You recently registered for ScootPad. You enrolled your students. You printed out sign in cards and now it's lab time. Now what? Do you give them a placement test? Will your devices work? What exactly is a learning path? These are all questions that you may have had at some point or you still have.... Continue Reading →
I think sometimes we are overly cautious when it comes to learning. There is good reason for this cautiousness, as some students do best when walked carefully along the path of incremental success, but become bored at this slower pace. Thus, sometimes I wonder if we don’t give children enough opportunity to face new learning, especially with... Continue Reading →
This year, I’m excited to have the mastery progress report to share with parents. ScootPad puts together all the real-time data, while all I do is click print! I like having transparent data to share with the teachers for the parents. I work with over 90 students, and thus it is not possible for me to... Continue Reading →
One of my main goals as a GT teacher is to engage my advanced students in thinking and learning. I’m not above any method that will hook them. In my class, we use a gamification platform to support the notion that we start knowing nothing and we move up the levels to greater and greater... Continue Reading →
Those of you with more than one child know it all too well. That competitive streak between siblings that will drive you nuts when it rears its ugly head. If your kids are anything like mine, they get along wonderfully, most of the time. But then, suddenly, as if from nowhere, they can’t even be... Continue Reading →
Those of you who have been following my blog know I am super excited that I have many students who are practicing on ScootPad and showing concept mastery. Remi is one of those students. As I also wrote about in another post, I discovered some hidden challenges for Remi when looking at his ability by concept... Continue Reading →
At school I run a gamified classroom, where students earn mission points (MPEs) for quests (assignments) they complete. I extend this framework to our ScootPad rewards by allowing students to purchase mission points with ScootPad coins. For every 50 coins students earn on ScootPad, they can purchase 1 Mission Point, which can be earned by... Continue Reading →
I didn't always love technology. In fact, ours was the house where the kids watched zero TV and used zero electronic devices. Zero. I wanted my kids to touch and build and race and play. Until my oldest was in 5th grade, my kids (then 10, 7, and 4) didn’t even go to movies or... Continue Reading →
Finding the right level for kids is somewhat of an art. And when you find it, the context that makes it right may change. Therefore, keeping the lines of communication open with parents will be a big asset in supporting kids’ learning. As I was adjusting to my new school as the Gifted and Talented teacher... Continue Reading →
I had an interesting experience with my daughter and ScootPad once. She had just finished 5th grade and was going to be evaluated for placement in advanced math classes in middle school. I decided to get a pulse reading on what her skills were for 6th grade math standards. Thus, I set up a series of... Continue Reading →
