Today I had to really think about why we integrate technology so well into our program at our school as  I had a visitor who came to...

In the olden days, determining the report card grade was easy.  A teacher’s mark book had a collection of grades which were added...

Have you ever been to an all day workshop where you sat in the same spot all day long?  When I have those kinds of days I feel tired and...

Sometimes I go to a workshop and the presenter hands out a piece of paper and then tells you to find a partner (or a group of 3) to...

Last week I wrote about effective feedback and the different ways students might get feedback during the learning process.  This feedback...

A teacher said, “I just keep thinking that feedback is always me talking to the students about their work.”  As teachers, when we hear...

Believe it or not, grade one teachers do teach students when to use periods and capitals.  So do grade two teachers, grade three...

I must admit that I don’t love rubrics.  They take a long time to write and sometimes it is hard to know what they actually say, even...

September is the time for diagnostic assessment.  It is good to know what your students already know and don’t.  But I wish the word...

It is good to stay current with the lingo.  The literature now refers the classroom environment as the “third teacher”.  Many teachers...

The latest buzz is collaboration.  If we can get our students to collaborate then both engagement and learning increases.  This is based...

Some teachers and I had an interesting discussion last week about how despite our best efforts at giving feedback, students weren’t so...

Teaching, it may surprise you, is very traditional.  We hold onto ideas for a long time.  Many teachers tend to teach the way they...

Of course good things (like having kids collaborate in groups) often cause us to rethink a whole bunch of other things (like...

The question came upabout how you get students on an IEP started in class.  You have given the assignment, you were clear in the...

The term “assessment for learning” (educational acronym AfL) was coined by Wiliam and Black in their 1998 article “Inside the Black Box”...

I find the research around growth mindsets fascinating.  I catch myself praising students for intelligence now and switch it to effort....

A group of teachers  and I went to a workshop and watched a video of a grade 6 literature circle.  We had a chance to discuss it in our...

The Individual Education Plan (IEP)  is our promise to the parents and the student that we will teach them something that is probably...

At a workshop last week, the speaker reminded us that “student engagement” is not the same thing as “having fun”.  Student engagement is...