by John McCarthy | Apr 14, 2014 | Assessments, Differentiated Instruction, Formative Assessments, strategies, Writing
During workshops, I sometimes survey the teachers in the room: Rate yourself on a 5 pt scale. A five equals, “I can write for publication with confidence.” A one equals, “I do not like to write, preferring to avoid it when I can.” Yes, I know… rating scales...
by John McCarthy | Apr 7, 2014 | strategies, Writing
How do you get students engaged into writing? Sometimes this question feels like an exercise in futility, used as for abstract debate for the sake of venting frustration. But there are times when the answer to this question is simple: Make the writing interesting and...
by John McCarthy | Mar 24, 2014 | Assessments, Differentiated Instruction, Formative Assessments
“Differentiation is making sure that the right students get the right learning tasks at the right time. Once you have a sense of what each student holds as ‘given’ or ‘known’ and what he or she needs in order to learn, differentiation is no longer an option; it is an...
by John McCarthy | Mar 13, 2014 | curiculum, PBL, Voice
This post is a companion to a Presentation (handout) at MACUL 2014 by @jmccarthyeds. You can find dialog from that session on Twitter at #OPATHS or go to tagboard.com/opaths/ How can we support constructivist learning in Common Core Environments? Last year at Ardis...
by John McCarthy | Mar 3, 2014 | Global Skills, resources, strategies
During a PLN twitter #satchat[i] session on a Saturday morning, Charity Stephens[ii], a teacher, shared her use of Tagboard.com with her students. The students studied grammar—different elements of pronoun usage. When Charity introduced hashtags to support the work,...
by John McCarthy | Feb 10, 2014 | resources
At every workshop I facilitate, I share several resources that support teacher’s supporting student learning. Recently in Nashville, TN, I asked the teachers to share resources that they use in working with students. What follows is the list they generated. What...
by John McCarthy | Feb 2, 2014 | strategies, Writing
There comes a time after a lesson when the students are directed to write on a topic. An enlightened teacher will give students choices or let the learners choose their own topic. But often times, there are students, sometimes most, who can’t seem to put pen to...
by John McCarthy | Jan 28, 2014 | Concepts, Driving_Question, PBL, strategies
There are coffee tables across the world that–if they could talk–could tell stories about conversations among professionals. One possible scenario are the tables that shared the conversations of such influential thinkers as Lynn Erickson, Grant Wiggins,...
by John McCarthy | Jan 18, 2014 | Differentiated Instruction, Game-Based Learning, PBL, Voice
Last week during the snow days, or rather the Freeze days of -30+ degree weather, my son spent those two days writing and revising a proposal, sharing its content with his peers, and analyzing work by others for critical logic flaws and idea development. The weekend...
by John McCarthy | Jan 15, 2014 | Assessments, Differentiated Instruction, Formative Assessments, Global Skills, PBL, strategies
Students need opportunities to practice Global Competencies like Collaboration, Communication, Creativity, Innovation, and Influencing across networks. This is why working in teams gives them the opportunities to practice these skills and to get coaching by the...
