Avenue4Learning

Some people like very well-defined lines. Black and white. Nice, neat boxed-in rooms with corners.           And then there are others who prefer blurry lines. Grey. Overlapping circles.   I think that learning is a blurry line. Definitely grey (hey! Brains are grey matter, right?). Things we learn often cross and [...]

A close friend of mine once shared some good advice – share the positive stories. Keep your tweets positive. We need to know the good things that are happening in education. I agree. There’s so much negative in education these days, that we need to ensure people read and hear all the amazing things that [...]

This morning, during our staff professional development time, we all talked about inquiry-based learning. Inquiry is already embedded into our school’s philosophy and practice. Just as we do with students, we spent time this morning reflecting upon our own practice: What does Inquiry look like? What are we doing already in our learning with our [...]

Every day, you’ll see several (tens? hundreds?) of Tweets and posts recommending “n reasons why x tool is the best/worst idea for education.” I very much dislike lists. You can find pros and cons for everything under the sun, but I think we need to stop promoting or discounting tools and focus more on changing pedagogy. I’d [...]

When someone asks you to recommend a great educational leader, whose names come to your mind? [CC image credit: Leo Reynolds]   Next question… how many of them are currently in the classroom? Please don’t get me wrong. This is not a post* that is about bashing administrators, educational consultants, or others whose names often [...]

“Too often we give our children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.” Roger Lewin It’s been about 12 years now that I’ve had that quote on my email signature. I’m sure I’ve tweeted it out more than a few times as well. Oddly, I can’t make myself change that quote to something else, [...]

Learning lessons with my students is probably one of my favorite things about teaching. We have been working on puzzle problems in math, specifically those that help us practice operational facts (something my grades 3/4 need) and challenge us to think differently about numbers. Grant Wiggins wrote a post about The Problem of Non-Problems in [...]

Sorry for the rant, but here goes… We have a problem in education. It’s called “edusnobbery.” Edusnobbery is why so many non-educators have a problem with teachers. With professors. With administrators. There are a lot of people outside of education who feel that academic-types look down their noses at non-academic types. Edusnobbery is what sometimes [...]

Today, my class celebrated International Dot Day at Anastasis– that specific blog post will be up next week on our class blog. In conjunction with Dot Day, FableVision partnered with my friend Angela Maiers to include her #YouMatter message (See her TED talk here). We had a lot of activities planned for today, and we spent a [...]

I’m sitting on my couch this morning watching news coverage of the horrific events in Aurora overnight. I am saddened for the victims and their families, as well as for the shooter and his family. What has me seriously troubled is listening and reading the reactions around the country… well, around the world actually. News [...]