by John McCarthy | Jan 11, 2014 | PBL
In this week’s ASCD Smart Brief, an article from the Tennessean is given national attention: Dupont-Hadley of Metro Nashville Public Schools was recognized for a project based learning unit where 5th graders studied cancer: “Student’s two-time...
by John McCarthy | Dec 30, 2013 | Assessments, Pedagogy
January 1 is nearly here. It’s a time when many fitness club attendance increases. Already, as one of my closest friends has commented, the classes are getting crowded and available exercise machines are harder to find. As annoying as this time is for devotes of...
by John McCarthy | Dec 16, 2013 | Game-Based Learning, PBL, Voice
Minecraft for Learning, Part 2: (Follow me on twitter at @jmccarthyeds to stay up to date on following posts.) In the last post, I mentioned that minecraft is a way to include student voice into their learning. Students can help teachers make the connections by...
by John McCarthy | Dec 11, 2013 | Game-Based Learning, Voice
Updated: August 2, 2016 Earlier this year, I was asked how Minecraft can be used in education. At the time, I’d done some digging in just that topic because my kids were deep into the game, both solo and through home networking. Recently, I’ve been asked...
by John McCarthy | Nov 25, 2013 | Concepts, curiculum, Driving_Question, PBL, strategies
Driving Questions Basics Have you ever attended a meeting where the outcome was unclear? You knew or hoped that by the end of the meeting some result would be achieved that would validate the time spent being there. This reminds me of the movie, Karate Kid, the 1980s...
by John McCarthy | Nov 11, 2013 | Global Skills, resources
So last week, I posed this riddle: “You’re standing in a room with two doors. One opens to instant death, and the other leads to life. Standing in front of each door is a robot guard. With no other way out of the room, you must choose a door to enter. You may ask one...
by John McCarthy | Nov 4, 2013 | Global Skills, resources
“You’re standing in a room with two doors. One opens to instant death, and the other leads to life. Standing in front of each door is a robot guard. With no other way out of the room, you must choose a door to enter. You may ask one question, which each robot will...
by John McCarthy | Oct 28, 2013 | PBL
In the movie Ground Hog Day, Bill Murray is a reporter covering the annual event where the ground hog looks for its shadow. Each morning he wakes up to relive that day, stuck in a perpetual cycle that matches his boorish behavior. His journey is what makes the comedy...
by John McCarthy | Oct 21, 2013 | Culture, strategies
In my first installment about Homework, I referenced Karl Taro Greenfeld in “My Daughter’s Homework is Killing Me” regarding his 7 day experience doing the same homework as his daughter received at school. His article strongly showed how homework can turn a student’s...
by John McCarthy | Oct 15, 2013 | Culture, strategies
The Homework Balance In the October issue of Atlantic Monthly, Karl Taro Greenfeld in “My Daughter’s Homework is Killing Me” wrote about an experiment he did. For one week he experienced the homework load that his daughter brought from her middle school. Each day, for...
