In the 15 years since diving headfirst into Project-Based Learning (PBL), I’ve connected with amazing educators doing some type of project-based learning and/or inquiry-based learning (whether it be Genius Hour, 20% Time, or any…
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My first full year of teaching was as an eighth-grade language arts teacher. It was my dream job at the time. I loved the energy of middle school students, and…
I used to think all I needed to create something that mattered was passion and I was wrong. It turns out passion/interest might start the engine and get the creative…
Students continue to fall into the same trap year after year with traditional schooling. They rarely have a chance to choose their learning path in school, and routinely treat school…
When Khan Academy burst onto the scene my initial reaction was to laugh. What was so special about it? The more and more I thought about Khan Academy and the…
If you are going through a deep period of reflection at the end of the school year (or even a short period) and are thinking about how to get recharged,…
It is a blessing and a curse. Over the past 10-20 years, there have been numerous books, articles, and videos centered around the idea of cognitive science—or the science of…
In the 1930’s there was a young boy who had become addicted to and obsessed with eating sugar. His mother decided to get help and took the long and hot journey with her son…
Last year over 100,000 students from four different continents participated in our third annual Global Day of Design. The hashtag went viral as students and teachers shared and launched their creative projects all…
You may have heard this story: A group of blind men heard that a strange animal, called an elephant, had been brought to the town, but none of them were…
“I never allow myself to have an opinion on anything that I don’t know the other side’s argument better than they do.” — Charlie Munger It was early on in my…
There is a scene in the film, “Most Likely to Succeed”, that struck me to the core. You see, for years I wanted to be the challenging teacher. I wanted…
Three different schools, in three different states, in a matter of two weeks. I got the same question. “How can I use Flipgrid in my class?” “Have you tried this…
Let me try to paint this picture. We were sitting in our school conference room on a Skype call with a Norwegian company, First Scandinavian, who creates and runs Newton…
When I heard the news that Phil Schlechty had passed away it was sudden and I felt sadness. I’ve never met Phil but I’ve been deeply impacted by his work…
In 1915 Albert Einstein sent a letter to his son, Albert. Einstein was living with his second wife and had not seen either of his two sons for quite some time….
I was worried the first time I tried a project-based learning unit with my students. As a young teacher, I had prided myself on running a challenging class and had…
Sooo, I’m super excited! For the past year we’ve been really diving into PBL as a community. Many of you (47 teachers) were featured in The PBL Playbook, and I’ve…
To be honest, I was lost. Elementary teaching was something so new to me when I took a job as a Technology Staff Developer. I taught middle school. I taught…
My colleague and I looked at each other on Tuesday of this week. She had a look in her eyes of pure exhaustion. I could sense a call for help, but…
Last winter, as we were digging out of the twenty inches of snow, my kids were sledding in the backyard and hiding out in their igloo. My 6-yr old son…
When my students were doing the 20% Project (Genius Hour) in my class we had an “Epic Fail Board” (inspired by a number of people) where they would pin up…
Listen to the podcast here or check it out on iTunes or the Google Play store. I was recently listening to a speaker (George Couros) talk about Ryan Gosling in his presentation. I…
You know what continues to upset me in education? It’s not how we label kids (although that is pretty high up there on my big list). But, it is how kids…
One of my favorite writers (and thinkers) in the world, Shane Parrish, recently wrote a post titled, “What’s Staying the Same?”. In this post, he flips the questions we all…
I first met Angela Duckworth when our Student Innovation Lab kids toured her Character Lab facility down at the University of Pennsylvania campus. We weren’t sure she was going to…
I’ve heard this question in various forms many different times: How is technology going to save education? Radio and TV were going to save education, but of course, they didn’t. They…
I had the chance to interview New York Times bestselling author James Clear, for my new podcast, Scratch Your Itch. James is the author of Atomic Habits and has built…
“Everything begins with an idea.” – Earl Nightengale When I started on my Project-Based Learning journey, I always wondered what other teachers were already doing with PBL in classrooms around the…
When I started on this writing journey seven years ago, there were a couple of things I knew for sure. I wanted to share experiences through writing. Something different was…
I distinctly remember the moment I wanted to become a teacher. There was nothing fancy or profound about the moment, but instead, there was a feeling I had. I was…
Be more chef. It is a mantra I’ve adopted and taken to heart these past few months as my brother lay in a hospital, seemingly impacting the world more from…
Reminder: This year’s Global Day of Design is on May 6, 2019. We already have over 75,000 learners signed up to participate! When John and I wrote LAUNCH, one of…
