Here is a four panel image created by the artists in our Portland workshop. I can’t remember the story, but the reason I post it here is to ask anyone working with emergent stories if they, because we want to keep our stories shorter with the Invisibles (25 min. is the ideal), agree with me […]

We must align our instruction with our curriculum and with our assessment. The three must go together. This I learned from Claire Ensor and she, I think, from John Biggs. We cannot teach using CI and then turn around and assess and design curriculum with a non-CI approach. Our curriculum designs and our current assessment

When students sense that the instructor is attempting to force learning on them, they instinctively draw back. In the moment they draw back, distance is created, and discipline problems can result. We must find a way to draw our students into the learning. If we focus on the solution, one day we will go into

If anyone is needing a script, here’s a nice one, in three different levels which is very cool, from Jim: http://www.trippsscripts.com/single-post/2016/09/18/NEW-Story-Script—The-Concert

Schools have put even the most loving of teachers in a position of being forced to assign grades and rank their students based on how quickly they are able to grasp concepts in their conscious minds – from “mastering” a target structure in a certain period of time, to being able to perform a mathematical

We have two Jens here, one Jen and one jen. The first is Jen Sparano in NJ and the other is jen schongalla in New Hampshire. Just to be clear on that. Jen posts less than jen but both have been members of our community for years and years. Now, we just got this comment

With unruly students, we can work with one other colleague within our department, or our entire department can work together, to function as baby sitters for those kids who just bring the vibe in the room down. We haven’t talked about it in a long time and I am thrilled that Sean remembered it and suggested

It might be interesting for some group members here to read something John wrote here on the PLC five years ago in 2011 on the topic of using CI instruction in the Latin classroom: https://benslavic.com/blog/john-piazza-on-latin/

The Annoying Orange technique is a tool that under the right circumstances can be very effective with distant or passively aggressive kids. Here’s how it works: I sense, as I am trying to reach the kids, distance between me and some kid in the room that day. I don’t want to have to deal with it,

Here is the Latin text John referred to in the previous post. Given as a reading after nine days of only the Circling with Balls activity to start the year, I would venture to state that for a first year class to be comfortably reading texts like the one below in only their second week, something

Hi Ben – I am so excited to be able to tell you that I am breaking through. For the first time in two years, I can begin to relax and be comfortable with who I am in front of my students. I am not feeling constantly judged and scrutinized. You know how trying that

I got called by a member of our PLC a “grandstander” for promoting the Invisibles. And Diana Noonan chewed me out in a comment here a few months ago over my position re: testing, which position more reflects what Claire Ensor is saying, for those who have been reading the blog consistently over recent months and who, like me,