After an unplanned, two-year hiatus, I'm starting to make my way back to thinking about the larger educational community and about implementing Universal Design for Learning (UDL) again. I used professional development funds from my district to take a self-directed course from Novak Education. The course, with videos featuring Dr. Novak's father, focuses on UDL… Continue reading Engagement in Virtual Education
Category: Remote/Digital Learning
“Lessons Learned”
I live in a economically and racially diverse community in North Central Massachusetts. My teaching career in the US began just as the Department of Education, now DESE, began to take over schools in the Commonwealth. As I have moved districts, grade levels, content, and setting, MCAS has remained a constant, a lurking boogeyman. I… Continue reading “Lessons Learned”
On my (many!) bookshelves…
Reimagining Special Education: Using Inclusion as a Framework to Build Equity and Support All Students by Jenna Mancini Rufo and Julie Causton Brain Injury Survival Kit by Cheryle Sullivan Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande Principles to Actions: Ensuring Mathematical Success for all by the National Council of Teachers… Continue reading On my (many!) bookshelves…
Thanks to Haley, again
I've written before about how much I owe my speech therapist for figuring out some strategies to help my brain relearn how to track and how to accurately work with numbers. Very specifically, I needed her help to relearn how to manage my checkbook, since tracking all of those values accurately has proven to be… Continue reading Thanks to Haley, again
Mathematics for Human Flourishing
I've been making my way through the text, Mathematics for Human Flourishing by Frances Su and Christopher Jackson. At first, as I read his claims and poked a bit at the math, my response was my usual: I like algebra because it is neat and tidy and, best of all, you can check your own… Continue reading Mathematics for Human Flourishing
Belief and confidence
A few years ago, I had a student with severe math anxiety. She had generalized anxiety, but math was a particular trigger. At the start of the year, she had unlimited time on all math tests, which resulted in her redoing the first problem that she encountered on any given test, over and over and… Continue reading Belief and confidence
Jamboards for Brainstorming
My colleague and thought partner, Jack Czajkowski, set my brain spinning when he shared a Jamboard with me a few months ago.. He had written a Jamboard for students to begin brainstorming their ideas to a series of prompts, all designed to introduce students to the engineering design process. I'm not any kind of science… Continue reading Jamboards for Brainstorming
a thousand words…
I think we are all familiar with the expression about how a picture is worth a thousand words. I recently came face-to-face with the power of this axiom with a math/science twist, looking not at pictures, but at graphs. I was stunned to see the power of graphs drawn from my failing chemotherapy blood counts… Continue reading a thousand words…
Being Mortal
I have been blessed to find The Healing Garden, a non-profit center for cancer patients in Central Massachusetts. Of course, in our COVID world, distance matters less than it used to, as all offerings are available virtually at this time, but various staff members at the Healing Garden have supported me in this crazy reality… Continue reading Being Mortal
The next generation of ASSISTments
In 2019, I spent summer vacation plowing through the Eureka math curriculum, grades 6-8, making videos of every problem, followed by returning to the start and creating text versions of the hints I had first recorded. As I wrote at the time, it was amazing professional development, as I had to get inside every single… Continue reading The next generation of ASSISTments
Universal Design for Learning 