Tag: teaching

Posts tagged teaching

Natural Consequences

This is the hardest part of teaching, if you ask me. What are the natural consequences of not completing a task in the given amount of time? It sta... Read more

An Experiment in Process

This post outlines a recent lesson and activity I designed for my integrated chemistry/physics students. Fair warning: science ahead. The Problem I... Read more

Building Rigor

I missed two days of school last week. One day gone is enough added work on it’s own, two is nearly unthinkable. I wanted to make sure my students ... Read more

From Crappy to Okay

One of my goals this year is to help students struggle productively with ideas before I loop back to teach it. I don’t remember who said this first... Read more

Updated Student Response Template

A while back, I wrote about a new Google Sheets response system I created for use in class. I suggest you go back and read that first if you haven’... Read more

QR Codes Everywhere

In my continuing effort to make things more available for students, I’ve started rearranging my Google Drive files. I’ve realized that thinking of ... Read more

End of Year Notes

I just finished my fifth year teaching after an 18 month hiatus. I usually jot this stuff down in a notebook, but it’s full, and I haven’t replaced... Read more

Thinking Smarter

I want to think smarter. I don’t want to know more facts or spout more trivia. I don’t want to just work smarter, either. I want to actually think ... Read more

Think Before You Periscope

Bill Fitzgerald is someone you should follow on Twitter if you need help interpreting Terms of Service or Privacy Policies. He pays real close atte... Read more

Data as Actionable Information

Continuing on my data-trends this week, I’ve realized (consciously, at least) that when quantitative data is shown to students, it’s a report of so... Read more

Making Sub Plans Easier

I hate missing school. It’s stressful. I have to do multiple days worth of planning ahead of time, plus know what’s happening the day I get back. T... Read more

Student Rubrics with Google Forms and docappender

Every other month, we give students an argumentative writing prompt which is then scored against a standard rubric. One of our school goals is to i... Read more

Because We Can Doesn’t Mean We Should

This weekend, our local over-the-air movie stations had a marathon of classic monster/science fiction movies. I watched a bit of King Kong (1976) w... Read more

Double Bind

I nearly lost my temper this morning. One class in particular has some…big personalities. I want to be able to do hands on, interactive work with t... Read more

Funny Money

How much money do we spend to go to conferences? A few hundred, easily. How much money do we spend on tools, apps, programs, and resources to use i... Read more

Grade Games

I get asked abou my grading a lot because it’s pretty different than a typical classroom. I’ve refined it slowly over the years, and I’m by no mean... Read more

Look Up! It’s a Space Comet!

I get really, really excited about comets. I remember seeing comet Hale-Bopp back in 1997 hanging in the sky and being amazed that those wanderers ... Read more

New Layout, New Title, Refined Focus

I’ve iterated on this blog a lot over the years. I started by focusing on chemistry, and then switched over to teaching and learning in general. La... Read more

A Few Feet

Our feet are built to be durable. Bones arranged to bear weight1, thick pads of skin, and fine motor control of each individual toe2 allow us to wa... Read more

Bathoughts

I’m on bath duty each night. After dinner, the water runs, and Meredith gets really, really excited. The tub is full of boat, plastic chains, and f... Read more

Functional Patterns

Structural patterns exist all around us, especially in living systems. A common example in the biology classroom is bone structures which show evol... Read more

Game Theory and Computational Thinking

Game Theory Games and learning go hand in hand. Children learn social interaction, communication, and even motor skills through playing. Remember, ... Read more

You’ve Got the Wrong Idea

Do a quick Google search for “disrupt education.” It seems 2013 in particular was a boom for companies looking to disrupt the current education sys... Read more

Control Your Class…with RSS

A dangerous trend in education is the advent of the Learning Management System (LMS). Jim Groom writes about the danger of siloing our data across ... Read more

Sages and Lunatics: You May Be One

My previous three posts looked at ideas from John Spencer’s book Sages and Lunatics. I could go deeper because it is full of great discussion point... Read more

Sages and Lunatics: Blogs as the New EduText

This is the third post in a series reflecting on John Spencer’s Sages and Lunatics. Most of the books are practical manuals on how to run a classro... Read more

Sages and Lunatics: Danger in the Classroom

This is the second post in a series reflecting on John Spencer’s Sages and Lunatics The machete was dangerous that day. There is power that comes w... Read more

Sages and Lunatics: Teacher as Identity

This is the first post in a series reflecting on John Spencer’s Sages and Lunatics. A report came out in early May with data showing college studen... Read more

Survey Time (again)

Blog readers, I come to you again asking for help with a survey. As many of you know, I’m working on a masters degree in education technology throu... Read more

Khan Academy and the Missed Opportunity

I went to CUE 2014 this year in Palm Springs, Cali. If you’re not familiar with the conference, it’s the largest regional education conference on t... Read more

The SAT is Changing! (But Not Really)

The edtech land is losing their minds of the second major revision to the SAT in nine years’ time. In case you missed it. Horray! The SAT is finall... Read more

Argument in 140 – Part 2

I updated the original post, but I thought it would be worth having a brand new item for reference. As I said earlier, the @StopSBG account has bee... Read more

Arguments In 140

Update 8:00 AM Jan 7, 2013 – The @StopSBG account is now active again. Change is reflected below. Over the past 10 days, Twitter saw one of the mos... Read more

The Future Is What You Make It

See what I did there? That took a significant amount of brain power tonight. It must be the end of the semester. CEP811 is closing this week and fo... Read more

Google Voice Search Coming to Chrome

I’ve been ensconced in Chrome lately. I worked with the team at TechSmith who brought Snagit to Chrome and now, I’m researching different ways to m... Read more

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Comments are always open. You can get in touch by sending me an email at brian@ohheybrian.com