the third rail

moving things forward

Entries from February 2009

You’re Boring

February 24th, 2009 · 3 Comments

I had a student tell me I was boring. I have had students tell me they are bored, the subject is boring, or even school is boring. I have never had anyone tell me I am boring before! I was really surprised, and, honestly, a little hurt and upset. This child has been difficult. Kicked [...]

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Tags: teaching

Tangent?

February 17th, 2009 · 3 Comments

I am taking a break from the VoiceThread/differentiation idea for now. I was able to meet for coffee today with a dear friend and amid our nerdy discussion we started talking about Gary Stager’s post yesterday about A Whole New Mind.
It is always great to have a discussion with someone who I admire (she [...]

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Tags: teaching

Ways to differentiate

February 9th, 2009 · 3 Comments

In a perfect world, educators would be able to personalize lessons and tailor them to the unique needs and interests of each student. Alas, until the system is disrupted a lot more, that will not happen.  So what is a teacher to do?

Differentiate whenever you can, it may not be perfect for every       student but [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized · teaching

Is it worth it?

February 4th, 2009 · 1 Comment

Every year teachers get 30ish new students. Now, they passed the previous grade and are here together; their learning is pretty much in the same place right?
Well, probably not and that’s why educators need to differentiate instruction.
Let’s look at the 1’s again. These are the students who are so far removed from the core content [...]

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Tags: Uncategorized · teaching

Differentiate?

February 2nd, 2009 · 3 Comments

Hopefully this will be the first of a series of blogs (inspired by Chris Bell) about differentiated instruction using Voicethread.
This all came together for me earlier this year when I was able to attend an all day session with Susan Winebrenner about Teaching Gifted Kids in the Regular Classroom. Here is a graphic-

Most  curriculum is [...]

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Tags: teaching