1. “Warning: allowing productive struggle to occur consumes more class time. But retention is undermined when learning is frictionless. Purposeful struggle today means less re-teaching tomorrow.” This is a great post on “transformational teachers.”  It also connects to my inquiry project work.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/big-things-transformational-teachers-do-todd-finley?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

  1. I loved the Do Now site! I have connected to an e-book that I shared with my fourth graders about clean drinking water.  In science, we study “Watery Earth.”  This e-book connects perfectly with several discussions we’ve had about the cause of much sickness in third world communities.

http://ww2.kqed.org/quest/2015/09/10/e-book-engineering-is-cleaning-poop-from-drinking-water/

  1. Design Thinking and Project Based Learning is a post on edutopia.org that I really connected with as I work through my inquiry project with my students. While reading, I realized it’s often administrators and politicians that are often holding teachers and students back from PBL and making school relevant and interesting.  My school has spent bucket loads of money on resources that are boring, one-dimensional, irrelevant, or just not useful.  Not trusting that kids, following their own interests, supported by teachers and other resources, will accomplish the goals of Common Core is a shame.  Since many goals of Common Core are not developmentally appropriate, too plentiful to be achieved in a single academic year, or boring, let’s design interesting, practical, and engaging ways to meet many or most of the objectives.  As long as administrators see thorough, neatly typed lesson plans as the benchmark of a good teacher, we will not progress as educators of future problem solvers.

http://www.edutopia.org/blog/design-thinking-and-pbl-beth-holland?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

  1. My principal knows my feelings on engagement. Good learning experiences, I don’t like the word “lessons,” have a high level of engagement.    He thought of me when he read a tweet by @JohnWink90 about engagement.  I clicked the link to the tweet and found a study and the following quote:  “The biggest indictment of our schools is not their failure to raise test scores above some politically-determined line of ‘proficiency.’ It’s that – day in and day out – they routinely ignore the fact that our children are bored, disengaged, and disempowered. We’ve known this forever, but we have yet to really care about it in a way that would drive substantive changes in practice. The disenfranchisement of our youth continues to happen in the very institutions that are allegedly preparing them to be ‘life long learners.’”  Politicians, the public, and many administrators seem to think we should just be able to make kids learn, and care.  This has never been the case.

http://dangerouslyirrelevant.org/2016/03/the-biggest-indictment-of-our-schools-is-not-their-failure-to-raise-test-scores.html

 

  1. As I consider inquiry and shared purpose, the technique of questioning has been in my mind more lately. One reason I haven’t thought about using inquiry is that young kids are not very good at asking good questions.  The old K-W-L comes to mind.  I was always frustrated that almost all of the “What do you want to know?” questions would not be answered in the unit.  Part of the reason was that the unit was predetermined in content, and therefore limited to what the publisher thought was important.  The other reason was that student questions were too general or reflected misconceptions.  The following link reminded me that questioning needs to be taught, especially to kids will little to no background knowledge.  Additionally, the curriculum then needs to be built around answering their questions and not predetermined by a publisher.

http://www.teachthought.com/critical-thinking/inquiry/5-ways-help-students-ask-better-questions/