I remember having a conversation with an elementary art teacher about 12 years ago whereby she lamented over a question posed by a student regarding an art project.  "Can I be done?," the student asked.  The teacher responded, "I don't know can you?"  Only the artist knows when he or she is done.  Artwork, like any other work in school - math or science tasks, historical or literary analysis, etc. is an exploration of understanding that should not be guided by a process akin to…

I came across the following post on The Committed Sardine (a great site to check out).

Inspired by Sandy Speicher’s vision of the designed school day of the future, reader Shelly Blake-Plock shared his own predictions of that ideal day. How close are we to this? The post was written in December 2009, and Blake-Plock says he’s seeing some of these already beginning to come to fruition.

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Recently I had the opportunity to spend the better part of 12 hours engaged in a series of professional development workshops.  Three presenters offered insight into a particular strand of educational practice, focusing on two primary aspects of our effectiveness as educators.  Two of them looked at issues related to literacy, and the third presenter examined the nature of teacher effectiveness through the lens of a practice known as instructional rounds.  Spending 12 hours immersed…