What’s missing?

I've been hearing this more and more from friends both at work and at other schools: students are missing [skill]. Sometimes that skill is something that used to be taught, but given the COVID changes, just slipped through the cracks as content was watered down due to hybrid or online teaching. Sometimes it's a "soft…

October, a month of challenges

Maybe it’s just at Milton, but October is one of those months that starts… and stops… and starts again. Weekly. Between the Jewish High Holidays, a Wednesday for PSATs/Community Engagement/college stuff, Columbus/Indigenous People’s Day, and Upper School Family Weekend/Diwali, we haven’t had a complete week. And next week, with a late start for professional development…

From the archives: Things I hope we keep

As we move to a post-pandemic kind of "normal", there are things we adopted that I hope we keep.  For example: Not every class has to be in-person. And not every class has to actually happen.  If students are working on a project, maybe they can check in with the teacher if they need/want to…

It bears repeating: check your sources!

Whether you subscribe to the CRAP / RADAR Test or the 5 Ws or lateral reading or another method, it's never too early to teach your students to never assume that what they read or hear is accurate (and for librarians to model this publicly!) If it's too perfect to be true...

Current mood

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0rx0512ooE Anyone else feeling this way? Usually at this point in Spring Break, I'm starting to feel as though it might be time to go back to work.  I miss my colleagues and students, and wonderful as my cats are they simply do not care that I've just read a great book (nor do they…

Future work

At AISLNOLA Courtney provided inspiration to once again dig into the high school-college skills continuum (something I've been thinking about for over 20 years).  Following up on the research she and Sarah did with First Year Experience Librarians, I and one of my librarians created a survey for independent school librarians to give us all…

Minor Musings

As promised, here are more of those links I've collected.  Helpful tip: if you're saving things as Twitter bookmarks, you can access them on your laptop by changing from twitter.com to m.twitter.com. Books, Reading, etc. Things to be aware of when you suggest students (or friends, colleagues, etc.) search Google Books for a phrase. DPLA's…

Minor Musings

The past couple of months have been filled with work stuff and some interesting (read: thought provoking) professional development.  As I digest all of that and distill into posts, here's a round-up of other things catching my eye. Books, Reading, etc. As we teach/talk about diversity, maybe Shakespeare teachers should talk about his views of…

What are you doing with your summer?

I've already posted my early-summer PD schedule and a few "if only..." options.  Then I read this on Twitter: Carrie Kausch on Twitter: "I attended disappointing PD at an #alaac15 precon, disappointing PD yesterday. Maybe I need to quit trying PD for a while." via kwout and Wendy posted about her Walden experience. Both put…

Help Yourself – personalized learning at #alaac15

(another program that will be posted online - check here) Many schools and libraries are starting to embrace personalized learning, blended learning, the flipped classroom or whatever new buzzword appears.  At the Online School for Girls, they're talking about "competency-based instruction" that puts learners at the center, meeting their needs and goals (in other words,…