Joanne’s mother had died a few years earlier, and now she was a single parent (recently divorced) with no job, living off welfare benefits so she could provide for her…
As I sit here writing this my brother is on a respirator in a hospital room. He hasn’t been able to breathe completely on his own or wake up fully…
Today I turn 35 years old. And I couldn’t be more excited than I am right now to share my new book, The PBL Playbook. Over the past few years I’ve…
Teaching is not always easy. And learning can be a struggle for many of our students. As educators, we are called to this back and forth process of teaching and…
I want to tell you a story. During the mid 19th century the city of Chicago was in crisis. The elevation of the growing metropolis was not much higher than…
“What I know for sure is that you feel real joy in direct proportion to how connected you are to living your truth.” Oprah Winfrey As a new teacher, I…
My good friend (and co-author) John Spencer, shared this on Twitter a few days ago: Teaching is an exhausting gig. It’s okay to take a break in the summer. Read…
The LAUNCH Academy: A Design Thinking Institute We still have a few more spots available for this summer’s live two-day design thinking institute in Philadelphia, PA (down on UPenn campus)!…
If you haven’t heard of Genius Hour or 20% time in the classroom, the premise is simple: Give your students 20% of their class time (or an hour each week) to learn…
As a student I couldn’t even guess what my teachers were doing when they weren’t teaching. Mostly because I did not care enough to pay attention. Sure, I knew the impact…
Last year over 60,000 students from 600+ schools, in over 12 countries and four different continents participated in our second annual Global Day of Design. The hashtag went viral as students and…
Three of my favorite Project-Based Learning experiences took shape in completely different ways and circumstances. My students and I created “Project: Global Inform” together, after tweaking the original assignment. My students…
I’m sharing out my process below for writing my new book, The PBL Playbook: A Guide to ACTUALLY Doing Project-Based Learning. I used design thinking as a framework to write the book…
It seems after all this research I’ve done on the current state of education and all the reading I’ve done on the future of learning, that one piece of information keeps…
Coming into student teaching I was really confident about my lesson planning abilities. I was a bit worried about classroom management, designing assessments, and handling the demands of a first-year teacher…but…
I was worried the first time I tried a project-based learning unit with my students. As a young teacher, I had prided myself on running a challenging class and had focused…
You’ve read the blog posts, tweets, and articles. Maybe you’ve even attended some conferences or seen someone speak live. They say, “Project-based learning changed my role as a teacher. I…
The preference for our society, if we really want to be effective, is to teach so that they learn, not merely present curriculum and document deficiencies or meeting standards or…
Both of my sons love playing soccer. I grew up watching football and only played soccer very briefly (at the youth level) before going all in on American football throughout…
How do you move from “pockets of innovation” to a “culture of innovation”? How do we move from “engagement” to “empowerment”? What does innovation mean for education, and how do…
The most successful teaching begins, therefore, with clarity about desired learning outcomes and about the evidence that will show that learning has occurred. Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe, The Understanding by…
Note: This is the fourth post in a series on Project Based Learning. You can check out all of the other posts here. My first full year of teaching was…
Note: This is the third post in a series focused on practical ways to do PBL in every subject and grade level. Read the first and second here. It was…
In our last post, we dove into a three-step system to get students to do the talking. Getting them to open up and do the majority of talking (and learning)…
I remember the first time I heard the phrase “student-centered classroom” and I almost chuckled. I had always believed my classroom was about the students, they were the reason we…
I sensed the anticipation as soon as I entered the classroom. Groups of students were huddled together flipping through notes and documentation. A few were going back and forth about…
Ahh, IKEA. If you are anything like me, you probably have a love/hate relationship with IKEA. I love walking through their store, putting our kids in childcare, and seeing all…
Each year after holiday break I told my students their writing would change forever. It was simple statement, but most of them did not take it seriously. What ensued was…
Three different schools, in three different states, in a matter of two weeks. I got the same question. “How can I use Flipgrid in my class?” “Have you tried this…
People talk about Project-Based Learning all the time. I’ve heard WHY we should do it hundreds of times, but often we miss out on the HOW to do it. In…
I had to share this story. Last week I had the opportunity to take a group of students from our High School to the Franklin Institute. It was the first…
Note: I’m running a free webinar on this topic where I dive into the strategies, research, and resources that can make innovation come alive in your classroom and school with…
A year ago at this time I had the idea for a different type of learning experience after listening to Seth Godin talk about his AltMBA program. Seth said that…
