Reflections, Reactions, and Revolutions in Education
Written by Brent Hurley
Here’s a quick update to my last blog post (“You Can’t Handle The Truth”), where students in my grade 12 English class are working on a summative evaluation that gives them total choice on the content and form of their ultimate summative evaluations. Today is Monday. Presentations/Assignments are due on Wednesday. Using Google forms as … Continue reading “Does Choice = Confidence?”
Written by Brent Hurley
In the Rob Reiner film “A Few Good Men”, the climax of the movie comes when Lt. Kaffee, played by Tom Cruise, puts his arch nemesis, Col. Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson, on the stand, hoping to coax a confession from him. The exchange is made famous by the following dialogue, written by Aaron Sorkin: … Continue reading “You Can’t Handle The Truth!”
Written by Brent Hurley
I thought I’d take a moment and discuss a challenge that has plagued English teachers who have bought-in to the idea of ‘voice and choice‘, giving students options for a novel study rather than forcing the entire class to read the same book, but who also feel challenged to track student engagement, promote different types … Continue reading “Using Google Classroom to Differentiate Your Traditional Literature Circles”
Written by Brent Hurley
Today’s blog post is about… you guessed… taking chances. It’s scary as a professional to also be a risk taker, yet I’ve found that it often leads to my best moments as a teacher. A few years back I took a chance and decided to take a year’s leave of absence so that I could … Continue reading “Taking Chances at Sea and in the Classroom”
Written by Brent Hurley
I have struggled for weeks to identify in a coherent manner what I want to focus on for my Cohort Action Plan. Selfishly, I have used a challenge I’m facing in preparing for an upcoming unit as the foundation for my action plan. So, ladies and gentlemen, without further delay, here is the 2015 Spring … Continue reading “Action Plan: Skills vs Content in the Multi-Text English Classroom”
Written by Brent Hurley
Over the past two years my main focus has been essentially one thing: feedback! How can I leverage student feedback in the English classroom to improve my teaching, to create a more student-centered environment, and to allow students to communicate their learning to me in a manner that offered differentiation and promoted collaboration? Those are … Continue reading “Tech in the English Classroom: How Kaizena and Twitter are Game Changers”
Written by Brent Hurley
Ah, Cohort, where have you been all my life? It’s been far too long since I’ve posted to this blog. As Neil Young would say, “It came to me in a dream…”: I NEED TO START BLOGGING! So much is happening despite the fact we are about to finish only our third week of teaching … Continue reading “Back to Basics: Teaching Info Tech Results in Students Teaching Me”
Written by Brent Hurley
Ok… I made it! Or we made it! Either way, it’s great to think back on what I’ve learned over the past few months. When you go to your first Cohort 21 meeting a number of things happen: 1. Parts of your brain start to drip out of your ear… but you try to act … Continue reading “Reflection on Action: Feedback about Feedback”
Written by Brent Hurley
Despite an emergency meeting at GCS with Mr. Nichols regarding my miserable progress on the action plan, I had difficulty putting into words what the central focus of my action plan would be. So, I will leave it to Pink Floyd to sum it up for me, in the immortal words of the song “Another … Continue reading “21st Century Action Plan: “Teachers! Leave Us Kids Alone!””
