To start I wanted to talk about summer. We're about a week and a half from school starting here so summer is running out of time. My educational summer has consisted of three main things. First...we presented at Flip-Con. It was awesome! I'm sure we were horrible, but being around like-minded educators was just completely amazing. Great to share and hear great ideas from people who flip like us. Second...I've been reading John Hattie's book on Visible Learning. Pretty interesting stuff about what really works in education based on more than just one study. I was happy to see that things at the core of how we have chosen to teach are really quite effective (mastery learning, frequent feedback among others).
The third thing I've done this summer dealing with school is of course work on lessons. The great thing about what we've created is that we discover what works in our lessons and what doesn't work. I've spent a great deal of time this summer fixing things that didn't work (or flat out mistakes). This hasn't been fun...but it is worthwhile. I remember talking to Brust on some random Wednesday in July and asked him, "How many other teachers do you think are up at midnight in the middle of summer working on their craft?" I'm quite sure more than I'd think to be honest.
All right...well...first attempt is down. Hopefully it gets better from here.
Sully