The Wooster Teacher Learner Blog

As part of the leadership team at Wooster, I spend a lot of time with the other adults on campus thinking about what’s best for our kids and how to set up the most effective learning environments. It occurred to me recently that, as an adult, even though I know the students well and try to make the …

PBL? Genius Hour? No, we are not talking about a Public Television station or a show that you might see on one, but rather, a new(ish) and exciting way for kids to learn. Here at Wooster lots of teachers have been teaching with a PBL (Project Based Learning) approach for many years and our students …

What do we consider sacred?

There are holy places like the altar in a place of worship. There are places of memorial like ground zero in downtown Manhattan. There are hallowed places like the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field. But, what about the empowering places like the classroom?

As I begin …

It is not an unfamiliar site at Wooster to see students piling into yellow buses or school vans to visit a variety of cultural institutions. These excursions may include art, natural history, and science museums, as well as local farms, schools, and community businesses. This week we will showcase …

Lower School students were recently asked why they think Wooster School is so special and such a wonderful place in which to learn. They mentioned things like the beautiful campus and the great food. One observation was especially notable. A student said, “we have great teachers here at Wooster; …

The topic this week is all about promoting reading on campus and in our learning environments.

Here are a few things happening around campus:

Humanities I & II Literature Circles

In grades 9 and 10 Humanities students are reading books through Literature Circles. Many traditional teachers…

Summative vs. Formative Assessment

Summative assessments are formal assessments that teachers administer at the end of a learning experience to evaluate student learning. A summative assessment is intended to reflect what students did or did not learn by the end of a unit. These assessments tend …

Teachers enhance how learning becomes a visible activity in the classroom- the visibility helps develop students' capacities as well as their individual and group identities as learners.

Visible classrooms can be identified by five key principles—that learning is:

1. Purposeful
2. Social
3. …
…

I came into this job one year ago, fresh off three years of teaching in a traditional, affluent, public school environment. In those classrooms, I spent most of my time in front of the room, telling kids what they needed to know, and using traditional methods to teach them the material. Given this, …

One afternoon I was stopped by an upper school student taking a photography class. She wanted to photograph me as one of the faces of Wooster. She took my picture and then simply asked, “What was the best part of your day today?” Without hesitation, I said, “Finishing Yellow Star with my students.” …