Blog - Page 36 of 46 - John Spencer

Aug 03 2016

Ten Ways to Leverage Student Choice in Your Classroom

By John Spencer Empowering Students, Podcast, Student Choice 10 Comments

Subscribe to YouTube Channel My kids participate in an amazing hands-on learning experience every summer. It's called home. It's where they write stories, paint pictures, go on expeditions, visit parks, read books, and build things with duct tape and cardboard. For the entire summer,…

Jul 27 2016

Treating Challenges as Design Opportunities

By John Spencer Uncategorized 3 Comments

I’m sitting on a plane right now writing this blog post. I just spent an hour working on a sketchy video and before that, I worked on another blog post. I’m nestled up against a window where I can look to my right and remember,…

Jul 04 2016

Five Ways to Engage Reluctant Learners

By John Spencer Uncategorized No Comments

I am currently on my fifth solid day of doing things that I find difficult, scary, or boring. Two days ago, I called the cable company to set up my internet. This might not seem like a big deal, but I am terrified of phone calls -- especially…

Jun 30 2016

How Would Students Redesign the Learning Space?

By John Spencer Creativity, Innovation 4 Comments

A quick disclaimer: I don't know a thing about redesigning learning spaces. I love thinking about the creative process and I believe creative thinking can happen anywhere. Anywhere. Some of my favorite creative work in high school happened when I was sitting in a row,…

Jun 27 2016

Brainstorming Is Broken. Here’s How You Can Fix It.

By John Spencer Creativity, Creativity Deconstructed 4 Comments

Brainstorming Is Broken Brainstorming can be fun. You get together and generate a massive list of ideas. Everyone is shouting all over each other. It’s exciting. It's passionate. But what if it's not all it's cracked up to be? That's a key argument in "Why…

Jun 24 2016

Seven Ways to Affirm the Creativity in Every Student

By John Spencer Creativity, Creativity Deconstructed 2 Comments

A few months ago, I received a Facebook friend request from a former student. I remembered her as a quiet kid that you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t paying attention. I also remembered her vibrant imagination that came out whenever she wrote her blog posts.…

Jun 22 2016

The Difference Between Cooperation and Collaboration

By John Spencer Creativity 11 Comments

Subscribe to YouTube Channel Mike Kaechele offered some great pushback on my last post. Mike is a highly respected project-based learning teacher who often leads PBL trainings in his spare time. So, when he pushes back, I’m quick to listen. I wish I could play…

Jun 20 2016

Seven Keys to Creative Collaboration

By John Spencer Creativity 5 Comments

I'm not a fan of group work. I have vivid memories of doing "team projects" where I completed various tasks while other members disappeared. As a classroom teacher, I preferred to plan alone, dreaming up projects and planning out units in isolation. I am comfortable in…

Jun 19 2016

What’s it like to be a dad?

By John Spencer Uncategorized One Comment

A friend of mine is an expecting dad. He asked me, "What it's like to be a dad?" "It's world-changing," I told him. And then I wrote this out. I hope it makes sense. When I'm at home, I’m a dad. But that doesn’t last…

May 30 2016

The Benefits of Being Goofy

By John Spencer Teacher Life 7 Comments

William Chamberlain is one of my favorite teachers on Twitter. He is bold, humble, relentless, and unabashedly curious. The other day he tweeted this out, so, as a joke, Philip Cummings and I both turned these into "inspirational" quote images for tweets. As I think…