#Whatsup Wildcats - Classroom Edition

"True beauty is born through our actions and aspirations and in the kindness we offer to others." ~Alek Wek With the chaos of finals, the end of the semester, and the added holiday stress, I am always thankful for some fun classroom events that boost positive energy and remind us that our students are pretty awesome. Over the past two years, I've been invited to visit the Peer Partners Adapted PE classes during finals week to judge their holiday dance competitions. Let me tell you...if you are in need of some excitement and entertainment during this stressful time, this is the place to be. I walked out of every period smiling ear to ear after witnessing the true excitement some of our students have for school and the passion other students have for helping and supporting their peers. Every year, the students in Mr. James Kennedy's Peer Partners class work to choreograph, practice, and perfect a holiday dance to perform for their class, peers, teachers, and teach

The end of first semester is quickly approaching, and the students are in survival mode. Yes, my friends, final exams are upon us, and students are anxiously trying to finish up semester items and prepare for the various assessments awaiting them next week. As a school, we are constantly thinking about ways to alleviate students stress during this time of year. It is a daunting task; however, we fight the good fight and continue to provide time, strategies, and graphic organizers to help students properly and sufficiently prepare...without losing their minds. This year, I've been thinking a lot about how we can help prepare our students for performance-based assessments. For various classes, students are assessed on skills that cannot be measured on a scantron: Writing, speaking, collaboration, creativity, and so forth. While we can provide note-taking and graphic organizer-style resources to help our students prepare for these assessments, I observed English teacher, Mrs. Ally

I am excited this week to be co-authoring a post with my #BFF and partner in all things EdTech  Steve Wick .  Steve is a science teacher and Instructional Technology Coordinator at Neuqua Valley High School. We will be cross-posting this story on his blog “ Know Your Why ”. If you’ve never had a chance to explore Steve’s blog, I highly recommend that you change that today. Steve provides some awesome insights about teaching and learning for all levels of students. One of the perks of our profession is that we get to be lifelong learners and can use what we learn to enhance and transform instructional practices in our classroom. We believe that teachers need to make time for these celebrations and conversations, as they provide awesome learning experiences. With our busy schedules, it can be difficult to find time to share what we are doing in our classrooms with other teachers in the building. With with this in mind, we decided to have our teachers take ownership of our Third CAFE Conn