Wednesday, March 31, 2010

The Best of I Want to Teach Forever: January-March 2010

I hope most of you take the time to enjoy your upcoming long weekend, if you're lucky enough to have one.  The first three months of the spring semester are always busy, hectic and stressful, so you might have missed some of my best work:
There's been a lot more going on, so I hope your interest is piqued enough to check out even more!  If you've found something useful, inspirational, or interesting on this site, there are many easy ways to support it:
  1. Pick up my revised and updated book, Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition ($9.95 paperback / $2.50 download).
  2. Subscribe: RSS feed, EmailTwitter, YouTube channel, become a Follower (click Follow on the sidebar), or become a Fan on Facebook!
  3. Submit a guest post.
  4. Click the Share button below to add posts you like to StumbleUpon, Delicious and other social bookmarking sites (or share links on your own blog).
  5. Email me your ideas, questions and suggestions!
Thank you, as always, for your support.

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Don't Take Yourself Too Seriously [Video]



Mr. D TV is my weekly video series where I give advice to teachers on just about any topic. If you have a question you'd like me to answer, email me (teachforever@gmail.com). If you like the video, check out last week's episode or my YouTube channel for more. See you next week!

Monday, March 29, 2010

Real Life Math Lesson Using the U.S. Census

Turning the U.S. Census into a relevant, real life math activity is about as easy as filling out the actual questionnaires--and that is more or less what you're going to have your students do.  Then, there's a lot that can be done with the data you collect.

First, download the 2010 Census Questionaire from the U.S. Census Bureau website.  While you can certainly collect and analyze this information without the form, having them use a copy of the real thing makes this a more authentic activity (and might remind them to tell their parents to fill it out at home).  The form really doesn't take long to fill out--even if you have a lot of people living with you--and of course students can only fill out as much as they know any way.

Start by dividing students into groups and having them fill out the forms together.  They can skip the phone number and last names for the other people in their house, but they should be able to check off and fill out everything else.  In their groups, students should tally totals of the number of people living in all homes as well as the number of people by age, sex, race, and relationship.  Then, have the groups share their totals with each other, so that everyone should have a complete set of data.

Now it's time to analyze the data.  There are a lot of options for what to do from here, but I have a few suggestions:
  • Find the mean, median, mode and range for age.
  • Construct a stem-and-leaf plot, box-and-whisker plot or simple histogram to represent the age data.  
  • Convert the raw data for sex, race and relationship into percentages.  Ideally they would construct pie graphs to illustrate the data.
  • Find and graph totals for these age groups 0-12, 13-17, 18-25, 26-34, 35-44, 45-55, 55 and up.  The data could be graphed by totals or percentages.
  • Using the most current population estimate for your community, use proportions to extrapolate numbers of people by age, sex and race for your entire town or city.
  • Compare your data to the 2000 Census or other recent surveys on the American FactFinder website.
If you teach multiple classes per day and do this activity with each of them, consider adding one more day to this lesson and having students analyze the combined data for all of your classes.  I think that through this entire process, students would be very interested in what they were finding and willing to do what might otherwise be looked upon as tedious work.  In addition, you can go back later and ask very specific questions about the data that your students collected.

After the activity, I would ask a series of questions to help them draw conclusions about the data--a vital skill for standardized tests (among other things).  For example:
  1. According to the data, what is the largest age group in our community?  What is the smallest?
  2. Is this data we collected an accurate sample of our community?  Why or why not?
I feel like we're just barely scratching the surface here.  What else could be added to this activity?  Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments.

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Use Number Sense To "Make the Most of It"

Last week I shared a simple graphic organizer for practicing operations with fractions.  That activity was actually based on a much simpler one designed for first and second grade students.  I named it Make the Most of It, because students are given about half a deck of cards and given the pictured graphic organizer to fill with number sentences.


The graphic organizer was made with half of a posterboard, permanent markers, and a small cardboard rectangle to trace for each box (it is slightly larger than the dimensions of a playing card).

