It’s the day after Halloween, so it’s pretty fitting that today I’m coming back from the dead and finally blogging again! The past few weeks have been crazy for me, as I attended not one but two international science ed conferences which had me jet-setting around to Athens and Barcelona (don’t you feel sorry for us international educators??).
My travels (and subsequent opportunities to do some reading) has left my mind buzzing with new ideas- I’ve probably got enough material to post for the rest of the year. So here’s a little teaser of some things to come:
- Nuggets of wisdom from Dr. Fran Prolman’s outstanding teacher leadership institute including strategies for building effective teacher teams and how to deal with “difficult conversations” with parents or other teacher
- Thoughts on how to reinvigorate the tired elementary science fair, including a new online student manual that I’m creating for the NESA Virtual Science Fair which my school is involved with
- Reflections on progressive education and radical school reform after reading Alfie Kohn’s The Schools Our Children Deserve
- Forecasting the future of textbooks after being inspired by Al Gore’s iPad app e-book thingamajiggy Our Choice
- And finally wrapping up the discussion of pre and post assessments, with some statistics for dummies
Great- now I’ve got a nice long to-do list for myself. Stay tuned!
My name is Nick Mitchell, and I love the art and science of teaching.
The Scientific Teacher 
Hi Nick! It is Fran Prolman. I am glad to see you have a blog about the teacher leadership NESA institute! What did you write? Please share. I would love to read your thoughts. All the bet,
Fran
Hi Fran! Great to hear from you. 🙂 Unfortunately I haven’t gotten around to blogging about your institute- I haven’t blogged about much of anything the second half of this year, being seriously swamped with the science fair and a collaborative science teacher workshop I organized. But stay tuned! The ideas and strategies from your institue have come in handy many times this year, and I’d love to share my reflections about them.