This week's #flipblogs prompt is a little different for me, since I don't actually have my own classroom to implement changes in anymore.  A few weeks ago, I could have written about some changes and new ideas that I wanted to try in my instructional coaching role as well.  But... I got a new job!  It's been a roller coaster of a summer and an opportunity opened up to be the Secondary Math TOSA (Teacher On Special Assignment) for my district.  I'm super excited to jump back into the math world this year and support the teachers at our 10 secondary sites.  We have a lot ..read more

I tell this story at every training I give.  It was October of 2011, and I was trying something new in my Math Analysis classroom.  It was a strategy I had seen during walkthroughs of other math teachers' classrooms, and I thought it had great potential (and it does... I just didn't execute it greatly on my first attempt).  It was called "expert teacher" and the idea was that I would teach a small group of 8ish students the skill, and then they would go back and teach their small group of 2-3 classmates.  Then, I could walk around and support the groups, but not have to ..read more

Design Credit: Matthew Moore Credit: Andrew Swan Introduction & Background A random Twitter conversation between myself, Andrew Swan, and Matthew Moore led to the launch of a flipped learning chat modeled after good flipped learning practices.  You can read the goals and purposes in the image above.  I hope this encourages many of you to open up the walls of your classrooms by blogging about the prompts that will be posted to the #flipblogs hashtag.  Here is my attempt at going back in time to share a moment from my classroom.  If you'd like to read mo ..read more

This is in a series of posts by teachers in the TUSD Connect Fellowship for the 2016-2017 school year.  I hope you enjoy reading their reflections on the impact of technology in their classroom, specific tools and strategies that have made a positive impact on teaching and learning, and their goals moving forward. Cross posted from techfellowship.blogspot.com When I decided to become a TUSD Tech Fellow I really did not know what to expect from the program, nor did I fully understand the magnitude of the impact it would have in my class and myself as an educator.   ..read more

This is in a series of posts by teachers in the TUSD Connect Fellowship for the 2016-2017 school year. I hope you enjoy reading their reflections on the impact of technology in their classroom, specific tools and strategies that have made a positive impact on teaching and learning, and their goals moving forward. As I reflect back over the past ten months, I would have to say that being a part of the TUSD Connect Fellowship has been one of my favorite things about this school year. It isn’t just that technology has reinvigorated my teaching  practice and made the content more engaging ..read more

This is in a series of posts by teachers in the TUSD Connect Fellowship for the 2016-2017 school year.  I hope you enjoy reading their reflections on the impact of technology in their classroom, specific tools and strategies that have made a positive impact on teaching and learning, and their goals moving forward. For me this year technology has impacted my classroom by making me more efficient and taken off the load of having to be the source of information transfer to the students.  Technology has also improved quality of learning as well as the teaching process itself, makin ..read more

This is in a series of posts by teachers in the TUSD Connect Fellowship for the 2016-2017 school year. I hope you enjoy reading their reflections on the impact of technology in their classroom, specific tools and strategies that have made a positive impact on teaching and learning, and their goals moving forward. I see technology as a tool to enhance the skills necessary to tackle an English course, rather than a new skill to be taught. I often ask, “What technology enhances the skills I am already teaching?”. As a fellow, I was able to explore a wide variety of tech tools that help build wri ..read more

This is in a series of posts by teachers in the TUSD Connect Fellowship for the 2016-2017 school year. I hope you enjoy reading their reflections on the impact of technology in their classroom, specific tools and strategies that have made a positive impact on teaching and learning, and their goals moving forward. One of the most valuable parts of my two-year experience as a TUSD Connect Fellow has been the focus placed on reflection. During each meeting, my digital learning coach and I reflect on just about everything related to my classroom: student learning, lesson objectives, tech tools, i ..read more

In my role as a Digital Learning Coach, I have the privilege of working with teachers ("fellows") supporting them in finding ways for technology to improve / enhance the lessons they teach with the goal of better & deeper student learning. Several fellows have taken the leap to blog about their experiences and share specific lessons with all of you. I hope you benefit from reading about their journey. Guest post by Ms. Erin Thomas, HS English Teacher We all have those quiet students who struggle with participating in class discussions. We can sense their anxiety when they are asked to p ..read more

In my role as a Digital Learning Coach, I have the privilege of working with teachers ("fellows") supporting them in finding ways for technology to improve / enhance the lessons they teach with the goal of better & deeper student learning. Several fellows have taken the leap to blog about their experiences and share specific lessons with all of you. I hope you benefit from reading about their journey. GUEST POST by Tala Pirouzian, HS English Student Teacher One of my favorite aspects of planning and organizing information for my students is Hyperdocs - a phenomenon my mentor, Erin ..read more