Archives October 2022

In most reading classes, students are taught fix up strategies. Fix up strategies are what good readers use when they come to an unfamiliar word or when they stop understanding what they’re reading.

The assumption that most math teachers have is that the students will use these fix up strategies in their math classroom which may be true for some but not all. Based on my experience with struggling learners, unless they were explicitly taught how to use reading comprehension strategies in other subjects it just doesn’t happen.

In math, there are all kinds of unfamiliar math words and most struggling readers won’t learn or even understand them all. However, teaching students how to use words that they do understand to define math vocabulary that they don’t understand will give them a tool that will help them to persevere despite their learning deficits.

There are a ton of articles and

I hope I’m not the only one who wants to start belting Aretha Franklin when I see this month’s character trait—”R-E-S-P-E-C-T, find out what it means to me.” (go ahead, you know you want to, too).

I recently talked to another parent who was telling me how she has decided to reclaim cooking dinner. She explained that after having kids, the joy was sucked out of cooking for her—it became out getting food on the table, day after day. It stopped being about creating something nourishing and delicious, acquiring new and interesting ingredients, or developing herself as a cook. With not a lot of time in her schedule to create, she decided to take back dinners as her opportunity to be creative. Without sharing her new shift of intention toward nightly meals with her family, she served up a new meal at dinnertime. In response, her preteen said she was

The MSc stands for Magister Scientiae, which is Latin for ‘Master of Science.’ The standard Master’s qualification taught courses in science and technology, engineering, and maths (STEM) subjects.

MSc degree gives students the chance to focus and explore a particular area of interest in more depth. It is particularly suited to individuals who work well with quantitative analysis and technical methods.

A ‘Master of Science’ is a level 7 qualification in the United Kingdom. It’s equivalent to MBA, MA, MRes, and other postgraduate Masters degrees.
In Canada and the US, the MSc is a postgraduate (or ‘graduate’) level degree. Students can study it as part of a more extended graduate program that eventually awards a Ph.D. or a standalone qualification.

Before completing their degree, MSc candidates are to conduct research and present a thesis paper or dissertation. MSc, a significant milestone in one’s career, demonstrating considerable additional expertise and training

Towards the end of the school year, I go through this process where I think about the things that worked well and not so well with my students. I figured that most teachers would have some sort of process similar to mine.

As I began to gather information to write this blog post, I was surprised to learn that there wasn’t much information on teacher reflections. This was interesting because throughout my career I’ve always been taught to allow students time to reflect after an activity. The question that pops up in my mind is, how can a teacher who doesn’t reflect on his/her own teaching practice teach students to use reflection to build student agency?

One of my chief complaints about the current education system is that teachers are never given enough time to think. We’re constantly building the plane while flying it. Closing learning gaps requires that

When I was in college I lived with a single mom and her two young boys. We met one summer while we were both working for a local minor league baseball team. She needed a roommate and I needed a place to live, so it worked! We quickly became really good friends and her boys were like my brothers. During our many conversations, she would sometimes plant these little nuggets of wisdom that I eagerly absorbed. The two I clearly remember were “Advice should only be given when asked for or when it’s an emergency” and “If you have no expectations you can’t get hurt.” Sounds simple enough, right? Well fast-forward 20-something years later and not only was she right, but man, those two things sure are a struggle for me to live by. Applying these ideas to my partner, work, and children is probably one of the biggest challenges