Cathy Nelson’s Professional Thoughts

Okay so Wordle has been the rage in the bloggosphere of late, and many are making tag clouds for their Delicious Accounts. I can’t because I hate to admit this, but my delicious account is a mess, one that I seriously need to take the time and clean up. Why? I have tags that only [...]

What can you do in just fifteen minutes? Write a “to do” list Fold a load of clothes Start supper Take a short nap Read a Newspaper Take the dog out for a walk Now obviously this list could go on and on, and I don’t mean to belittle any of the tasks that I [...]

While I had hoped the class I virtually participated in for a backchannel discussion on the chapter on meaning would focus on meaningful learning, I guess that was a lofty hope. Only teachers can truly make that connection, I suppose. This was the last chapter of Karl Fisch’s school project where the students in English [...]

What do the pictures on this post tell us about these students’ engagement? Can you tell who is “into” the lesson, and who is not? Sometimes engagement is painfully obvious, and other times it isn’t. Can anyone tell I had a LOT of staff development in recent years on this?? As a staff we were [...]

“The business of schools is to design, create, and invent high-quality, intellectually demanding schoolwork that students find engaging.” – Phillip C. Schlechty The key to school success is to be found in identifying or creating engaging schoolwork for students. – Phillip C. Schlechty The Working on the Work (WOW) framework is an outline for improving [...]