Blog Archives

#Empower17 Take-aways

3/28/2017

Last weekend, Gretchen and I had the opportunity to travel to Anaheim, California to present at ASCD Empower17. We were thrilled to represent our incredible school district, FCPS, and were blown away by the support of the teachers who attended our session. We also were able to check out a variety of talks by educators, consultants, and administrators from across the country.

We know that it’s hard to get to conferences. They are too expensive or too far away. So we wanted to share a few of the things that we learned on our journey (some big, some small) in the hopes it might empower you in your own teaching and learning.

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BubbleUp Take5: Top Tips for Starting A Makerspace

3/20/2017

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This past weekend, I had the honor of serving on a panel at the NoVa Maker Educator Meetup, a new part of the annual Maker Faire NoVa. I represented middle school making and spoke along side public educators from elementary school, high school, and higher education; we were joined by maker facilitators from private school, community spaces, the public library, and a children's museum. It was very cool to be part of these conversations, the first of hopefully many more coordinated efforts of this group.

This week's Take5, expands a bit on something I mentioned at the Educator Meetup: getting started. We began planning the Kilmer Library Makerspace a bit over three years ago and these are my top five tips for starting a makerspace.

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Thesis Statements: Grab Students' Attention with Fairy Tale Grab Bags

3/12/2017

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Getting students excited about writing thesis statements can feel like mission impossible for teachers. To tackle this challenge, we created a fun, interactive, group activity to get kids excited about writing thesis statements: Fairy Tale Grab Bags.

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BubbleUp Take5: Five Take-aways from Elementary School (for every teacher)

3/7/2017

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This year our school district began a new focus on literacy, which we define as reading, writing, thinking, and discussing. I have the good fortune of being on my school's literacy team, which recently brought me to a local elementary school for some informal classroom observations during their literacy block. I believe deep in my educator heart that secondary teachers have so very much to learn from our elementary counterparts. Some of the ideas were new. Some were reminders of things that I once valued but have forgotten over time. I just have to say as an aside - those little 1st and 3rd graders are adorable! And their teachers were experts at keeping them engaged and learning. I was and still am in awe. So here are five things, in no particular order, that I walked away with that day. I hope you find something to inspire you in your own teaching practice.

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#Empower17 Take-aways

BubbleUp Take5: Top Tips for Starting A Makerspace

Thesis Statements: Grab Students' Attention with Fairy Tale Grab Bags

BubbleUp Take5: Five Take-aways from Elementary School (for every teacher)

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