How does your district hear from — and listen to — students?
Burke students share their learning with district leaders How many school board meetings have you sat through where the only
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Author: Audrey Homan
Get started podcasting with students
New to podcasts? Listen to a few! Before you jump into creating a podcast, get familiar with the format. Here
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Tools for broadening reflection
There is very little learning without reflection. John Dewey himself noted: “We do not learn from experience… we learn from
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Fractions, Llamas, Self-Directed Learning
Tasha Grey’s Learning Lab Reflection: As much as I love division with fractions, and think it makes perfect sense,
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Student-led conferences come to Leland & Gray
Change is hard! And changing a school procedure that has been the same forever is even harder! Leland and Gray
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16 tips for writing a great blog post
#10 will shock and appall you… Here are 16 best practices we try to follow as writers on this blog.
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This Is Really Scary (And I’ve Never Been More Excited)
When asked “what is your working definition of personalized learning?” Charlie Herzog, an educator at Flood Brook replied: “Relevancy is
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How to build teacher advisory
Peoples Academy Middle Level shares their action research “It’s getting personal”. Peoples Academy Middle Level teachers discuss how they’ve created
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The athlete, the artist & the PLP
How Passion Projects can fire up a student-led conference Julia is a student at Frederick H. Tuttle Middle School, in
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Randolph students turn digital audio producers with PBL
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Flexible pathways in digital music We had a chance to hear from student digital audio producers at Randolph Union High
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4 ways twitter bots can help save the world
The Good, the Bad, and the Bot What does it look like when twitter bots work towards improving our world?
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What does service learning look like in Vermont?
Leland & Gray students take on a school community makeover At Leland & Gray Union Middle High School, students decided
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3 ways to use virtual bulletin boards
Padlet, Google Keep and Corkulous — oh my! 1.Padlet Padlet’s been a go-to for a number of our educators for
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Building a chicken coop at The Dorset School
How do you get fresh eggs on a school menu? Students at The Dorset School, in Dorset VT, did
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How to get students to communicate with families
Welcome to the Best Part of My Week And yours, likely. Peoples Academy Middle Level educator Joe Speers shares how
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5 resources for building community
Starting how you mean to go on New year, new students. New school, sometimes, and a whole new opportunity to
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What will your #1st5days be like this year?
Welcome back! You’re doing amazing. Oh those heady #1st5days of school. So much shrieking, so much laughter — and students
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How to make a mini-documentary
You’ve captured video of ALL THE THINGS. You’ve diligently trained your device on the action as some truly amazing work has
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4 ways to jazz up a school exhibition
Going beyond the gallery walk Exhibition season is upon us! And as you’re making ready to throw open the doors
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3 #GlobalGoals projects feeding Vermont
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What do the Global Goals look sound like in action? The three Essex Middle School students who delivered the keynote
Read moreHow to bake an inspiring kickoff video
Launching a new project cycle with inspiration from the last one Organizing your realia — testimonials, storytelling and artifacts —
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How can students teach educators about social identity?
A trio of Tuttle 6th graders led educators from around Vermont through activities in bias-awareness and social identity at the
Read more3 tech-rich ways to study local history
Place-based learning with real world implications For your students, learning about the local landscape can be amazing. What’s that tree?
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Having the hard conversations in Southern Vermont
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It takes a village to talk about substance abuse with students Londonderry, VT-based non-profit The Collaborative is in its 14th
Read moreSelf-care for educators
4 ways to stay well and focused heading into the holidays It’s that time of the year again: you’re almost
Read moreHappy Thanksgiving from the Tarrant Institute
We’re #vtgrateful for you This Thanksgiving, we’re grateful for the entire #vted community. For everyone working hard in supporting innovative
Read moreDigital badges as evidence of flexible pathways
Realizing the promise of micro-credentialing As teachers and students grapple with how to implement proficiency-based assessment, flexible pathways and personalized
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The student architects of Shelburne VT
Making math real-world relevant Would you tell the school board how to redesign your school? Students at Shelburne Community School,
Read moreHow to start a difficult conversation
Conversations begin at home. And at the bus stop. Also the market. And– So much of the change we need
Read moreWhat it looks like when students teach
“It really is nice being able to teach others. I know that I had an effect on them.” The Essex
Read moreSummer reading time!
Summertime, and the reading is easy Or is it? We checked in with a few of the folks here at
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Checking in with Stowe & PAML’s peer PLP collaboration
When last we left the students of these two plucky Vermont middle schools, they had managed to connect students and
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Sharing STEAM projects with families
Proctor’s STEAM Family Night The sleepy little town of Proctor VT, is making some big waves when it comes to
Read moreMachinima: using video games for storytelling
Be an X-Box Hero (with stars in your eyes)* Meet machinima. The word’s a portmanteau of “machine” and “cinema”. It’s
Read moreDynamic Landscapes 2017: the power of authentic #vted student voice
Standard 3-part story-driven post: 1) what it is, 2) what it looks like in a school, 3) how to do it in your school
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What we can learn from brand new educators
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What advice would your 7th grade self give you about teaching? Remember when you were first starting out as an educator?
