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"Getting students to "mastery" implies that they have mastered a concept, have learned everything there is to know about it, and are ready to move on. This definition of mastery doesn't sit well with me. I've studied topics for years and never "mastered" them. In fact, I earned my master's degree in education more than a decade ago, but I learn how to be a better teacher every day. Each interaction with a student, every conference I attend, and daily conversations with colleagues continually expand my understanding. I can always learn more and explore a topic further."

"You live in the age of robots. A robot built your car, opened your garage door, and made the espresso that went into your double mocha. In large and small ways, robots are everywhere in our lives. The robots in my classroom amplify learning for my students. Robots are another tool in my high-engagement toolbox. I use the term high-engagement as a description and a warning. In my experience, high-engagement tools need to be matched with high-challenge learning. If we are using robots to support learning goals, the learning goals have to be robust and demanding. Without a carefully crafted learning context to support a demanding learning goal, students end up engaging the learning medium and just playing with robots."

"When it comes to building math mastery, it's easy to find app focused on math fluency; app stores are overflowing with them. But teachers looking for tools that build conceptual understanding are often left wanting. These tools can be tough to find. But not anymore. Below are 10 apps I use with my students. These apps let students practice number concepts such as one-to-one correspondence, regrouping, and even multiplication and division in developmentally appropriate ways. Many times these are more effective than physical manipulatives. Digital manipulatives can be broken apart, put back together and moved around in ways that are not possible with bags full of Base 10 Blocks and counters.  The "aha" moments captured with these apps make lasting impressions on a child's mind, building a strong mathematical basis.  Even better, teachers who have access to only one device can take advantage of these apps by using an Apple TV or reflecting software."

For Halloween 2016, I did a version of Halloween Wars (a Food Network show) with my two classes of gifted elementary learners. I am sharing this lesson through my blog post as it reinforces how I approach lesson planning and teaching. Background Information Principles that drive my instructional approach. regardless of theme, include: Instructional challenges are hands-on and naturally engaging for learners. There is a game-like atmosphere. There are elements of play, leveling up, and a sense of mastery or achievement during the instructional activities. The challenges are designed to be novel and create excitement and joy for learners. There is a healthy competition where the kids have to compete against one another. Learners don't need to be graded about their performances as built-in consequences are natural. There is a natural building of social emotional skills - tolerance for frustration, expression of needs, working as a team. Lessons are interdisciplinary (like life) where multiple, cross-curricular content areas are integrated into the instructional activities."

"The Land of Venn is an ingenious geometry game that aligns learning to fun.  It smartly avoids being "edutainment" by putting play first.  It is a universal mobile application in which you draw lines and shapes to learn about lines and shapes.  The narrative, which is silly and amusing (as is the catchy music), is a tower defense game. By performing the actions of geometry, players internalize the concepts.  It is a clear example of constructivist learning-learning by doing.  For example, children  connect points (each point is a different enemy) to draw an isosceles triangle.  As a result, confidence in abstract mathematical concepts is built as mastery of levels is met."

"While not every student might want to write their own software, understanding the big ideas of coding is a skill that all students would benefit from, even the very young ones. Understanding the key ideas of computational thinking - identifying patterns, thinking algorithmically, manipulating data, solving real problems, etc - is an important step in helping our students build mastery over their world. This presentation aims to take you on a guided tour through some of the resources available to your students to help them learn the principles of creating code. It starts by looking at a range of desktop and mobile apps suitable for teaching very young students to program, right through to tools and websites that can help your older students learn to hack code, and much more."

"A meaning of "essential" involves important questions that recur throughout one's life. Such questions are broad in scope and timeless by nature. They are perpetually arguable - What is justice? Is art a matter of taste or principles? How far should we tamper with our own biology and chemistry? Is science compatible with religion? Is an author's view privileged in determining the meaning of a text? We may arrive at or be helped to grasp understandings for these questions, but we soon learn that answers to them are invariably provisional. In other words, we are liable to change our minds in response to reflection and experience concerning such questions as we go through life, and that such changes of mind are not only expected but beneficial. A good education is grounded in such life-long questions, even if we sometimes lose sight of them while focusing on content mastery. The big-idea questions signal that education is not just about learning "the answer" but about learning how to learn. (http://www.authenticeducation.org/ae_bigideas/article.lasso?artid=53)"

"Below is a diverse list adapted from resources found at fortheteachers.org of potential student products or activities learners can use to demonstrate their mastery of lesson content. The list also offers several digital tools for students to consider using in a technology-enriched learning environment."

"8 easy steps to put even your most reluctant faculty on the pathway to social media mastery."

Adams County School District 50 in Colorado throws out grade levels and groups students by mastery levels.

" This suite of apps are a must-have for any school using mobile devices as well as parents who want to encourage mastery of math concepts for their children. A collection of 18 iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad educational math apps with easy to use and intuitive interfaces. The iDevBooks math apps are used by schools, parents, and students worldwide."

Most schools were built upon the idea that knowledge and teachers are scarce. When you have limited access to information and you want to deliver what you do have to every citizen in an age with little communication technology, you build what schools are today: age-grouped, discipline-separated classrooms run by an expert adult who can manage the successful completion of the curriculum by a hundred or so students at a time. We mete out that knowledge in discrete parts, carefully monitoring students progress through one-size-fits all assessments, deeming them "educated" when they have proven their mastery at, more often than not, getting the right answer and, to a lesser degree, displaying certain skills that show a "literacy" in reading and writing. Most of us know these systems intimately, and for 120 years or so, they've pretty much delivered what we've asked them to.

"In 1962, Princeton psychologist Sam Glucksberg performed an experiment based on the classic candle problem test. He presented two groups with the same task, but with different rewards: One would receive monetary rewards based on speed, while the other was told only to complete the task as quickly as possible. The results were counterintuitive. The latter group performed the task on average three and a half times faster than the first. Why? As career analyst Dan Pink (Watch: The puzzle of motivation) has learned, traditional motivators like money can be far less effective than intrinsic motivators like autonomy, mastery and purpose. Indeed, productivity itself is a mystery we still struggle to unravel. Below, find seven must-reads (and a playlist) that look closely at how work works, provided by Pink for his TED Talk."

"The Teaching Tolerance Digital Literacy Framework offers seven key areas in which students need support developing digital and civic literacy skills. The numbered items in each box below represent the overarching knowledge and skills that make up the framework. The bullets represent more granular examples of student behaviors to help educators evaluate mastery. "