Digital lesson planning: A deeper dive, part two

In true Pandemic educator fashion, I overpromised and underdelivered in terms of this series. Like I've said before, all of us are building the plane while in the air, and sometimes that means that blogposts we swear we'd write end up taking a few weeks longer to actually hit the blog. No matter, this threeContinue reading "Digital lesson planning: A deeper dive, part two"

Digital lesson planning: A deeper dive, part one

If you missed Friday's blog post, you'll want to start there. Today, we'll start walking through the Digital Lesson Planning Template, linked here. So you can get a peek at where we're going, I used this template to plan my content for this week for my students, which focuses on analyzing data (a CS standard),Continue reading "Digital lesson planning: A deeper dive, part one"

Stop reinventing the wheel: A curation-centered lesson plan for digital learning

If you're like me, you're finding that planning for digital learning during the Coronavirus Pandemic takes up a LOT of time. Between planning for instruction, creating new resources, giving feedback, checking in on student socioemotional health, trying to contact students who have yet to access learning opportunities, and getting on office hours calls, the newContinue reading "Stop reinventing the wheel: A curation-centered lesson plan for digital learning"

The Agile Educator: Start-Stop-Continue

It's no secret that I'm a huge proponent of bringing agile processes into education. In the past, I've blogged about how Scrum can empower students to do work that matters through long-term, real world, team projects. Incorporating agile into the classroom makes content more accessible through meaningful work and also gives students practice with actualContinue reading "The Agile Educator: Start-Stop-Continue"

CS for All: Rethinking the Traditional Lecture

Last week, I began teaching an introductory Computer Science course at the University level. The course introduces students to computer science primarily through HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in a 100-person lecture format. The student information forms I had students fill out on the first day of class revealed that nearly 80% of them have neverContinue reading "CS for All: Rethinking the Traditional Lecture"

I am a Better High School Teacher Because I Taught Middle School First

For the first four years of my career, I taught middle school. When you tell people you teach middle school, they often respond with a sour look, and a "wow, that must be so difficult." And, at times, it was difficult. Of course, they should also know that middle school is arguably the toughest timeContinue reading "I am a Better High School Teacher Because I Taught Middle School First"

We need more women in tech. Here are a few things K-12 educators can do about it.

According to the National Center for Women in Information Technology (NCWIT), careers within the Computer and Information Sciences are projected to grow 19% by 2026, as compared to 7% for all occupations. Within that classification, every category of job role will see growth with the exception of a basic computer programmer. Further, NCWIT reports thatContinue reading "We need more women in tech. Here are a few things K-12 educators can do about it."

Reflections on CSTA 2019

One of the things they don’t (or more likely, can’t) prepare you for as you move into teaching computer science is how alone you feel sometimes. As high of a demand as there is for computer science, both in the workplace and in schools, oftentimes you are the only computer science teacher in the building.Continue reading "Reflections on CSTA 2019"

Group Work That Works: Agile for Authentic Learning

The traditional, and widely-accepted, model of group work in the classroom encourages teachers to group students in teams of three to five, and to assign a role to each student. The reality is that, without fail, there’s always one student who ends up shouldering much of the work and there’s always at least one studentContinue reading "Group Work That Works: Agile for Authentic Learning"