Jokes You Can Use:

 

Google’s self driving car has an ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button – the car drives you to a random new spot.

 

Did you hear about the kidnapping at school?

 

If it’s zero degrees outside today, and it’s supposed to be twice as cold tomorrow…

Just how cold is it going to be?

 

Velcro… what a rip off!

 

Why did the student take a job at the bakery?

Kneaded dough

 

Fred is having a tough life. He went to the top of a mountain and shouted “I Love You”, then waited for the echo.

It came back “I have a boyfriend”.

 

Then Fred went to the Doctor. They told him that he had Type A blood. Turns out it was a Typo.

 

What did the right eye say to the left one?

Something smells between us.

 

The Fidget Pen:

 

Advisory:

 

3 Surprising Reasons Students DON’T Get Into Top Colleges

 

MISTAKE 1: TAKING *ALL* THE TOUGH CLASSES

MISTAKE 2: DOING WHATEVER IT TAKES TO MAXIMIZE TEST SCORES

MISTAKE 3: NO EXTRACURRICULAR FOCUS

 

https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/college-admission-mistakes/

Middle School Science Minute  

by Dave Bydlowski (k12science or davidbydlowski@mac.com)

 

ECLIPSE 2017 WHAT’S UP?

 

This is the fourth and final podcast in a multipart series on Eclipse 2017 utilizing the resources from NASA that can be found at:

http://eclipse2017.nasa.gov

 

Five short stories can be downloaded from the What’s Up? series, for use in newsletters or to share with students.   They include:

1.  Eclipses, Transits, and Occultations
2.  Many Moons
3.  A Relative Eclipse
4.  Lunar Libration
5.  The Very Last Solar Eclipse!

These short stories can be downloaded at:

https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/whats-up

 

http://k12science.net/Podcast/Podcast/Entries/2017/6/1_Middle_School_Science_Minute__Eclipse_2017_Whats_Up.html

 

 

From the Twitterverse:  

Dru Tomlin‏ @DruTomlin_AMLE

Improve Attendance & Grit: Put More Music in the Middle Grades! Let the @AMLE ABCs blog sing 2U: http://www.amle.org/Publications/BlogABCsofMiddleLevelEducation/TabId/937/ArtMID/3115/ArticleID/824/Music-in-the-Middle-Grades.aspx … #mschat #satchat

AMLE Conference Video:  https://youtu.be/79PdLmU-lpY  

 

Dave Burgess‏ @burgessdave

Hey! Watch the #TEDx talk of #KidsDeserveIt co-author, @TechNinjaTodd Exciting! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSdl3KIkT44&feature=youtu.be&list=PLsRNoUx8w3rNM9fPF7B0cmlJJzYpQS4Fm … #tlap #LeadLAP #LearnLAP #DitchBook

 

Kelly Malloy‏ @kellys3ps

What happens when 10 minutes a day is added to student’s reading

Alan See‏ @AlanSee

Don’t give up in the face of criticism. Learn to brush aside what people who don’t know you have to say.

 

Todd Russo‏ @MrRussoRH

Thank you @drneilgupta and #leadupchat friends for a great chat this morning! Finish strong!

 

Alan See‏ @AlanSee

If we help someone in the hope of getting something in return, this is not giving but lending.

cocreateSA‏ @cocreateSA

#EduTech | Despite #digital divide, low-income parents believe in edtech benefits via @EdTech_K12 @edtechteam #CC2A http://buff.ly/2rymGgd

 

Tara M Martin‏ @TaraMartinEDU

“Try to start the year with blank walls” @JoyKirr #ShiftThis https://www.amazon.com/Shift-This-Implement-Gradual-Classroom/dp/194644409X … Yes.To.This  #tlap #BookSnaps #satchatwc #LEADlap

 

#mschat every Thursday at 8:00 pm Eastern Standard Time.  And as Troy says, “The Twitter never stops!”  

 

Strategies:

 

For teachers, deeper learning is about letting go

“Sometimes good instruction is not just about what you can add but what you can remove to allow deeper learning to happen. I’ve discovered it often means removing me,” She said. “I had to learn to empower my students to lead their learning, not to keep coming to me for information.”

