Blog - Page 37 of 46 - John Spencer

May 30 2016

The Benefits of Being Goofy

By John Spencer Teacher Life 7 Comments

William Chamberlain is one of my favorite teachers on Twitter. He is bold, humble, relentless, and unabashedly curious. The other day he tweeted this out, so, as a joke, Philip Cummings and I both turned these into "inspirational" quote images for tweets. As I think…

May 30 2016

This Is What Happens When Teachers Model Curiosity

By John Spencer Creativity One Comment

When I taught middle school, I wanted my students to be curious. I wanted to see them tap into their own natural wonder and ask tons of questions. I wanted them to ask, "Why?" and "Why not?" I wanted them to question answers as…

May 24 2016

You Can Be Innovative Even When the System Discourages It

By John Spencer Innovation No Comments

My friend Josh Stumpenhorst once wrote an excellent post about the chasm between what teachers are told to do and what teachers can actually accomplish in the system. One line in particular stood out to me. "They will insist that innovation, creativity, risk-taking and failure…

May 21 2016

Seven Ways Schools Can Foster Original Thinking in Students

By John Spencer Uncategorized 3 Comments

My son is weird. Not bad weird. Not socially awkward weird. Just weird. He sees the world differently. This last January he asked me if I would make him a graphic novel about a mutant taco-turned-superhero. He loves to design his own Pokemon characters and…

May 16 2016

Believe It Or Not, Kindergartners Can Do Research

By John Spencer Literacy 5 Comments

When my oldest son was five, he asked me whether the leaves were falling because the air was getting colder or because the sun was setting earlier. We gathered leaves. We conducted experiments. We looked at maps of leaves and sunlight and temperature. He wasn't…

May 13 2016

Why Aren’t Universities Developing More Teacher-Innovators?

By John Spencer Innovation No Comments

This week, I asked my cohort to analyze different unit planning models. This is a challenging part of the graduate classes, when teachers are learning the nitty gritty craft of creating units and lessons from scratch. I walked over to the group analyzing the design…

May 07 2016

Ten Things That Happen When Kids Embrace Design Thinking

By John Spencer Creativity, Design Thinking 5 Comments

I still remember the day. I was in my first year of teaching and I sat there holding my printed lesson plan. This was supposed to be my greatest lesson of the school year. I had planned it for hours, revising various aspects of it…

May 02 2016

Are we making space in our classrooms for imagination?

By John Spencer Creativity 3 Comments

When I go home, I'm no longer a dad. I transform into a sidekick to the world's coolest superhero. I become a nurse to a stuffed animal surgeon. I get to help an architect and a builder in forts made from couch cushions. I become…

Apr 25 2016

You Don’t Need a Makerspace to Have a Space for Makers

By John Spencer Creativity, Creativity Deconstructed, Design Thinking 4 Comments

When I was a kid, my brother and I built a "roller coaster" in the backyard with a wagon, some scraps of wood, and tons of pipes. Was it safe? Probably not. Did it ever work properly? Not really. But it didn't matter. We were…

Apr 12 2016

Why Students Should Learn Copywriting

By John Spencer Literacy 4 Comments

I never learned how to write copy in school. In fact, even after taking a ton (yes, we weigh them in tonnage) of literature and humanities classes, I somehow graduated from college without knowing the term "copy writing." To be fair, I went to Arizona…