PD Theme Parks…Your Ticket to a Richer Teaching Experience

One of the challenges of creating an online gaming curriculum is also creating a means for teachers to experience the game while understanding how to support its content.   Going through the Mesa Verde Unit as a student, for example, will give you a great idea of how to support students procedurally — that is to say, how to complete the tasks, where the characters are located, etc.  But, an important part of the QA teaching experience is also pushing on our students’ understanding of the content so they truly understand what it means to use what they’ve learned in a meaningful way.   While the Unit Plan offers many suggestions for teachers, wouldn’t it be great if you could both experience the Unit AND learn about new ways to support your students conceptual understanding of the material at the same time? (more…)

Tags: Ander City, Classroom practice, community of practice, Modern Prometheus, Taiga, teacher contribution, theme-based instruction

Bringing a little bit of magic into the classroom.

“For every job that must be done, there’s an element of fun.  You find the fun and snap!  The job’s a game!” Mary Poppins Dr. Melissa Gresalfi and I were brainstorming earlier this week about some new professional development Missions we’re creating aimed at helping teachers get a handle on some of our most popular [...]