Let’s be honest. Being a teacher and school leader can be overwhelming. There is so much to do (not enough time), so much to learn (where do we even start),…
My colleague and I looked each other on Tuesday of this week. She had a look in her eyes of pure exhaustion. I could sense a call for help, but…
“We are a school on an audacious mission. And our ‘why’ drives the teaching and learning here at Mount Vernon Presbyterian School (MVPS),” said Bo Adams in a recent interview…
This has been a long time coming, but I am so excited to share my new podcast with all of you: Inside Innovation! Inside Innovation takes an “inside” look at…
I remember doing podcast projects with my students almost 10 years ago. They seemed to be all the rage at the time, and I jumped on board as a teacher…
I had dreams. I had goals. I think we all do. But the same thing kept happening to me. Big idea, after big idea…new goal, after new goal. I didn’t…
“Science, by its own definition, doesn’t give us meaning. It just provides us with facts . . . Our lives gain meaning only when we tell our story.”—David Steindl-Rast A…
“Our job, sometimes, is simply to be the spark, help build confidence, and then get out of the way. If innovation in any school is solely dependent upon one person,…
Ahh, summer is coming to an end. For some of us, school has already started, for others, we still have a few weeks left before the doors flood open with…
I remember thinking about doing Genius Hour (or as I called it a 20% time project) in my class for the first time. It was a bit scary. It was…
It was towards the middle of my first year teaching (8th grade) when it hit me: My class was spinning out of control, and it was all my fault. I…
Creativity isn’t limited to STEM or STEAM or even the arts. Every time a student is designing, building, tinkering, and problem-solving, it becomes a chance to develop a maker mindset….
A few years ago, during the school year, my students and I had a similar problem: There wasn’t an opportunity for me to find out what they really enjoyed doing,…
“Yea, but what does it look like?” This is the question I hear and see most frequently online and at conferences when someone mentions the phrase empower students. As someone who…
Having a blog can be like standing in a packed street corner with a megaphone. You can be as loud as you want to be…but usually everyone is too busy…
As teachers, our life is busy. It’s not only the kind of busy when you run from one activity to the next activity. It’s the kind of busy where you…
EMPOWER is here!!! Get your copy on Amazon (click here) My new book, Empower: What Happens When Students Own Their Learning is now available on Amazon. This has been a…
As I work with students and teachers there is one common thread that the “stand-out” classrooms share: They take risks. Not only do these students and teachers take learning risks,…
“Is this real, Mr. J?” The question came from the back of the room. Todd rarely spoke up in class, but today he seemed visibly upset. “Yes, it is real….
Daniel Coyle, the author of The Talent Code, recently looked at a study on feedback from teachers. This study showed that one simple phrase could boost student effort by 40%. I was shocked…
You may have missed it along the way, but your class has a story. You might have been caught up in the everyday grind, or overwhelmed, or possibly just enjoying…
When I was in high school I spent most of my time playing sports (football and basketball) and worrying about my so-called social life. In school, I rarely was allowed…
“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off…
I get to visit a lot of schools around the country, and I’ll admit that when I see signs like the one below, I often cringe. It’s not the sign’s fault,…
In his book, The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg describes keystone habits as,“small changes or habits that people introduce into their routines that unintentionally carry over into other aspects of…
I often get asked about the steps for running a Genius Hour Project or a 20% Time project in your class. I tend to give the same answer every time:…
Sir Ken Robinson, author of The Element, has famously said: “Whether or not you discover your talents and passions is partly a matter of opportunity. If you’ve never been sailing,…
Many teachers have done the spaghetti and marshmallow challenge in the classroom and called it a STEM project. It’s a great activity, but is it really a STEM activity? Sure there’s…
Eat your heart out, Rembrandt. pic.twitter.com/hN42zJ3NPJ — Harriett Gilbert (@HarriettSG) December 7, 2014 This photo went viral a few years ago, as people from around the world shared how it…
The Global Day of Design just wrapped up on May 2nd. If you want to see what happens when 80,000+ students embrace design thinking, check out the Twitter stream and…
This is a guest-post written by a middle school teacher in my district, Annemarie Catalano. This year has been a big push to create a “maker culture” within our district….
When I was in 3rd grade my best friend Mark and I built a treehouse out of wood scraps we found in the forest behind his house. We were makers….
Last year over 40,000 students and 450 schools from 5 continents participated in the very first Global Day of Design. The hashtag went viral as students and teachers shared and…
You are not average. Neither am I. Actually, no one is average. The assumption that metrics comparing us to an average—like developmental milestones, GPAs, personality assessments, standardized test results, and…
