Category Archives: education

30 Days of Creativity – Day 5 – What My Students Need

The TFA DC Region is piloting a new cohort led by the Director of Transformational Teaching. The idea is to have an interdisciplinary group of corps members work with the Teacher Support and Development Team to design new models for … Continue reading

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30 Days of Creativity – Day 4 – Lesson Planning in the Springtime

Today is simple, but there are notes in flickr, so click through. New lesson planning setup for June:

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On-Demand Professional Development and the PGCPS/TFA Innovation Challenge

Data-driven instruction is one of the transformative elements of excellent teaching. Simply put, if you don’t know where your students are at any given moment in terms of mastering the curriculum, then you’re going to have a tough time coaching … Continue reading

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National High-Five Day: The Origins

My hipster college news/humor/commentary magazine, The Declaration, ran an article on Thursday, April 18, 2002 titled, “New Adventures In High-Five.” In it, the co-authors, Conor Lastowka and Wynn Walent, wrote: Thus, I propose to you, a National High-Five Day. A … Continue reading

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A Progressive Education

In light of Obama declaring his campaign for re-election, I thought it would be a good occasion to share something intimately connected to his current presidency. Below is the farewell email I wrote to my co-workers at the Center for American Progress … Continue reading

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Optical Character Recognition in the Sun

So we’re in the midst of the drama unit in my 7th-grade reading / english / language arts class. My co-teacher found a great abridged and leveled version of A Raisin in the Sun. Unfortunately, the only version of it … Continue reading

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We are kind. We are focused. We are honest. We are brave.

So much of the pre-institute reading and reflection has been about drawing connections between previous work and our new careers as educators. But stopping to think about what I hope the parents and families of my future students say at … Continue reading

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Working relentlessly without burning out

This is the seventh written response to the TFA pre-institute work (responses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6). This reflection is on “working relentlessly.” So I have now absorbed all of the Teach for America pre-institute reading materials. These assignments have inspired, stimulated, and at … Continue reading

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Pirate school

This is worth sharing: If you want to be a filmmaker or an artist or a designer, any of those things, that’s like saying “I want to be a pirate.” It doesn’t really matter if you went to the right … Continue reading

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I won’t get perfect, but I will get better

This is the sixth written response to the TFA pre-institute work (responses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5). This reflection is on “continuously improving effectiveness.” I can only imagine that getting filmed on your first day in the classroom is incredibly … Continue reading

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