These icebreakers provide an opportunity to lay the groundwork for building relationships and identify the Habits of Mind that are critical behaviors for building the quality of those relationships.
The Depth Behind Icebreakers
Category: Shawna Parkinson
Heart/Mind Questions Are A Personalized Learning Option
Heart/Mind questions are a personalized learning option that honors the student’s process of learning at the moment teaching is occurring. To rob our students of this chance of self-discovery or reflection is to take away the power of the Read More …
Planning For The Fall: First Steps to Co-Creating a Curriculum Story
Some might expect that as I head back to school this year that the only, singular thing on my mind is the worry of the Coronavirus. To acknowledge this, I would share that I am actively studying safety measures, and Read More …
Our First Class Design Challenge
Typical practice in many high school English classrooms is to have students examine two opposing writer’s views on a debatable topic and then develop their own personal stances using supporting evidence. The debatable topics are current, rich in complexity, and Read More …
Prioritizing Investigation and Choice in Student Learning
While I am definitely a learner in personalized learning, my revelation this week has been that we should “lean away” from unit design and lesson plan design that involves one master planner and “lean into” design that feels less structured, Read More …
Nurturing a “Literacy of Me”
This school year I began to lead a book study on the Quest for Learning: How to Maximize Student Engagement and found myself powerfully reminded that our students need to not only form learning networks in our physical classroom spaces, Read More …
Nurturing the Seeds of Talent and Passion within Learners
When I was twenty years old, I was standing in Benton Hall at Miami University, talking with my education professor after our 7 p.m. night class. While talking with my professor, I remember having a passionate conversation about the importance Read More …
Honoring “The Why” in Unit Design and Instruction
Over the past few years of teaching English to high school juniors, I have become increasingly aware of the competitive nature of our students’ post-secondary opportunities. With so many students planning to be engineers, architects, accountants and the like, I have Read More …
Wading into the Water of Personalized Learning
Writing this on the second day of school, I don’t mind sharing that I am happily exhausted! This feeling is the result of my own passion for teaching and the collaborative energy happening inside my classroom. To those of you Read More …