Be Your Best

"Be Your Best," is a statement I've heard pretty much all of my life but as an educator it takes  on new meaning. For a teacher, trying to be your best takes effort and understanding of exactly what those three words encompass. Being your best not only takes time but also a willingness to embrace the mentality that is necessary to constantly strive to be your best. Being your best is hard work. It requires you to seek out others, to embrace change, to look for new things, to try new ideas, and to sometimes accept failure. Being our best…

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Why the Name?

Since starting the Educationtech21 website, I've been asked by a number of people, "Why the name?" I think some have come to the site looking for ways to use technology in the classroom and been surprised by what may seem to be the emphasis on classroom instruction and student learning. So, this article will be a little different (and shorter!). I would like to explain the story behind the name and talk a little about what you will find on the site both now and in the future. If you have not read, "About the Website...A Personal Story", I invite…

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A 21st Century Lesson Cycle

If we are to work toward a truly flexible classroom that meets the needs of all of our students, we not only need to find the correct ways to incorporate technology in our classrooms (see, A Vision for Technological Classrooms for the 21st Century), but we must work toward a focused plan for a 21st century lesson cycle. This lesson cycle will focus not on the material covered, but on the desired student learning outcomes. It must be driven by student success and not by the clock or calendar. Without this well-designed lesson cycle,  any attempt to incorporate meaningful use…

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Excellent Collaboration

With collective teacher efficacy scoring at the top of the Hattie's scale of effect sizes at 1.57 [Hattie, The Applicability of Visible Learning to Higher Education, 2015] and areas like teacher estimates of achievement, response to intervention, strategies to integrate prior knowledge and classroom discussion also ranking near the top; the way we conduct our collaborations with other educators becomes extremely important in addressing these areas. What makes collaboration time effective and efficient? Let's take a look at some strategies that we can use for collaboration that will help us to make better use of our time together. All collaboration…

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Using Student Data

We talk about student data. We encourage the use of student data in planning effective lessons. We seek to center our conversations and collaborations with other educators around student data; but,, what do we really mean when we use the words "student data"? Is the context in which we use these words really what we intend and is our understanding of student data really what it should be? Let's talk about data and what effective student data is and is not. While end-of-year and end-of-course exams mandated by the state certainly create student data, the data created is mostly summative…

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Intervention Centered Instruction

It is important that as teachers our focus is not on how much material we cover but on the quality of learning that takes place in our classroom. If we are to maintain this focus on student learning, we must know when to move forward and when to clarify or provide additional instruction. One way this can be accomplished is by looking at the level and type of intervention required for most students to master a concept.  Most of the time when we think about intervention, we envision students being separated from other students and presented with individual or small…

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We Don’t Fix Teachers

How many times do we say to ourselves or our colleagues, "I'll fix that"? When something is not going the way we want, the desire is to "fix" it. Sometimes we allow the "fix it" mentality to begin to apply to ourselves or co-workers. We start to think that it is the teacher that needs fixing. The truth is that we don't need to fix teachers because they are not broken! In fact, nothing is "broken". It only needs adjusting and refining.When faced with new ways of doing things as educators, we often feel that if we are changing what…

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The Best Laid Plans

As teachers, we plan, we assess, we adjust and we do it all again; but sometimes even our best lesson plans, that seem to work so well on paper, just don't work with students. What do we do when we create a great lesson but students don't become engaged and don't participate in a meaningful way? What do we do when an entire class doesn't seem to be involved in our lesson? I believe this is the time we go back to the basics.As I write this, we have just returned from a week-long Thanksgiving break, and as might be…

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Assessment with Purpose

Student assessment takes on many forms in the classroom but no matter what type of assessment we use, it is important that the results be examined and studied to determine what student learning has occurred and what actions should take place next. Effective examination of results is made possible through the design of the assessment and careful correlation to standards, intentional evaluation of results and pre-determined actions based on levels of mastery. Before an effective examination of results can occur, the design of the assessment piece must ensure that desired knowledge and skills are being assessed. An assessment does not have…

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Sharing with Google Docs

This post will be a little different from my usual posts in that I'm going to share an effective teaching strategy, using technology, that I often share with teachers in coaching cycles and often employ myself in team collaboration meetings--shared Google Docs.Google Docs is a free word processing application available to anyone with a Google account (free to anyone who wants to sign up) and is part of a suite of applications available to Google users. The power of Google Docs for students, and teachers alike, comes from its sharing capabilities. A doc can be created and shared with other…

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