Chad Sansing

First Year Reflection: Who the hell am I and what am I doing here?

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ April 25, 2011 ⋅ 15 Comments

Somehow, it’s been over a year since we began the Coöp between a few tweets, a Skype call or two, and our first posts. In assessing our growth – and how the Coöp has impacted me personally – I wanted to share this #CoöpReflect post and to invite you to share your own Coöp story. … Continue reading »

#blog4nwp – Stay tuned; stay energized

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ April 15, 2011 ⋅ 2 Comments

The National Writing Project is invaluable. It is certainly worth more than a fraction of a percent of the federal education budget. Regardless of its obvious merit, the NWP has been offered the chance to compete with other earmark literacy programs for a sliver of 1% of the entire federal education budget. That means that … Continue reading »

#blog4nwp – Be heard before Congress votes

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ April 11, 2011 ⋅ Leave a Comment

This is a cross post from Classroots.org. While President Obam calls for more education spending in the 2012 federal budget, the deal reached last week to fund the rest of the 2010-11 budget cuts more money from the Department of Education. With earmarks eliminated and the Department of Education losing money this year, it’s imperative … Continue reading »

The United States of #blog4nwp

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ April 4, 2011 ⋅ 1 Comment

Here is a map showing the dozens of sites and cities from which you have contributed #blog4nwp posts. Don’t miss Alaska! Support for the National Writing Project is bipartisan; it comes from rural, suburban, and urban sites; it comes from students, parents, and educators; it comes from veteran and pre-service teachers; it comes from the … Continue reading »

3 ways to help #blog4nwp

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ March 24, 2011 ⋅ 10 Comments

Here are three ways you can help influence our federal government to restore funding for the National Writing Project (NWP) before the next continuing resolution on budget expires on April 8th, 2011. Post on your elected officials’ Facebook pages. I’d like to thank Joel Malley for inspiring this suggestion. I posted this message on Representative … Continue reading »

The #blog4nwp archive

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ March 15, 2011 ⋅ 116 Comments

434 posts so far! Our #blog4nwp campaign began as a mid-March weekend push to restore federal funding to the National Writing Project (NWP). At the beginning of March – as part of a continuing resolution to fund the government during its budget impasse – Congress and President Obama cut funding to the NWP and several … Continue reading »

#blog4NWP

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ March 14, 2011 ⋅ 48 Comments

The National Writing Project (NWP) trains teachers from all walks of life to champion authentic writing instruction in their schools and communities. Teachers who attend NWP institutes at sites across the country and complete inquiry projects in writing instruction become Teacher Consultants who help their students and colleagues find purpose and voice in writing across … Continue reading »

What I’ve been struggling to say and do

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ March 11, 2011 ⋅ 10 Comments

I will value my student’s natural curiosity and emotional well-being more than I value teaching as I was taught. I will value the curriculum that my student brings to school more than I value my curriculum. I will uncover my student’s curriculum rather than unpack my own. I will dedicate all of the time I … Continue reading »

Suffocating in information

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ February 24, 2011 ⋅ 22 Comments

I hear and read a lot about information overload. I hear and read about kids not having filters or the requisite skills to make sense of their worlds. I hear and read about kids being addicted to technology. I hear and read about a world and society drowning in information. I’d like to share a … Continue reading »

The three leaders

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ February 15, 2011 ⋅ 9 Comments

Kirsten sent this my way: “Just Smile,” a New York Magazine feature on Cathie Black, the new schools chancellor of New York City. While I don’t have any special knowledge of New York City’s schools – or of those in California, DC, or New Jersey – I try to follow what happens in the major … Continue reading »

School is not a fetch quest

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ January 22, 2011 ⋅ 13 Comments

This morning I finally caught up with “To Really Learn, Quit Studying and Take a Test”, the The New York Times article discussing the conclusions of “Retrieval Practice Produces More Learning than Elaborative Studying with Concept Mapping,” a recent Science article on the advantages of test-taking over studying for comprehension and inference-making. To quote from … Continue reading »

Democracy, community, evidence

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ January 9, 2011 ⋅ 4 Comments

Through one of our fora, Coöp members have been sharing ideas about cross-posting back and forth between CoöpCatalyst and our personal blogs. To further that discussion and invite the broader Coöp community to join in it, I thought I would cross post part of a recent Classroots.org piece on principles of school funding. …considering our … Continue reading »

Good business

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ December 30, 2010 ⋅ 16 Comments

Social media applications like Twitter provide us with a positive example of how outside business can impact education. As finely attuned to education’s needs as Edmodo is, we don’t go there for #edchat or to advertise our latest blog posts. While in many ways it’s right for us educators to resist running our schools like … Continue reading »

I refute it thus.

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ December 5, 2010 ⋅ 6 Comments

Last week, Felisa Wolfe-Simon et al. published on GFAJ-1, a bacterium she discovered in California’s Mono Lake. Whereas life as we knew it uses carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur to sustain itself, GFAJ-1 seems to dig arsenic. In fact, GFAJ-1 might even be able to use arsenic in building cellular structures like DNA. … Continue reading »

To Secretary Duncan

Posted by Chad Sansing ⋅ November 23, 2010 ⋅ 15 Comments

While I am grateful that Secretary Duncan and his officers engaged with #blog4reform yesterday, I’d like to take a moment to challenge his characterization of what it was really all about. On the ED.gov blog, Secretary Duncan said: Today’s conversation has focused on many issues that I think we can all agree on: We need … Continue reading »

Cooperative Catalyst

Search