by John McCarthy | Jul 21, 2014 | Global Skills, PBL
I credit my middle school Social Studies teacher for my love of History. I often cite one of her projects for how I built deep understanding of the pre-Civil War era and connected the political stratification in the mid-1800s to the challenges of gridlock in...
by John McCarthy | Jul 7, 2014 | Culture, Education is like Yoga, Pedagogy
I founded Opening Paths to advocate for the voices of students (1st) and educators. A mixture of pedagogy, instructional strategies, and educational concepts, this blog seeks to make you go “hmmm…” as I do, during my travels along pathways to explore...
by John McCarthy | Jun 24, 2014 | PBL, strategies
Day one at PBL World, the educators I’m working with explored designing Project Based Learning units. A major detail, and concern, is identifying a real world audience, and then getting in touch with them. Engineers, mechanics, university professors, authors, or...
by John McCarthy | Jun 11, 2014 | Culture, Education is like Yoga, Pedagogy
“Yoga takes you into the present moment, the only place where life exists.” -Yoga Quote Most Sundays, when I’m not traveling, I go to a yoga class with my wife. We get there 30 minutes early just to ensure that we get to choose our spot. I italicized early because...
by John McCarthy | May 5, 2014 | Differentiated Instruction, strategies, Writing
In the previous two articles, we explored RAFTs (Role, Audience, Format, and Topic + Strong Verb) as an instructional strategy, and how to use RAFTs for coaching writers on writing. RAFTs can ignite engagement and context for learning. Planned with forethought,...
