Desktop Learning Adventures

The squeaky wheel gets the grease, which is true for a number of situations.  Take a classroom, for example. Those students who act out, talk out, and disrupt others are constantly in need of teacher "grease" to get them back on track.  Finally, I'd reached the point where I had enough. For too long I would go home with a headache from responding to the negative forces that take over a classroom. I would commiserate with teacher friends, telling the same stories over and over - broken record extraordinaire! My eureka moment came as I said these words out loud, "It's just not fair to the kids who want to learn and are doing great things!" That's it! Kids Caught Doing Great Things! It started slowly, as I consciously noticed and thanked one student for cleaning up the science equipment without being asked, while ignoring her lab partner who blowing bubbles through his pen casing.  He stopped blowing and helped his lab partner clean up! Anothe...

I recently spent way too much time on Facebook talking parents off the math homework ledge.  I'm sure you've see these posts from time to time - the ones where they post a picture of a math problem and ask, "Can you believe what they want my kid to do?" Our scene opens with Johnny at the kitchen table.  It plays out something like this: Johnny: Can you help me with this math? I don't get it. Parent takes 3 or 4 or 12 deep breaths, looks at the problem, tries to sound calm but remembers their own math challenges as a kid.  Parent: I don't know.  This isn't the way I learned math.  I can't believe they're asking you to do this! It's ridiculous.  Johnny starts crying and Parent vows to call the school in the morning, complaining about these impossible problems.  Scene fades... But wait! Before you make that phone call, here's why this teacher gives math homework... Math homework is a way for the teacher to see wha...