The iTeach Blog

Hey there, readers! We are trying something new on the iTeach Blog this year. In addition to answering your questions every month, we will periodically feature posts written by guest bloggers. This week, iTeach Director Stephanee Stephens is sharing insight about setting your intentions for the new year. “New year, New you!” “It’s time for a Glow-Up!” “Out with the old and in with the new!” I could keep listing out catchphrases, but you get the point! This time of year, everyone is keen to set new goals, clean up their surroundings, and begin a new year (or semester) with fresh energy. I, for one, am happy folks are happy - Any chance we have in education to celebrate, reset, and be happy, we can’t afford to miss! I have been thinking and studying intention a lot over the last year. I sure do wish I had stumbled upon setting intentions earlier in my career. Goals are specific achievements focused on the future, while intentions represent an awareness of who, what, or how w...

The wrong analogy at the wrong time Education tends to lend itself to the term “race” a lot, maybe the most influential the 2009 “Race to the Top” campaign to reward innovation in education. Education espouses acceptance and even encouragement of otherness with which this metaphor doesn’t align. Races are for sprinters or marathoners to win or lose. The classroom and education are places to experiment and fail and learn, where failure and coming in second shouldn’t be demonized. We wouldn’t punish the second student to finish an exam with less than 100% if they deserve their 100. They learned the lesson. The individualized path champions self-advocacy, perseverance, and, ultimately, understanding of knowledge for students. 30 Lesson Plans?! Not what we have in mind A better analogy than a race, would be a bowling alley where students are the bowling balls, each with their own path to knock all of the pins down. While some students roll themselves right through all 10 pins, ...

These days, when pressed for time to deliver content with the pacing guide, the digital tools and techniques we use with our students are sometimes limited to online activities, video resources and unit projects.  But we forget that it is often just as easy to incorporate new technology into those three old school learning areas:  reading, writing & arithmetic!  Our students sometimes struggle with seeing the relevance of what we do in the classroom with what they experience in the real world, having to often shut themselves down when they enter class and getting hooked up the moment they get home.  But what if there were a way we could use tools like  Seesaw ,  Skitch ,  Google Classroom  and  Office 365  to motivate kids to complete their work while using it to demonstrate what they have learned at the same time?  As teachers, we often have difficulty finding time to fit in just one more thing, but are also guilty of forgetti...