Traditional teacher-led instruction is typically what most teachers experienced in their own childhoods, so envisioning something new can be hard. Executing it can be even harder. While Stone said she had always done projects with her class in the past, she now realizes those were just teacher-led activities rather than authentic deeper learning experiences for students. “My concept was if they were doing something hands on, then that was a project,” Stone said. “But now I understand if I’m giving them supplies, if I’m telling them what to do, if I’m telling them how to make it, that’s not deeper learning.”

http://www.hewlett.org/teachers-deeper-learning-letting-go/

 

 

 

Hands-Off Teaching Cultivates Metacognition

As a teacher, you put a lot of thought into how to make your class and the material as accessible and engaging as possible.

If you want your students to learn as much as possible, then you want to maximize the amount of metacognition they’re doing.

The only problem is that most classrooms are set up to promote metacognition in the teachers, not the students.

His peer instruction approach has since grown into the flipped classroom movement, and research shows that it consistently produces better results than traditional lecture-based classrooms. No wonder! Flipping the classroom shifts the metacognitive balance toward the students. We want our students to do as much thinking as possible, and that’s why the world’s greatest teachers actively avoid teaching.

 

Today’s students have incredible resources — and a troubling lack of resourcefulness.

 

https://www.edutopia.org/blog/hands-off-teaching-cultivates-metacognition-hunter-maats-katie-obrien

 

 

The Five Biggest Fears that Kept Me from Empowering Students

We want to empower students. However, this can be scary for teachers. Here are some of the fears I felt as a teacher as I made this shift toward student ownership.

http://www.spencerauthor.com/fears-empowering-students/

Resources:

 

What does SVG have to do with teaching kids to code?

Jay Nick is a retired electrical engineer who volunteers at local schools in his community by using art as a creative way to introduce students to mathematics and coding. Reflecting on the frustrations that his own children experienced in college programming classes, he decided to use his own experience with Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) to create an approach to coding that combines principles of mathematics and art.

https://opensource.com/article/17/5/coding-scalable-vector-graphics-make-steam

 

 

Free E-Books

 

http://www.cattocreations.com/ePub3.html

100 day Summer Challenge

 

https://brilliant.org/100day/

 

 

Brain Bashers

You will find a wide range of puzzles on BrainBashers™. Some are easy, some are hard, but hopefully most are interesting and a little bit fun. Some of the puzzles are tricks, or Gotchas, some require a little bit of head scratching, some of which could keep you thinking long into the night. Many of the puzzles also have hints to help you along, so you can still have a go without seeing the answer.

http://www.brainbashers.com/puzzles.asp

 

Web Spotlight:

 

The Case for the Rebel

But what if what made Einstein a change agent was his rebellious nature rather than his intelligence?

I have a student like this in my class right now. He is a brilliant creative writer. I give him highly intellectual books, articles, and authors to read on his own because he often asks me highly intellectual questions that I can’t quite answer, but for which I know he will find answers in those texts. He typically brings the book back to me in a few days, having read it cover to cover and dog-eared most of its pages.

He is, in short, a huge pain. But when his parent came in to have a conference with me last fall, I found myself looking a worried adult in the eye and telling him what I believe to be the truth: His son is going to be okay. In fact, I told him that his son will someday stand out from the others; he will find a career he loves because he is passionate, intense, brilliant, and fiercely independent. Even though this student is a pain to teach, he is someone I will likely respect when he matures into an adult.

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/05/the-case-for-the-rebel/525147/?utm_source=twb

 

The Silent Tragedy Affecting Today’s Children

There is a silent tragedy developing right now, in our homes, and it concerns our most precious jewels – our children.

 

Today’s children are being deprived of the fundamentals of a healthy childhood, such as:

• Emotionally available parents
• Clearly defined limits and guidance
• Responsibilities
• Balanced nutrition and adequate sleep
• Movement and outdoors
• Creative play, social interaction, opportunities for unstructured times and boredom

 

If we want our children to grow into happy and healthy individuals, we have to wake up and go back to the basics. It is still possible! I know this because hundreds of my clients see positive changes in their kids’ emotional state within weeks (and in some cases, even days) of implementing these recommendations:

 

https://yourot.com/parenting-club/2017/5/24/what-are-we-doing-to-our-children

 

Random Thoughts . . .  

 

 

 

Personal Web Site

 

 

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