Amplifiers Create a New Story: Day 3 at #SXSWEDU
…I may ramble in this post. It’s 1am. I’m tired! Have a head cold. But wanted to share my learnings… 🤪🤪 Do I really have to go home tomorrow? It’s going to be hard to walk away from… Read More
Connectors Connect: Day 2 at #SXSWEDU
Next time I decide to stay up and blog at 1am, I hope I remember how tired I am today and force myself to go to sleep! Seriously… what was I thinking?!? Today’s SXSWEDU experience was truly about… Read More
My Community of Weavers: Day 1 at #SXSWEDU
David Brooks, Executive Director of the Aspen Project, kicked off SXSWEDU with a call to all educators to build a community of weavers, and not rippers. According to the program guide, Weave: The Social Fabric Project, operates with… Read More
The Overachievers and the Unengaged
The overwhelming majority of students today want learning to be active, not passive. They want to be challenged to think and to solve problems that do not have easy solutions. They want to know why they are being… Read More
Change Isn’t Glittery
When working on cultural shifts, it can be easy to get frustrated when change doesn’t come fast enough, bold enough, or loud enough. We want glitter and ticker tape parades to reassure us that we’re doing the right… Read More
It’s All About the Soft Skills
Read an article today called, “Teens Rate Soft Skills More Vital Than Hard Skills.” The author, Dian Schaffhauser, opened by discussing how teens incorrectly rate the soft skills of self-confidence, communication, leadership and teamwork as more critical than… Read More
Book Read: Design for Strengths
“‘You can have all the right answers, but it doesn’t matter if you are answering the wrong question.’ The willingness to circle back and challenge the central question and continue to ask it in a better way –… Read More
Exploring Agency & Personalization
For the past few months, I’ve had the pleasure of working alongside our county office’s Assessment, Accountability, and Evaluation Unit, as well as some of our teachers, to better understand the principles of agency and personalization. As these… Read More
Agency Through FortNite? Sure. Why not?
Fortnite, and other games like it, require students to practice “teamwork, collaboration, strategic thinking, spatial understanding, and imagination,”  Stanford Graduate School of Education experts say. 5th graders would agree, although they didn’t realize it at first. I’ve been working… Read More
Lucid Wonderings
I’ve been overwhelmed lately by life changes – my Navy daughter moved to the East Coast for her first duty assignment; my boyfriend and I bought a house; my work responsibilities have increased; and I have resumed teaching… Read More
Book Read: Building a Better Teacher
I thought I knew the history of American education. After all, I had studied John Dewey in school, and isn’t he the source of all things education? Guess not, according to Building a Better Teacher by Elizabeth Green. Turns… Read More
You Have To Find Ways Around Things
I received this email from a colleague: In the mix of conferences… What if…. We completely reimagined what that looked like??? How would we make that change? It made me think about IDEO’s blog vignettes called “Thoughtless Acts.”… Read More
Laura K Spencer, Ed.D. 