The intersection of pedagogy and practice. Whether it’s high school science or corporate software training, these posts explore how we design effective learning experiences for humans.

You might imagine that I would be a big fan of using novel presentation technologies like Prezi or FlowVella. I am… sometimes… but pretty rarely. Much more frequently I would prefer to use Google Slides or PowerPoint. I also think it is a better idea to teach students how to use these ubiquitous tools rather than have them rely on a flashy and/or proprietary format.

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I am a big believer in the helpfulness of digital calendars. Both at home and school, I have detailed schedules marking out all of my temporal obligations for as far out into the future as I can.

My school, like I am sure many others, has a rotation schedule that matches no calendar software on the planet. For many years I was forced to copy and paste each of the four calendar permutations throughout the school year to get my class rotation into my school calendar.

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I have a longer post about how I have students go through a reflection process for the presentations they give in my classes.

As part of my process for developing their presentation skills, we watch this video a few times and talk about all of the phenomenal displays of oration that Guy Pierce demonstrates in this video.

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I just started listening to the Cult of Pedagogy podcast. This episode about mastery learning is a strong start to the show and gives me hope that I might have found an educational podcast that is actually good!

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Four high school students collaborating around a table in a science classroom, each working on tablets with protective cases, with Biology, Chemistry, and Physics posters visible on the walls and additional students working at tables in the background

Since I was a kid, the start of the school year has always been a sour point in my year, not because that meant Summer was over, but because the tedium of Welcome activities was fast approaching. In this post I share my process and product for making the first day of school a little more bearable.

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