This morning, I happened upon Michael Wesch’s post, a recollection, really of a conversation with Gardner Campbell.  Wesch ends with this, which captures, I think, not only Gardner, but an essence we all need to try to capture and maintain ourselves: In short, Gardner is a great example of somebody who lives in wonder, and [...]

I did a little reading on teaching problem solving.  As nicole pointed out in her comment to my last post, it might be necessary to be explicit about the steps involved in solving problems.  Those steps might include defining the problem (i.e., what are you trying to do), breaking the problem into smaller steps (especially [...]

I had promised a post on problem solving, somewhat of a response to this post, where Dave Burkhart puzzles over the problem with students who can’t seem to solve the problems put before them and instead wait for the teacher to give them an answer.  I see this all the time across all my classes. [...]

I so want to comment on this post about problem solving, but I’m going to hold off until tomorrow at least. Right now, I’m too excited about my plans for what we call Mini-Week, a three-day period just before spring break where we hold basically a three-day workshop on a topic, going on field trips, [...]

I’ve had this post open in my browser for days.  I read it, and then let it sit, and I just now went and read it again, and the comments.  I’ve written many, many times about how frustrating I find it that people think Computer Science = Teaching Excel or how to use the Internet. [...]

Teaching 8th grade has to be one of the hardest things ever.  I dare anyone who thinks they know what they’re doing in life to put themselves in front of a group of 8th graders (girls, even) and see if they can hold their own.  I’m betting most people won’t last 5 minutes.  I don’t [...]

I guess change is hard.  Some things have worked out well. The budget, for example, has worked out pretty well.  I missed the mark in one category by $20.  Not so bad.  Meal planning was working well until this week when I went to a conference over the weekend and didn’t have time to shop. [...]

I am, at this moment, the epitome of the blogger.  I’m in my pj’s.  I’m in Educon recovery mode.  Apparently, some of my Twitter friends are as well.  I’ve seen a number of people talking about being in pj’s or being exhausted, etc.  This was my 3rd Educon.  It’s my second as a K-12 educator. [...]

A lot of people have been pointing me to this article on using blogs in writing classes instead of term papers.  For an extensive answer, see my dissertation from 2007.  Just sayin’.  But yeah, communication forms change.  That doesn’t mean we do away with argument and evidence and critical thinking.  I mean, we used to [...]

For my How to Teach Webcraft and Programming class, we are supposed to describe our students.  So, below are some of my descriptions of students present and past as well as myself as a student.  I’ve had a wide range of students, but interestingly, they do sort of fit into categories. The Artist I’ve had/have [...]