Tech Tip Thursday: Padlet

Ever need to gather all your students responses or ideas in one place? Need help putting a twist on your everyday activities? Padlet is a wonderful tool to help with that. This week's Tech Thursday is all about using Padlet in the classroom. I was first introduced to Padlet as a way to share learning experiences during my first Ed Tech Team GAFE Summit. I was sucked in from the moment I click on the shared link and starting sharing and reading about my colleagues experiences in the different sessions.

Meeting Students Where They Are: Tiered Assignments and Activities

I was told by an amazing administrator years ago that, "Parents send the best kid to us that they have." They can't send us what they don't have and we have to work with what we have. We, as educators, like to some times play the blame game, myself included, and we must do better. We can not control what students come to us with and how involved parents and/or guardians are outside of school so we have to, for a lack of a better way to put it, "work with what we have" and ensure that all of our students are successful. Small wins and big wins are still WINS. I'll take it! That's where my inspirations for this blog post comes into play, Tiered Instruction. Tiered Instruction is a way to differientate for your students. It allows you to provide leveled assignments and activities that meet the students where they are in an effort to bring them up to where you need them to be.

Five Things for this School Year

I was inspired by Kristy, @LoudenClearBlog, to reflect on last school year and think about what I'd like to focus on this year for 2017-2018. I've had a very restful summer. I chose to focus on family and professional growth this summer. I've since gone back to school and we just ended week 4 of 36. Although I had a hard time narrowing my list down to 5, I think I have it squared away and I'm ready to apply my list for a productive and successful school year.