asking them, they simply write every possible answer known to man [...]

When kids are working on an assignment and you can tell they are stuck, I hope you engage in conversation about how you can help. I hope you try and guide them by having them think through the problem. Where are you stuck? At what point did it start to become unclear? Let’s back up [...]