About Me

I’m Here to Help Save You Time and Energy

so you can focus on what’s really important. I will share ideas with you to keep your classroom dynamic, engaging, fun while never lowering the rigor of your lessons.

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Start 2015 Off Right: Student Goal Setting Using Social Systems for Support

Start 2015 Off Right: Student Goal Setting Using Social Systems for Support

by | Dec 30, 2014 | Classroom, goal setting idea, peer goal setting, Teaching, unique goal setting

It’s a good idea to do a goal setting lesson or activity every year. Among the most favorable and effective methods for students usually consist of a graphic organizer. The students write out their immediate and long-term goals, including perceived barriers, and how they plan to overcome these challenges. Students especially enjoy writing in these graphic organizers because of the visual element.

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Teachers: Decrease Grading Time While Improving Results: a 6 minute read

Teachers: Decrease Grading Time While Improving Results: a 6 minute read

by | Dec 26, 2014 | Best Practices, Classroom, Peer Conferencing, Peer Editing, Peer revision, Teaching

Like most teachers, I have a lot of students. I teach over 120 students every day. Not only do we already have a significant number of students to teach and manage, the numbers seem to be growing. This means heaps of grading and even more feedback for truly effective teaching. The problem is that we are just one person tasked with these individual workloads.

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Prevent This From Ever Happening in Your Classroom: A 6-minute read

Prevent This From Ever Happening in Your Classroom: A 6-minute read

by | Dec 23, 2014 | Best Practices, Classroom, classroom conflict, Teacher, Teaching

The students in our classrooms are together 187 days a year for multiples hours each day. There will be disagreements, minor conflicts and passive aggression. Unfortunately, sometimes a particular class falls off the deep end and the hostility and negativity starts to overtake the content.

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Serena’s Blog: 3 No-fail Debate Questions — Even the most Reluctant Students will be Deliberating: a 4 minute read

Serena’s Blog: 3 No-fail Debate Questions — Even the most Reluctant Students will be Deliberating: a 4 minute read

by | Dec 17, 2014 | Classroom, debate

When I ask my students what project or activity they enjoy most about class, the most common answer is debate. We don’t debate that often, but when we do, the students always love it. Not only that, but they also readily remember the topics of debate, implying solid connections were made.

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Why blog?

Most of my blog topics are inspired by questions both veteran and beginning teachers ask me in the hallways, after school, or in casual conversation about their classroom. My blogs address real concerns from even the most experienced teachers and answer the difficult questions. In the rapidly changing world of education a few elements always remain constant. We want to push students to think critically, speak with passion and intellect, and create a classroom that is a true community of learners. To get to this utopia of learning, we have to come up with simple and elegant solutions to the difficult obstacles of effective teaching. That's where I can come in. I have seen it all. Through many trials and tribulations I built a strong understanding of how to build a better and more engaged, fun, academically challenging and student-centered classroom. I have academically coached, taught, led teams of teachers in classrooms and university workshops with the knowledge I have gained. I understand how hard teachers work and would like to take some of the load off of your shoulders. Subscribing to my blog and liking my Facebook page will not only help your classroom, time and energy but will help gain support for my upcoming educational book. So spread the word, get your friends and family on board with a subscription, and let's make our classrooms and schools look better than ever! Who doesn't want a great classroom?