“Things that were considered worthless are redeemed”

SpeEdChange.at.Medium

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virginia Lee Burton

I had this difficult moment last week. Working with teachers and administrators on MakerLearning, Pam Moran and I were with a great group of educators in the Mendon-Upton (MA) Regional School District and we were exploring how empathy plus ‘making' adds rocket fuel to both engagement strategies and to deep learning, and we were beginning a Paper Circuits activity.

I think educators typically misunderstand what the Google-inspired ‘Genius Hour' is about. It really isn’t about kids doing anything they want, though I think that kids doing anything they want should have significant time in every school day. The genius hour is about solving problems, and perhaps most specifically, about solving problems for others.

Of course I also think we really need to have a ‘Direct Instruction Hour' within ‘Genius Weeks.’

Making… the art of engagement

I may have mentioned to the team earlier (or maybe not) a podcast in which I was asked “what accomplishment are you most proud of?” and after fumbling around for a while I thought of it — well, let’s say this of course lies beneath having a great kid — I recalled walking into a middle…