While this isn't by any means revolutionary, it's a way to inject some fun into practicing basic operations with integers.  If you make a number of them, as I did for a recent event at a local elementary school, you can turn it into a competition.

The activity changes each time because of the cards a student might get and what they decide to do with them.  You can use a standard deck of cards, but you must decide what to do about face cards.  Otherwise, look for a special deck that contains only numbers.

Of course, you don't need the graphic organizer to do this activity, as I wrote about in November, but I think it helps.  Doesn't this look like fun?

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Local School Launches Brilliant Anti-Truancy Campaign

This has been posted outside my neighborhood high school (along a major road no less) for about a week:


I can't think of a more compelling argument to stay in school than this.

UPDATE: A much-needed 'c' finally appeared on the sign today, after a very long week of shool.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Fractal Doritos, Math Interventions & Safe Surfing [Five for Friday]

Popling Takes Studying Out of Learning, Regularly Prompts You with Flash Cards [Lifehacker] - This free program makes your cards will pop up randomly while you're doing other things on your computer, making this a great new addition to my list of free flash card and study help applications.

To Blog or Not to Blog [The Innovative Educator] - Jacob Gutnicki makes the case for starting sooner rather than later.

Net Cetera: Chatting With Kids About Being Online - This free report from the Federal Trade Commission can help you start a conversation with your favorite young people about staying safe online.

Math Intervention Blog - This new blog is designed as a go-to resource for math teachers whose students are really struggling, offering new approaches and ideas for everything from lesson plans to assessments.  It's worth a look.

And finally, what happens when a high school math class takes over their football field and makes a gigantic fractal out of Doritos?  Sheer awesomeness:



Read more about the kids and their project here.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

How to Turn Jenga Into an Awesome Test Prep Tool

At one of my favorite local haunts, patrons play a lot of Jenga.  Recently, people have started to deface (some might say enhance) the ubiquitous wooden blocks with all sorts of messages.  There are directions you might give to someone for a dare ("Kiss the person to your right!"), analog Twitter updates ("Johnny wuz here 1-25-10"), and grammatically questionable declarations of love ("Cap'n -n- Tennille 4 eva").  As usual, I saw an immediate, easy application to the classroom.

Let's use this idea to make a fun review for standardized test and end-of-year exams.  Cover the top and bottom of each block with vocabulary, short problems, clues for a larger puzzle, etc.  You can even make them into "flash" blocks, with a term or picture on one side and a concise definition on the opposite side.

Students play the game as they normally would, with one notable difference: when they remove a block, they have to do something with whatever is on it.  For example:
  • In an algebra class, each block could contain linear and quadratic equations.  Students could write down each equation and work with them after the game ends--each student would have a random and (mostly) different set of problems to work with.  They could alternately quickly name some key piece of information about the given function, like the slope and y-intercept of the linear functions, before placing the blocks on top of the stack.
  • In a social studies class, each block could contain vocabulary words that students would have to write down.  After the game, students would define and illustrate the key terms, then share them within their groups to build a complete study guide.
  • In a chemistry class, each block could contain individual elements or reactions that students have to explain and/or solve.
  • In an English/language arts class, blocks could contain the elements of a story that students could later put together into an original story.  Each piece could instead have authors and works studied during the year, and the kids would have to identify key information, write reflections, etc.
The possibilities are truly endless.  If you could get several Jenga sets, each one could cover a different objective or focus on things in a different way, so that you might have to rotate the sets around so that each group of students would be exposed to everything.

If you had an extra untouched Jenga set available, I would love to see students create their own educational Jenga game.  In a perfect world, you could get funding so that each group of students would work on such a project, but this is not the case.  What you could do is have one extra set available and reward students who did the best work on the earlier game to create a new version that would help other kids.

Why Jenga?  Like Uno, students can't help but being fully engrossed in this simple yet addictive game.  Even if you don't see yourself using this idea, Jenga is a game that should be in every classroom.  I also must insist that you buy only real Jenga sets.  The generic knock-offs are pure crap: the blocks aren't even the same size, and they don't fit together tightly the way the original does.  In this case, it's worth the extra couple bucks to get the name brand.

