Category: Tools
How Do You Track Learner Belonging? Here’s a Tool to Try!
I’m pretty excited for this tool. This was co-developed with my thinking partner Shawna Parkinson. So, big credit to her for this initial big-picture idea. Why Belonging? We’ve been working with teachers at Mason High School to create a stronger sense of belonging. It’s a big school. Last year, students were online or masked up in-person. […]
Empathy Mapping to Put the Learner At the Center
I recently created a quick video introducing Mason High School teachers to the idea of empathy mapping. Empathy mapping is a tool that designers use to focus on the end-user of their designs. In this case, I see teachers as designers. An empathy map helps a teacher get into the headspace of their students. It […]
Mason City Schools Personalized Learning Guide for Educators
It has been an intensely busy few weeks in Mason City Schools and Mason High School. That has made it hard for me to take time to create some new posts for this site. I do have some things I would like to share, though. This week, we released the Mason City Schools Educator’s Guide […]
Brainstorming with Jamboards
I try to be a purposefully creative thinker in everything I do. In fact, sometimes I’m stuck in my head way too much. I love a good brainstorming activity to help get those ideas out of my head and into the world. Sometimes those ideas aren’t workable. Other times they are. I don’t know, however, […]
Leveraging Choice-Boards as an Opportunity for Co-Creation with Students
This piece originally appeared on LearningPersonalized.com Mason City Schools has been on a Personalized Learning Journey for the past two years where leadership and staff have immersed ourselves in the everyday challenge of creating meaningful experiences with students. While we wrestle with ambiguity and experimentation, we are guided by our belief about growing a learning […]
Mapping the Habits of Mind
I originally wrote this post for The Habits of Mind Institute’s blog. You can find it here. This school year, Mason City Schools has been exploring Personalized Learning. We’re growing our approach using a team of Learning Experience Designers working directly with teachers. Our design team spent time studying different thoughts on the matter, we […]