Lesson Plans

In light of the horrific environmental damage that will surely impact the Gulf Coast due to the BP oil spill, I thought I would share some thoughts on using this disaster in the classroom.  Unfortunately I think we will still be hashing out the impact of BP’s spill during August and beyond.
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I wanted to share a template with you that I use when giving notes. The idea came from a conversation with a colleague who had attended an in-service on Marzano‘s strategies.  (To see more on Marzano and Dan Pink’s right-brain aptitudes see this post) When asking students to take notes, the obvious weakness in...
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This is a great site for resources on Robert Marzano’s instructional strategies. If you are familiar with Marzano, then you will find this site particularly interesting as it connects instructional technology resources with each of his strategies.  If you are not familiar with Marzano, each strategy is briefly defined so that you can implement...
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I recently created a 6 Word Stories Video Template for using six word stories as video summaries.  It really does make for a quick and easy upgrade for watching videos.
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Another great use of empathy in the classroom. History is an excellent medium for developing empathy.  And these New Jersey elementary students have taken it to the next level. In the first part of the project they research historical figures.  They look into their early life and careers, following the figures throughout all of...
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This is some great stuff! If you are looking at enhancing your students’ design aptitude from AWNM, any lesson plan would benefit from one or more of these templates. There are templates for story boards, visual brainstorming, and even just some fun fold-up patterns that might help with spacial understanding in elementary school or...
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What a great idea – Using improv to develop design-based thinking. This article highlights Peter Robbie’s Design Thinking class at Thayer Engineering School. As you read the article, Robbie points out that in an age of abundance such as ours, human-centered design is essential to business success.  His ideas are completely in line with...
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Videoconferencing is something you continue to hear about, and I think we can all agree that it continues to create opportunities in education. But this program in Rural Texas really has a great application of the technology. The main project that elementary students use is a presentation about cotton.  The Texas students are living...
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This article was passed along to me, and I just found it amazing.  A Canadian high school student used his science fair project to solve a major ecological problem, the biodegrading of plastic. Obviously this student has been developing the aptitude of Meaning from A Whole New Mind.  He took an academic assignment and...
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I always like to check up on Dan Pink’s blog, and I encourage you to do so as often as you can. I really liked this activity, so I thought I would pass it along. In his newest book Drive, Dan Pink outlines an activity where you create one sentence to describe yourself.  This...
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