A decade ago, I watched a local school district purchase hundreds of interactive whiteboards. Hailed as the ultimate solution for student achievement, teachers attended flip chart trainings. The school district purchased packaged curriculum promising huge results. Specialists observed classrooms to see if teachers were implementing…
The Vintage Innovation Toolkit is here! You can access it by filling out the form at the bottom of this page. This toolkit includes the eBook The Epic Guide to Vintage Innovation. There are also eleven resources that correspond to different chapters in my new…
So, it’s the beginning of the year and all around I’m hearing conversations about New Year’s Resolutions. One friend is going Paleo, another is doing Cross Fit, and still, another has decided she’s going to read 100 books in a year (which might be doable if you…
Don’t forget to scroll down to the bottom of this post to download the Creative Ways to End the Semester Resource Pack. This is a post I first wrote a decade ago, when I was teaching middle school. Each year, I have revised it and…
This is my third article in the series on vintage innovation. Last week, I mentioned the Astrodome Effect and the idea of embracing both vintage tools and vintage designs in a mash-up with newer technology and new ideas. I mentioned Camden Yards as a place…
The Astrodome was a modern miracle, a Space Age wonder, with a glass dome, high-tech air-conditioning, and the world’s biggest scoreboard. When it opened in 1965, reporters dubbed it the “8th Wonder of the World.” This was the future. No more bad weather or quirky…
It was the first Friday of the first week of my first year as a teacher and I was determined to have students engage in a hands-on learning activity. My students were going to solidify their understanding of the five themes of geography by creating…
We often hear about the need for students to learn how to program in order to be ready for STEM fields and the Information Economy. It’s what we’ve been hearing for over a decade. However, there’s a fascinating piece from the Washington Post that explores…
When I was a middle school student, I dreaded the first week of school. Teachers would walk us, line-by-line, through the syllabus and handbook and we would practice the classroom procedures. It was as if school started a week before the learning started. But then…
