Not Everything Is An Assignment

     It's always amazing to me when events seemingly happen at the moment you need them most. My neuroscience lens is screaming, "R.A.S.! R.A.S.! It's real!" (Which of course when typing makes me think of R.O.U.S.s - I don't think they exist, but I digress...) My frontal cortex says that my Reticular Activating System (R.A.S.) is hyper focused on finding my purpose, my "self", again. Wednesday's Learning Lab experience left me more than a little depressed, I have to be honest. Watching an incredibly organized, purposeful, intentional educator teach in the morning was wonderful. The afternoon started well, but by the debrief, devolved into something I wasn't mentally prepared for. There were extenuating circumstances that contributed to my negative mental state. But upon reflection, while my spouse has a nasty habit of triggering panic attacks that linger for hours, if not days, I realize I have strayed from the path of "myself"...

So, remember when I wrote this post on Relentless Disappointment, http://abrahall.blogspot.com/2019/05/relentless-disappointment.html . ? It's rearing it's ugly head again, but it feels so early in the school year to feel it. Then again, I had an enlightening experience this summer that has cleared my vision when looking at students and people, their behavior and motivations. And above all, brings the epidemic of mental illness our children and friends are experiencing into sharp focus. This summer I attended the Neural Education Institute and became an Advanced Neural Educator. In brief, it reframes the motivation of the teacher to focus on those who struggle most rather than the average or advanced to ensure success for all. It also stresses heavily the importance of understanding behavior is biological and malleable. I sit in front of my students now and see them even more clearly. I look at each individual everyday and try to gauge where they are at emotionally. Are they re...

I had a fun opportunity to be a guest on Jeff Utecht's Podcast, "Save Our Schools". We discuss how I got into teaching, this new generation of teachers and students, fun projects we did in my classroom this year, March Mammal Madness, the Impress Me Project, "School in the Cloud", and more! Wow! I can pack a LOT of words into 40 minutes... Check it out - Episode 86

The most beautiful thing is happening in my anatomy classroom. My kids are in love. The day has finally come - a day that I, and apparently they, have been waiting for all year. You see, I promised on the very first day of school that they would each get the last 4-6 weeks of the school year to do an independent study project of their own choosing. I told them that no matter where I was in the curriculum that I would stop and they would get their chance to take ownership of their learning. My theme for this school year was, "We're goin' outside!" And it started as a way to get my Freshmen Natural Resources Biology class outdoors and actually experiencing this thing called nature they were supposed to be learning about. But then I realized I could take it another step further. "Outside" could mean so much more than spending the class period outside of the classroom walls. It could mean bringing the outside in with guest speakers - industry professionals...

Do you ever have those moments when someone says a particular word or phrase and you get stuck? It's somehow beyond simply resonating. It's paralyzing. You can't continue to listen and process because they've pinned you in a memory or feeling that you can't escape. Why is that? Am I looking for connection? Am I constantly processing a situation or problem and waiting to hear the right words to name it? To solve it? To connect it? I suppose if I am truly being reflective, I understand why it's taken me so long to do this "final" blog post to sum up what this cadre experience has been for me. I like to put pretty bows on things and wrap them up into an easy to understand package, but I'm endlessly messy. I want things to be so perfect, but I'm really a crunched box full of unrelated items I have no idea how to classify and probably have no business lumping together. I wait so long to reflect on a single experience because I seek connections...

It's 8am - Why are all these people excited to learn about classroom management in a personalized learning environment with Patrick Green ? Because this is what we all want but have NO idea how to do! Gerry Brooks is hilarious. I would like the link to his talk. Also, he is my spirit animal. Alexa, how can you make my life better in the classroom? She already does! I need to look into building skills as I haven't dived in on that yet. Apps I Now Have To Try: Emoji Builder FlipGrid Talking Points Canva (Already used it, but I forget...) Videezy Loom - Screencasting software, user friendly Career Village Lastpass Novel Effect xplorlabs - FORENSICS!!!!! Thinking App - track student activity Sero  - Mindmapping as assessment Books I Now Have To Read: The End of Average by Todd Rose Classroom Management in the Digital Age by Heather Dowd and Patrick Green Be REAL by Tara Miller SO MANY MORE!!! Mostly, more questions than answers, more to do, bu...

NCCE Day 2- Here are my biggest take-aways from Day 2 of the Conference. Love Kids Into Learning: Tara Martin, author of Be REAL , taught us how to use the "Innovator's Compass" as a quick way to create family classroom culture and quick start student relationships. The process is authentic, real, and vulnerable, but impactful and long-lasting. Lots of potential here for classroom use - particularly beginning of term and something to be revisited throughout the year to document personal growth. I would like to know more about using this technique to teach students how to ask thoughtful questions and determine first steps. IE, how to I make this assignment/content specific? She mentioned this strategy can be used to help students learn to ask good questions. Impress Me Digitally: I was hoping very much to learn about some tools to make available for our students doing the Impress Me project. I imagine VERY few of them have any experience making a video or digital pr...