It’s scary to talk about grading in the classroom I want to talk about something that teachers tend to be very territorial about: grading. Talking about grading is hard. Our grades are sacred – they are the final word on whether, in our professional opinion, our students demonstrated success in our classroom. The Grade Book is often the one aspect of our classrooms that teachers have total control over, and it also holds a lot of power – one 59% can change a students’ life in innumerable ways. So, teachers ( myself included) are naturally very defensive when asked to talk about or grading practices. Funnily enough, we are rarely,…
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Teacher How To: Scaffolding Socratic Seminar
Socratic Seminars are one of my all- time favorite teaching strategies. I love seeing a group of students engage in a collaborative discussion and think deeply about themes, texts, and ideas under their own guidance. This is a skill that is not natural for students, who are used to teacher- led discussion, so I started scaffolding Socratic Seminar to build the skills necessary to make my Seminars successful for all of my students. Seminars not only strengthen students’ ability to engage in dialogue with many differing beliefs, it also requires students to think deeply and critically, using evidence and logic to support their claims. While impromptu whole class discussions are…
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5 Lessons I Learned from a Year of Pandemic Teaching
I’m going to say something that is not being said enough: The pandemic did not create problems in education. It forced us to recognize and stop ignoring the ones that were already there. Before, there was no money to waste on 1:1 technology. Suddenly, students had access to wifi and laptops. Before, students had to sit in a chair for each class from 7-3. Suddenly, we could give independent, asynchronous options. The list goes on. Although this year of teaching has easily been the longest and most exhausting year of my career, I realize that in a lot of ways it has been a blessing, and not just because my…
