Apple Pie Ridge à la Mode

Tony's Interview Story to become a bonafied Dream Director      This post has been dedicated to my goals for this year and beyond for Apple Pie Ridge with focus on the SAMR model, but before I discuss the theory behind my thinking, I want to share a story. The story is not mine; it's of a classmate from George Mason University: Tony.   Tony Keith  is a PhD student in Educational Leadership who focuses his research on Spoken Word Poetry as a manner to help minority groups find platforms to preform and learn.  He has also recently coauthored The Open Mic Night: Campus Programs that Champion College Student Voice and Engagement.       One day, however, Tony was late to class for good reason.  He was interviewing to become a Chief  Dream Director for an organization called The Future Project .  That's right:  I wrote Chief Dream Director...as a real title for a job.  He will be helping the youth of Washington DC by ...

What if you never had to give a traditional spelling test again?! This is a question that Heather Hess, instructional coach, and I posed to APR elementary teachers. To accomplish this, Heather and I have been working on a "Words Their Way" Solution, based on a plan put in place at a neighboring elementary school through Instructional Coach Cindy Petty and Instructional Technology Coach Jennifer Arey (Thank you, ladies! You rock!). In this strategy, students are placed in various spelling groups to match their needs.  Then, the groups rotate to three different stations over a five day period (which is independent of the days of the week). On the group test day, students are given a video file, allowing the student to test at their own pace. Check out this chart*, to help understand the breakdown of our day-to-day: *Originally created by Ms. Petty and adapted by Ms. Hess A B C D E Introduce to: No group, teacher interacts among differentiated groups as the...