April 2012 Blog Posts (28)

What is not to love about a zone of comfort; it is a comfy cocoon. It is a pleasurable place that is safe, sound, and satisfying. It is a place where alliterative adjectives may abound with abandon. Comfort zones are safe havens where residents of those zones need not do anything that would in any way slow the flow of comfort. Comfort zones exist in our personal lives as well as our professional lives.

My personal favorite comfort zone is created on Friday nights. I have a Pizza…

Mention “Current Events” to a group of teens and just watch what happens.  Their eyes seem to glaze over.

As if talking about something that isn’t in a textbook is a violation of protocol.

I don’t want to be an alarmist, but to some students, reading a newspaper might seem like reading information in a foreign language.

I’m not sure how much today’s teens are…

http://www.bestcollegesonline.com/blog/2012/04/02/10-proven-brain-benefits-of-being-bilingual/

My fifth graders wanted to have a round table discussion after beginning to follow and research The National Geographic and James Cameron's Deep Sea Challenge. I enjoyed listening to their ideas and questions. It really helped me understand their level of comprehension. There are some ideas and concepts we need to investigate further. They just don't understand the level of depth we are talking about. I am going to have to find resources to help them realize ocean depths, especially abysmal…

Student Mid-Research Deep Sea Challenge Discussion

There are specific differences between traditional language arts and the reading/ writing that is done for the internet. Since the amount and variety of online materials is exploding, it's important to understand some of those differences.…

The current Flat Classroom Project 12-1 is inviting classrooms from Grade 6 and above to become Sounding Boards for the student collaborative wikis. All details are on the Sounding Board information wiki. We also invite you to join the Flat Classroom Project Ning and the …

“You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask…