Posts by Courtney Hanes

Personalized Learning

Teaching Common Core Through Integrated History and Language Arts

We will walk participants through the websites to highlight how we use them in our integrated History/Language Arts model, focusing specifically on the Zoot Suit Riots and Scopes Monkey Trial. As an English teacher, it is my responsibility to support literacy across the disciplines. If History is an account of the past, Language Arts is how we tell the stories.

EdTech

Riverside Unified School District Gooru Pilot Project

RUSD has created small pilot groups consisting of teachers and Instructional Services Specialists that will assist in supporting and training teachers to integrate technology into the classroom, and contribute to the RUSD “Build Your Own School” initiative.

Personalized Learning

Creating Curriculum with Meaning and Purpose

I have come to realize when it comes to curriculum, nothing is more important than the child, and the willingness to remain flexible with the planning process. This creative process is art, and contributes to what Seth Godin refers to as becoming indispensable in his twelfth book, Linchpin.

Personalized Learning

What Guides Your Work? And, Why Do You Teach What You Teach?

In my last post, Why do you teach? And, why do you stay?, I hoped to start a conversation about teaching -- why in the world are we here, and what keeps us here? I now want to look at what guides our work, and why we teach what we teach. For most of my teaching career, I did not know why I taught what I taught, or I thought I knew, but didn’t.

Personalized Learning

Why do you teach? And, why do you stay?

Some enter the teaching profession because of an amazing teacher, or several amazing teachers. Some feel teaching is simply what they were meant to do. Some become teachers to contribute to the common good. Others become teachers because of one, or many, bad experiences.