Kaulbach's Modern World

Long ago, my husband and I found each other because we love stories that celebrate the individual, who has lost something of value. Striving against the odds, against the enemy the hero discovers powers along the way, creates alliances and return from an unordinary place, reflective and changed. What was lost is found with so much more. Why can't education be this sort of revelation? For anyone who loves some or all of this story frame, we presented an open invitation to our game construct at the Tri-Association in Costa Rica. We whittled it down from a passion project into a presentation for any educator of any content in any subject area.  A Hero's Journey, Promoting Global Game Collaboration  involves a simple notion; students gain contextual knowledge within the construct of a story. The game becomes an incentive or reward for classroom learning. Unlocking levels of classroom content through a series of puzzles and locks.   The backstory is the hero's ...

We are starting with the power of student voice not teacher voice. And a slide show of students put to a poignant hip hop song - all my life I've been struggling. Where do we go from here? Straight to the top. This is definitely something I'm not doing enough of in class. I give students a chance for voice but is it empowering? Not yet. This music is sooooo empowering This is so awesome. Why not start a day with just a bit more happiness? Here I am at @hightechhigh and we are starting the day with a teacher band

Like most teachers in New England I start the school year off sprinting and then lose energy at the same time the students do, right after high school playoffs and Halloween.  Our first report cards are sent home at this time and I only mention this because it is also timed well with our third annual haunted high. Kids scare the pants off each other and scream a little too loudly. It seems that they are not so much as frightened as they are releasing steam. Are they screaming at teachers? Screaming at low grades? Or is is teen angst, Nirvana style? What is important is that this tradition continues because it is engaging. Jumping off such enthusiasm is hard and "where to go from here" is constantly on my mind.  In my 20 year career I have seldom had an easy year. Every new administration has pushed for reforms that add hours to my work day. I am one of those educators who follows the rules and works as much as can be expected.  This push to prepare for the Common Core ...

Link to published article   At TER While it can't be said for all professions everyone I know remembers a teacher who changed their world in a positive way. It was a teacher who helped me love learning and who made me think I was going to fantastic when I grew up. For most people that teacher was someone they encountered in their youth but for me it happened to be my daughter's kindergarten teacher. She is organized, enthusiastic, creative and kind. She had a reputation of being a stable force in education because of her forty one years of experience yet was one of the first to embrace 21st century digital technologies.  I was questioning my own educational practices when I first met her and was struck by this thought:  while every child in kindergarten was excited to learn the same can't be said for every student in my high school classroom. Curiosity got the best of me so I studied my daughter's experiences. I took notes on how this teacher hooked students on math a...

Last night I was flipping through old photo albums, reminiscing about my first years in teaching which seem so sunny and bright. I know that I have gained efficiency, patience and organization since I first began yet forced changes in education have me questioning my assurances. Change insinuates that everything I have been doing was somehow wrong. Or in means that the vision I have promoted is suddenly coming to fruition. Those who institute change I regard warily since they are likely to move on in their careers without looking back. It makes sense to turn some attention to the veterans of education who still arrive to work with smiles, take on new challenges and converse without cynicism.  These veterans of education have also been coaches who  took me under wing when I was still a high school student. I adored them as individuals could not tell you where coaching began and where the teaching ended. They devoted endless time to us. Later, under their tutelage I began...

Finishing my Masters in Literacy means organizing and reorganizing my portfolio of competencies and taking one last class on reading disabilities. Instead of writing formal papers I am using my weekly conferences and readings provided by a local expert to reshape my classroom instruction. This week, I brought the focus to US History.  My department is rebuilding it's curricula unit by unit. Instead of one unit on WWII I suggested two units.  I think an overview of global engagement is one approach followed by a unit on North American values and identities shaped by war. I am using the theme of story sharing to help students become engaged.  Storycorps became a place to start, followed by interviews and podcasts found on NPR.  I had read about the need for students who struggle with reading to gain confidence for inquiry by engaging in a culture of a particular study.  Too many of my students are too young to have living relatives connected directly to World W...

published links: E Literacy Changes Everything                   gaming                   gaming dialogue The majority of homework in elementary schools and high schools tends to be practice or preparation leaving less than 30% for integration, interpretation opportunities ( Brozo, 2010 ). The Common Core  is shifting assessment from a focus on skills and gains of knowledge to information analysis, critical evaluation, and expression of new understanding (CCSSI; www.corestandards.org). This means our standard practices in education are not necessarily preparing students for the Common Core.  Instead of causing great alarm this lead me to reexamine isolated practices in our literacy program that could be improved to promote information analysis and new understanding.   Review of our fall diagnostic testing allowed me to isolate inference questions as a common miscue.  5...

Screenleap        is a fantastic tool for distance learning. Flatdaddy needed to share  Haiku learning platform with me. Using Screenleap, he talked me through the tutorial as I watched him navigate his own screen from my laptop here in New Mexico.  This tech to tech connection gave me the impression that screenleap could be a useful conferencing tool to use with my own students absent from class. Students who attend ski academy, who move temporarily, who hunt for weeks at a time would not have to have the excuse of losing a classroom connection.  Does this excuse students from meeting daily in the classroom?  I think it makes a class of students reliant on each other if what they are missing is truly interactive. This is why I teach lessons that revolve around situation gaming both online and offline. Admittedly, I can improve how I actually blend the learning environments. image courtesy of Wikipedia.  Scribblenaut was introduced to m...