Blog - Page 21 of 49 - Spencer Education

May 06 2020

4 Ways to Craft Choice Menus in Distance Learning Classes

By John Spencer Creativity, Distance Learning, Empowering Students, Podcast 13 Comments

I have three kids ranging from older elementary to high school. Each one of them is handling distance learning differently. My daughter, who is also the youngest, initially felt overwhelmed at the list of assignments that popped up each Monday and the scheduled meetings twice…

May 02 2020

Join Us for the Global Day of Design on May 6th

By John Spencer Creativity No Comments

Subscribe to YouTube Channel 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 day long around the globe. This year, we are…

Apr 28 2020

Empowering Students in Distance Learning Environments

By John Spencer Distance Learning, Podcast, Technology and Media Literacy 9 Comments

Student engagement can be a real challenge in this sudden shift toward distance learning. But one way to improve engagement is by empowering students. In this article, we explore how to improve equity and access and how to shift toward student ownership. Listen to the…

Apr 23 2020

Two Free Distance Learning Webinars

By John Spencer Distance Learning No Comments

I'm a huge fan of taking creative risks and trying something new. For this reason, I decided to do my first two live webinars this week. It was a truly energizing experience for me! Even though I'm an introvert, I loved the chance to connect…

Apr 18 2020

5 Ways to Boost Attendance in Virtual Class Meetings

By John Spencer Distance Learning, Innovation, Podcast 34 Comments

I have a friend who is a phenomenal teacher. She has been making a positive impact on middle schoolers' lives for 20 years. I used to go into her classroom during my prep period and take detailed notes so I could refine my class. She…

Apr 14 2020

How to Make PBL a Reality in a Distance Learning Environment

By John Spencer Podcast, Project-Based Learning 5 Comments

If you think about your most powerful learning experiences, there's a good chance at least one of these experiences involved a project. This is where you learned how to research, how to ideate, how to work with others, how to engage in productive struggle, and…

Apr 09 2020

Teachers Have Always Been Amazing But The Quarantine Is Proving Just How Amazing They Are

By John Spencer Creativity, Teacher Life 6 Comments

The last few weeks have proven to society something that we, in education, already know. Teachers care deeply about their students. I’ve seen so many examples of teachers making phone calls to families, having class video conferencing meetings to just do a pulse check on…

Apr 03 2020

10 Free Classroom Activities for Your Distant Learning Classroom

By John Spencer Creativity, Technology and Media Literacy 10 Comments

In my last article, I wrote about using a vintage innovation approach to create meaningful distance learning lessons. Being creative often means designing these activities and projects from scratch. However, creativity doesn’t always work this way. When we think of creativity, it’s easy to picture…

Mar 30 2020

There’s No Single Right Way to Do Distance Learning

By John Spencer Creativity, Podcast No Comments

The last week has proven to society something that we, in education, already know. Teachers care deeply about their students. I’ve seen so many examples of teachers making phone calls to families, having class Zoom meetings to just do a pulse check on each child,…

Mar 27 2020

Taking Distance Learning Away from the Screen

By John Spencer Creativity, Podcast 19 Comments

In education, we often use a metaphor of content delivery. We use terms like "deliver a lesson." We ask, "did the students get it?" But the last week and a half has proven that teachers are not merely content delivery machines. In my last post,…