Blogs on Middle (6-8)

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Matt LevinsonApril 4, 2013

A few days ago a student approached me and said he needed to talk about something, and he wanted to meet the next day at recess. I appreciated the way he reached out to me and I looked forward to the opportunity to meet with him. He came into my office with a sheepish look on his face, spoke in a quiet voice and said that he had done something he was not feeling good about. I asked him what it was, and he informed me that he had violated the technology policy by downloading some games onto his school-issued iPad, bypassing restrictions and settings.

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Suzie BossApril 4, 2013

"Design your own shoe." That's what high school students thought they were signing up to do when they volunteered for an immersive experience in design thinking.

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The most recent video releases in the A Year at Mission Hill series have generated lots of attention; in part because of the controversial topics of full-inclusion classrooms and how to get students engaged in the curriculum. If you're new to the series, start with Mark Phillips' blog post about the ongoing documentary project, and you can see chapters two and three in this post. New videos are released every two weeks, and the series website offers theme-based resources of all kinds to sync up with the topic in each. I'm pleased to share chapters four and five here.

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Brandon WileyMarch 28, 2013

As schools around the world focus on how best to prepare students for success in the 21st century, there’s been much debate about what approach works best. Educational experts -- from classroom teachers to university professors, from parents to politicians -- have weighed in on what schools should look like and how they should run. Opinions about how to "reform" schools or introduce new innovations dominate the literature. Yet one perspective, perhaps the most critical, has been missing from much of the conversation -- the student.

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Heather Wolpert-GawronMarch 28, 2013

I'm going to talk about a tough subject today, one that I'm sure might set off some folks. But it's a snapshot from a school site reality that is not ideal. I'm going to talk about race, culture, and educational opportunities. Scary topics, right?

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Maurice EliasMarch 28, 2013

Whether or not your school provides explicit or implicit opportunities to address Passover, Easter, and other spring religious observances, our teens need us to use this time of year to have important conversations about aspirations.

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Andrew R. ProtoMarch 27, 2013

Children in the 21st century experience media in ways that are vastly different from any previous generation. Social networking, user-created content and video games provide a level of interactivity that was unthinkable a generation ago. As a result, educators are rethinking educational practices that have long been taken for granted. Many have come to the conclusion that the answers they're looking for lie in making video game design a central part of the curriculum.

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Karen LeaMarch 20, 2013

Do you remember learning to tie your shoes? Or learning to bake a cake? Or learning to read? I'm guessing you did not learn by watching a video or listening to a lecture. You learned by being shown, and by practice. The same principle applies to our teaching! We must model for our students.

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Andrew MarcinekMarch 19, 2013

Since I started in education, I have been trying to find ways to connect students' learning beyond the classroom walls. Initially, the task presented many hurdles. Infrastructure was limited, devices were bulky and slow, and the access was not quite available. In order to connect students with the outside world, a permission slip and a school bus were needed. Today, many of those hurdles have been overcome, and connecting students beyond the classroom is a viable option. To make those connections, I use Google Hangouts.

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Karen LeaMarch 15, 2013

Planned a great lesson? Excited to teach the content because you know what you've planned will excite students and they will learn? Ever planned a lesson like that and then wondered what went wrong? We all have. We have all been there. But there are three keys to avoiding that. No guarantees -- sometimes a lesson just flops. But we can be strategic in including at least one of the following keys to avoid the lesson that just doesn't motivate our students.

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