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Scheduling and student choice
The middle school team at Rutland Town School in Rutland, VT have been working on a more fully integrated implementation
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How to use Google Docs so students talk to you
Using technology to help build relationships [Editorial Note: We originally ran this post back in 2014, but have updated it
Read moreHow do adverse childhood events affect student performance?
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Cognitive outcomes vs intersectional traumas We talk with legendary awesome stats guy Mark Olofson — now Dr. Legendary Awesome Stats
Read more4 ways of finding copyright-friendly media
The art of the responsible remix With the incredible popularity and ease of digital mediamaking comes great responsibility. As students unlock the power
Read moreLooking at ways students can create VR content
Standard 3-part story-driven post: 1) what it is, 2) what it looks like in a school, 3) how to do it in your school
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The great Brian Eno-powered STEAM PBL caper
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Wondering how to blend project-based learning with STEAM? Yes, STEAM: Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math. Earlier this year we
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Student TED Talks, sound sculptures and a funk band
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Student exhibitions of project-based learning At this point we all know how important it is for students to share project-based
Read moreData shows #vted leads nation in educators on Twitter
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Vermont’s new leading role online In today’s podcast, Mark Olofson talks with Joshua Rosenberg and Spencer Greenhalgh, education researchers from
Read moreProfiles in Educator Excellence: Laura Botte
Recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math & Science Teaching Laura Botte, a 6th grade math educator at
Read moreTackling school change as a community
Community conversations about education What would you tell your neighbors about your school? What do you think they’d say in
Read moreInnovative VT educators in the news
#vted = #vtexcellence A number of Vermont educators have been in the news lately, achieving and being recognized for the
Read moreHow can students reflect on their PLPs?
Students themselves tell the best stories of their learning We wish we could hand you the one right way for
Read moreIdle-Free Vermont in Shelburne
8th grade scientists tackle carbon emissions at a busy traffic circle This past year, Shelburne Community School middle grades students
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VT Secretary of Education speaks on equity in Vermont
“I don’t believe you can be an educator committed to student voice and not be a powerful advocate for equity.”
Read moreWhat work-based learning in Vermont can look like
On exploring flexible pathways to learning This past August, Vermont Secretary of Education Dr Rebecca Holcombe addressed the 2016 Amplifying
Read moreHow proficient are you with proficiency-based learning?
#vted weighs in again on twitter Is your school implementing proficiency-based learning? It’s an idea that’s taking hold all over,
Read moreMeet @ThisIsVTED
A twitter showcase of amazing Vermont schools Wish you could see more of the innovative ways Vermont students and educators
Read more4 digital identity exercises for students
Introduce a student-centered tech-rich year Looking for ways to explore digital identity with students? Here are 4 student-centered, tech-rich digital
Read moretwitter etiquette
Modeling twitter interactions as an educator and parent With twitter’s explosive growth in popularity with educators, it can get a
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Use Thinglink to explore identity
Creating and sharing digital selves I’m participating in Thinglink’s Summer VR Challenge, and the first exercise in the challenge is
Read moreSocial reading tools for summer reading
Audrey’s 2016 summer reading list I’ve been thinking a lot lately about where technology fits into reading. Not just the
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Negotiated curriculum and project-based learning
Building a democratic classroom at The Edge Part of the power of implementing a negotiated curriculum is that it doesn’t
Read moreNegotiated curriculum at the unit level
Set boundaries, then let students drive the conversation Negotiated curriculum is the idea that you can assemble a curriculum for
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Mathew’s Y.E.A.R. at The Compass School
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Scaffolding year-end reflections At The Compass School in Westminster, Vermont, students advance through grades by producing evidence of their accomplishments
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Making history on the radio with community partners
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Middle school students power Brattleboro’s radio days Brattleboro, Vermont was incorporated back in 1753, a former military fort that embraced
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Implementing 1:1 norms and digital citizenship
How do student behaviors change? Debi Serafino, a math teacher at Brattleboro Area Middle School, presents the results of her semester-long action
Read moreHow Vermont middle grades educators are powering up PLPs this summer
Why the 2016 Middle Grades Institute may be the most important one yet New podcast ep: We visit with educators
Read moreInteractive map tools for creating deeper place-based learning
Revisiting the possibilities of student-created geographies The rate at which technology changes has reached a dizzying speed, with new tools
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