[…]during the 2021–2022 school year. Hobbies Maggie enjoys cooking, gardening, fishing, foraging for food to cook, making music, and crafting/sewing. Academic Background Barnard College (Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics–Computer […]
[…]to campus. I don’t blame him. I think many students, when they heard about an opportunity to “come to campus” for school, didn’t necessarily envision a 6.5 hour day of sitting in the same, hard-backed desk logged in and plugged into back-to-back virtual class sessions, roomed with a handful of other students they may not necessarily share a class with and an adult that may not necessarily be one of their teachers on record. But we’ve learned to make the best of it. My learning pod shares a group chat in Microsoft Teams. When I renamed the group chat as […]
[…]positivity. I’m curious—how do you think about enacting those bullet points from the agendas?” “I think you’re right on for that, it becomes very easy for it to be performative,” Marcy answered earnestly. “So I think it’s really the little things . . . [There’s] a Mother Teresa quote: ‘We can do no great things, only small things with great love.’” Marcy has learned that dramatic, flashy gestures tend not to generate meaningful or lasting results. Instead, she focuses her energy on consistency with what she considers “little things.” Little things like specifically directing teachers to power their computers down […]
[…]or that we might come to her for more help with figuring it out. My colleague is constantly looking for ways to improve the “small things” in our curriculum and freely sharing. She is the teacher I want to be when I grow up. I’m in (yet another) Zoom meeting, this time with chemistry teachers from around our district. The facilitator is no stranger to me; I was her student teacher when I first joined this profession. I can attribute much of my teaching philosophy and strategies to my time with her. Today, my colleague is pushing our district team […]
[…]especially when overcoming challenging ideas. Comments like: “It feels like my brain is growing,” “It opens my head,” “When you learn something it stays in your brain,” and “You keep practicing until you get it” indicated students’ true ownership of learning. One of my personal goals for teaching remotely was to do just that—increase students’ ownership of their learning. I recognized that students would need to care about their own learning for remote instruction to be successful. This exuberance over mastering skills actually led students to ask for more time to work on math. Two hours a day wasn’t enough […]
[…] . . . that feedback matters, and that it’s the ANALYSIS of data that propels learning forward.” Furthermore, Kirstin walks us through how she went about making this sustainable for her by reflecting on what is important to her as a learner, and as a teacher, and structuring her resubmission policy to highlight those values. Aligning her classroom practices with her values made the sometimes more difficult work of allowing resubmission feel meaningful and important, among the many meaningful and important tasks we accomplish as teachers. Download Article Download […]
[…]values that I had identified that I wanted to keep in mind throughout the school year. These were “compassion,” “flexibility,” “grace,” “relationships,” and “keep it simple.” These were the things I want to focus on. What was validating was that a lot of students felt very cared for. They highlighted my kindness and the level of understanding that I had with them in their student feedback forms. And that felt validating, because I did not prioritize rigor. Rigor was not on this list of values. Compassion and kindness were my intentions, and I’m glad that I stuck with that, because […]
[…]myself through the keyboard and the screens, hoping the human connection isn’t lost. Creature Comforts It’s not all bad. Here at home I can control my physical environment a bit more. Take a bathroom break when I need it. It’s cold in Minnesota, and my hands are freezing, but rather than turn the heat up I find a sweater and brew a cup of tea. Any kind will do. Jasmine for when I am feeling reflective. I think about how my dad loves this tea and taught me not to steep it too long so it doesn’t get bitter. Chai […]
[…]know that I’ve made a lot of progress creating apartment buildings that are, for the most part, comfortable, welcoming, accessible, and affordable. My apartments are generally well received, and each year I’m a little prouder of the final product. This year, someone burned all my blueprints, stole all my power tools, and switched out all the building materials that I was used to using. Standing there with a cheap hammer and some questionable-looking plywood, I was told, “Sorry this happened, but we’re all counting on you to make your apartment building this year just as good as what we’ve grown […]
[…]expect from a group of rambunctious seventh graders on the first day of school: “it’s fine” or “I don’t like homework” or “give us more free time.” But then there were the other responses. Foundations class is for the dumb kids. I’m glad I’m in Foundations because I’m not good at math. I think that the Foundations class is a good fit for me because I am bad at math. At no point during that first lesson did I tell them they were in the low class. I didn’t mention the other math tracks. For the lesson, students completed a […]