Have you tried or seen anything like this using Jenga before?  Do you have some ideas for your subject or grade level?  Are you wondering how to pull this off in your classroom?  Share your thoughts and questions in the comments.

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Permanent Price Cut for 'Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition'

Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition
Due to the success of my Spring Break sale on downloads of my book Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition, I've decided to make the $2.50 price permanent.  I've also dropped the price for the spiral paperback (seen in the  picture) to $9.95, $2 off the price of the original.

I've realized that it's more important to me to get the book into the hands of as many teachers as possible than anything else.  As I've said time and time again, knowing that my lessons and ideas are being used to help hundreds, if not thousands, of students all across the country (and the planet) is why I do what I do.

You can still find the first edition of Ten Cheap Lessons on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and elsewhere online, including some reasonably priced used copies.

Get the spiral paperback for $9.95
Download the digital version for $2.50

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Carnival of Educators: Spring Has Sprung Edition

Welcome to the March 23, 2010 edition of the Carnival of Educators!

In the Classroom

Bellringers (Carol Richtsmeier) presents Shut Those Eyes posted at Bellringers.  As Spring Break rolls around, Ms. R wonders why her yearbook staff thinks their assignments will just go away if they ignore them long enough.

Mathew Needleman presents Independent Work Time: My Students Refuse to Work Independently posted at Creating Lifelong Learners.  "My students just refuse to..." is a common refrain when teachers are struggling.  Mathew's great post reminded me of a similar question I received from a teacher facing misbehaving students.

Matthew Halpern presents Awesome. posted at Look at my happy rainbow!. This is my favorite blog, and this post is a perfect example of why. I implore you to read, then subscribe!

Vagabond Teacher shares They Know What To Do posted at Into the Woods, explaining that the title contains the five words a substitute teacher never wants to hear.

organized chaos shares the best plans... posted at Organized Chaos, sharing an awesome, inspiring story about trying to get her kindergartner to the school dance!

Education Issues

Jane Goodwin presents Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus posted at Scheiss Weekly.  Mamacita learns some lessons about education from the Harry Potter series.

EightFalls presents Managing Student Learning With Gantt Charts posted at EightFalls.com.  The author borrows an idea from the corporate world: could we do better at being managers of student learning?

June Tree presents How Would You Grade Your Money Management Skills? posted at The Digerati Life, saying "Here’s why we should teach money management and personal finance in schools."  I agree!

Lesson Plans and Ideas

Robert Drummond presents Using Befuddlr in the classroom. posted at robert drummond's blog, noting "Highlights a great program - befuddlr and how it can be used in the classroom to support and review learning."

Laurie Bluedorn presents Test Your Logic Skills posted at Trivium Pursuit. A little logic game to try out.

Maria Clara presents Masterpiece or Ad? Take our Test! posted at Online Colleges.net.  Great idea for introducing media literacy, consumer education, and of course art!

Steve Spangler presents Build a Trap, Catch a Leprechaun for St. Patrick’s Day posted at Steve Spangler's Blog. This is a little late, but bookmark it for next year!

Thank you for visiting! That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of carnival of educators using our carnival submission form.  Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.


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Monday, March 22, 2010

Spring Break's Over. Now What? [Video]



As mentioned in the video, here are some test-prep strategies I've used successfully in the past:
  1. Test Prep Idea #1: Take-Home Test w/ Key
  2. Test Prep Idea #2: Word Wall Review
  3. Test Prep Idea #3: Calculator Tricks Every Student Should Know
  4. Test Prep Idea #4: Tell Them How to Study
  5. 3 Ideas to Prepare Students for College Placement Exams
Mr. D TV is my weekly video series where I give advice to teachers on just about any topic. If you have a question you'd like me to answer, email me (teachforever@gmail.com). If you like the video, check out last week's episode or my YouTube channel for more. See you next week!

