As a K-5 international educator it’s not often that we’re discussing ways to promote safe spaces for LGBTQ members of the community. It’s almost as though it’s a taboo subject for elementary educators and you only start to see Rainbow flags appearing when students enter middle school. Where does the teaching of Diverse Family Structures…
How can we minimise mid-year teacher burnout? Every teacher can articulate at least one moment in the year where it all feels like too much. Typically, it hits us sometime in November (near report-writing time) and/or in March/April (when we’ve passed the halfway point but there is still so much left to do!). A few weeks…
How can we #cultivate effective learning spaces to start the new school year? After my first attempt one year ago at using a theme to guide my classroom design (see previous post Dare to Ditch Desks) I decided to build on my previous learning and incorporate a more purposeful design approach based on ideas from…
“Look at your learning space with 21st century eyes: Does it work for what we know about learning today, or just for what we know about learning in the past?” Sir Ken Robinson: The Third Teacher (2010) This year I decided to take a big risk… I removed half the desks from my classroom. [This…
Innovative Learning in the Elementary Classroom 