Kevin Brookhouser

I want to be able to see what it’s like not to hear or say anything and still be able to communicate with everyone. I would also like to share what that’s like with my friends and classmates. I want to know what the challenges are and how people who are deaf take on those challenges on a daily basis. Thus begins Reinel's 20% project proposal. Her plan is to spend a week wearing a headset that emits white noise so that she will be effectively deaf. She plans to create a short film that will document the experience and help spread awareness of the hearing impaired community. You can follow her progress at her 20% Project Blog at  http://makinigatmaintindihan.blogspot.com/ . Please leave an encouraging comment! What is makinigatmaintindihan you ask? So did I. Then she showed this supposed Google Certified Teacher the Google Translate page. Here's a taste of how her week will look ... and sound. 

During The Bad Idea Factory one of my students enthusiastically announced that he wanted to build a foundry. Cue visions of 19th Century Manchester with large crucibles pouring extremely orange glowing metal into a form shooting sparks everywhere. You know, this. "That sounds dangerous ... and fun," I replied. "Do you know anything about molding metal?" "No." "Do you know anyone who knows anything about molding metal?" "No." "OK, well if you're going to take this on, we're going to need to find someone who can help." "Can't we just figure it out from the internet?" "Maybe, but I think we're going to need some guidance." From my experience last year, I decided that a mentorship element would definitely help my students find more success in their 20% projects, so I'm now making it a requirement. The mentor's role wouldn't be a huge time commitment. They would per...

Dear Students and Parents of the York School 10th Grade Class, I hope you all had an adventurous and energizing summer. I wanted to write to introduce myself and let you know a little bit about one of the unusual projects we’ll be taking on this year in English III. In 2011 we began The 20% Project in English III. This is a major project-based-learning assignment that spans the entire school year and encourages students to pursue a creative interest they would otherwise not experience in our academic program at York. Before I get into the details of the project, I want to explain why we’re asking students to participate in this activity. For over 20 years a trend in education has been gaining momentum that suggests the role of the teacher ought to shift away from an industrial model where the teacher stands in the front of the classroom to dispense knowledge through lectures, and the students sit to consume the information. Rather than being the “sage on the stage...

The logo from classbadges.com Could offering a students badges for doing great work actually discourage performance? Perhaps. At our school we're looking at adopting a badge system to distribute when students demonstrate various skills particularly in our technology and information literacy class. For former scouts, the badge system will be nothing new. Learn a skill, earn a badge. I recently posted on my PLC a request to find a resource that offered digital badges we could use. James Sanders replied that he is working on a site that will provide just that at classbadges.com . Awesome! One teacher brought up an informed and thoughtful question regarding badges, which I thought I would explore here. He asks:  For this upcoming school year some teachers and I are introducing badges and other gamelike features into the online community that our students work in. One of the teachers has raised concerns that badges will stifle the students'  intrinsic motivation, t...