Monday, March 30, 2015

March 30, 2015

Engage Your Students in Real World Learning 

As a district we are working towards implementing PBLs in an responsible way so we are teaching our TEKS with fidelity while balancing the appropriate amount of instruction time.  This webinar is a perfect way to gain insight on "how to" come up with an idea. Even if you are NOT wanting to do a PBL-deepen your STEM lens by gaining great ideas of turning current event into curricular connections into your classroomsThe webinar was just presented on March 15th by Suzie Boss, an author and Buck Institute faculty member, discusses how to create real world-relevant ideas for project based learning.  

" She’ll discuss how to design academically rigorous projects that are ripped from the headlines; why relevance doesn’t mean “all about me;” and how to use the 3 A’s to guide students toward meaningful action."

Sunday, March 22, 2015

March 23, 2015


What are you colleagues saying?  Here are 2 comments that were shared with me about Wednesday’s ELA training.  Please ask Catha, Valerie, Alejandra, Jennifer and Deron about it because they all had great things to share. 

Reading workshop was amazing. Wonderful presenter!! She shared components of Readers Workshop with specific things to do. She shared about the classroom library, anchor charts and more. Not to mention, links to awesome resources. This was worth every minute!

One thing I'm looking forward to is the session on planning.  It's one thing to have the desire to do a Reading Workshop with your students and it's an entirely different thing to do it.  While I know I will enjoy Reading Workshop, I really have no idea how to effectively plan one.  Really looking to that session on April 15.

You can still sign up for the remaining classes:

Session 2, April 1, 3:30-5:00 - Readers' Notebooks and Reading Logs
Session 3, April 15, 3:30-5:00 - Read Aloud with Accountable Talk AND Planning Mini-lessons for Workshop
Session 4, May 6, 3:30-5:00 - Writing about Reading and Conferring with Readers
Session 5, May 20, 3:30-5:00 - Sharing my Reading: Book Talks, Book Partners, Book Clubs

Friday, March 20, 2015

March 16, 2015


Recently a group of our teachers went on a site visit to another STEM school called Town Center Elementary in Coppell.  They are in their fourth/fifth year of STEM.  At our last STEM leadership meeting after school, teachers shared some of their take-aways from that visit.  One of those was the way they have adopted the STEM design process as their writing process.  Erica came back to her class and began to utilize it.  Jennifer learned about it at our share session and has already put it up on her classroom as well.  Please go by these two classrooms and see it. We can work in PLCs to design one that fits with your grade level.

March 2, 2015


While reading some blogs I follow, I read this article from Teach Children Well called “It’s How You Use Technology that Matters.”  I especially like the section that is called Building Relationships and Streamlining Communication because it affirms our goal at Cannon to provide transparent communication with our parents and community.  It also discusses how we are modeling and teaching young students to learn communication skills.  Other schools are often surprised that many of you have blogs for our younger students. We are not just blogging to blog, but instead students are becoming communicators and collaborators.

Please take time to read the Writing and Reflection section.  This aligns with our goals by having the GCISD Portfolio for each student.  I realize the process of using iPads to upload to our portfolio is still a work in progress, but keep in mind the goal of teaching students the process of reflection that will drive future learning. 

Kudos to each of you for using technology to attain higher purposes that deepen learning for your scholars. 

It's How You Use Technology That Matters