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Try This Teacher Reflection Exercise

Around this time last year, I wrote a series of posts entitled On Success and On Failure.  I shared my five greatest successes and five worst failures of the year up to that point.  This deep self-reflection helped me gain some much needed perspective.

Most of us are just finishing or just beginning our spring breaks, which means the end of the year is just beyond the horizon.  This is a good time to take stock and mentally prepare for the last few months of school.  Here's what I want you to do:
  1. List your five biggest failures.  These could involve anything related to your teaching: classroom management, lesson planning, time management, systems and procedures, assessment design, and so on.  If you're finding that you have a longer list, as I did, you have to pare it down to the most serious issues.  Think about what you regret, what you wish you could change, and/or what had a negative effect on your or your students.  Scale is not necessarily an issue; a failed relationship with one student could be as big to you as having too few fun and engaging lesson plans.  See my series On Failure for an idea of what to think about.
  2. List your five biggest successes.  I suggest you do this list second so that you can temper all the negativity you built up with your first list, and end this exercise on a high note.  Remember that this exercise is for you, not for a job interview or formal evaluation, so don't restrict yourself to their criteria for "success".  See my series On Success if you're struggling with what sort of things should go on the list.
  3. A few days later, revisit both lists.  Looking back, were you fair to yourself or far too harsh?  You might find that you have successes that seem to contradict what you listed as failures, and vice versa.  That's okay: nothing in this exercise is truly black and white.  If you have a trusted colleague who has observed you on multiple occasions (or who would be willing to do so), ask them to discuss what you listed.  Getting some objective feedback will give you an even better perspective than you could get yourself.
  4. Finally, get student feedback.  No one will be more honest with you than your students.  Ask them for feedback in the form of a short survey you could fit in anytime.  You really only need three questions: What is one thing [Mr./Ms. Teacher] has done well this year and should keep doing?  What is one thing [he/she] should change to help you do better in class?  Anything else you want to tell [him/her] about this class?  Compare the results to what you listed, and what your colleague told you.  Did your students identify the same failures and successes that you did, or did they give you more to think about?  Why?
In the end, you'll have a lot to help you plan out the rest of the year and beyond.  It never hurts to do self-reflection or to get outside feedback--these are essential to the growth of every teacher.

If you try this exercise, share what you learned in the comments.  I'm looking forward to it!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Share Your Best Posts in This Week's Carnival of Educators

I'm hosting this week's Carnival of Educators, and I hope you'll send in your best work as you did for me last month.  Check out last week's edition hosted at The Examiner for an idea of what others are talking about, then head to the easy submission page.

Also, you don't have to necessarily send in your own work--feel free to submit great blog posts you find anywhere and everywhere.

Thank you!

Friday, March 19, 2010

Consumer Ed, Math Myths, & Homework Debate [Five for Friday]

What Are the Myths About Math? [Math Mama Writes...] - Sue starts a very interesting discussion that you should contribute to!

Homework Post #2 [Kiss My Asymptotes] - Speaking of a good conversation, JT wonders if he should have his students grade their own homework and contemplates a more effective way to give student feedback.

FTC Enhances Consumer Website for Kids -This new, interactive website created by the Federal Trade Commission aims to teach kids about privacy and fraud.  There's a lot of material you could use to build a solid consumer education and media literacy unit.  Check out the Parents & Teachers page for more ideas.

Math Teachers at Play #24 [Let's Play Math]

Final Call for School Security Officer Scholarship Nominations - The National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) has extended the entry deadline for the 2010 Wren Solutions School Resource Officer (SRO) Scholarship Award. Nominations will now be accepted until May 1, 2010.  This is a great way for them to extend their education.  Read a guest post from Wren's school security expert, Bret Rachlin: How Teachers Can Help Make Their School's Security a Priority.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

'Ten Cheap Lessons' Spring Break Sale: 50% Off Downloads

Half off Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition
From now through Sunday, you can download Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition for $2.50, 50% off the original price!  Consider it a little thank you to all of the teachers who are convalescing over Spring Break.

Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition is a collection of some of my best lessons, projects and games.  While the examples in the book are drawn from my experience teaching math, these activities were chosen because they could easily be adapted for just about any subject area.  Each chapter contains a complete lesson, supporting materials, and ways to adapt and extend the idea for ELA, social studies and science classrooms.  In short, this is not just a math teacher resource book; this is a book of good ideas for any and every middle and high school teacher.

Once Monday rolls around, the price will be back to a (still reasonable) $5, so get it for 50% off while you can.  Please pass this deal along to others as well!  Thank you, as always, for your support!

Download Ten Cheap Lessons: Second Edition

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Simple Graphic Organizer Makes Fractions a Little Less Painful

Part of my responsibilities at the after school tutoring center I work for has been to create fun, educational math activities. We use these activities for community "math fairs" where we play educational math games at nearby schools.  Recently, we held a fair for 5th and 6th grade students, so I designed an activity that would help them practice operations with fractions.


The graphic organizer is made of posterboard and has spaces for six playing cards that form different number sentences using fractions.  The long strip allows you to switch between the four operators (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) by sliding it up and down.  Students are given about half a deck of cards and can create any number sentences they want, provided that they are correct (this particular deck had the numbers 0-12 in place of face cards).  Here's an example of each operation made with the same stack of cards:





The organizer is made of three pieces.  The main piece is about 8.5" by 11", with a small square inch window cut out for the operators to show through.  The operator strip is about 1.25" by 9", longer than the width of the main piece so it can be slid back and forth.  Behind the strip is a slightly wider 1.5" by 8.5" piece taped to the main one, which forms a pocket for the operator strip to move.  It's less complicated than it sounds.

It's not so much of a game as an activity that changes each time you do it, depending on the cards you get.  The goal would be to create at least one correct number sentence with each operation.  If you're using a standard deck, you can count all face cards as 10 and aces as 1 or 11.  The alternative is to have jacks, queens and kings as 11, 12 and 13 and aces as 1 or 0.  If you really want to raise the stakes, make red cards negative and black ones positive.

You can of course do this without the organizer, and the idea's still the same.  You can also use cards in a similar way to do basic integer operations, or incorporate a number line for practice with positive and negative integers.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

March Madness Probability Activity & More

I've been glad to see an upswing in the number of different March Madness math lessons being shared online recently (see below for links).  Each one seems to be focusing on different parts of the tournament or looking at it through a different lens.  Designing an interesting probability activity based around the NCAA Men's Basketball tournament has been a goal for years, so I'm excited to unveil this first version.

The main focus of this activity uses the success of teams by seed (since 1979).  First, students find the probability of a given seed winning the tournament both as a fraction and percent.  Then, they use those numbers to answer a number of questions.  There's an opportunity to talk about the difference between experimental and theoretical probability, as well as compound probability (see the challenge question).

I would follow up this activity by having students fill out a bracket using the statistics they've learned or whatever method they choose.  Personally, I enjoy picking the winners based on which mascot would win a no-holds-barred steel cage match.  After each round, you can have students update their brackets, recalculate their probability of winning, and compare theoretical with experimental probability again based on the results.  After the tournament is over, have students tally points for the correctness of their bracket (1 point for each opening round game, 2 for the second round, and so on, with 6 points for predicting the correct champion).

This is the kind of obvious real life math connection that almost any student can understand and get excited about, so we should do what we can to work it into our curricula.

March Madness Probability Activity
NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament bracket [via ESPN]

Here are some other lessons, activities and ideas based on the big tournament from around the web:
  1. Figure the Winner - Focuses on percentage, measures of central tendency
  2. Elements of Binary in the NCAA Basketball Tournament - Focuses on binary trees, logarithms, laws of exponents, geometric series and sequences, and probability (among other advanced topics)
  3. March Madness web quest - Designed for middle school math students.
  4. Interdisciplinary March Madness project - For grades 4-6
  5. Scoring March Madness - How to score brackets after the tournament.
  6. Adding Academics to the Big Dance - The Quick and the ED discusses graduation rates of the teams in this year's tourney.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Have Fun With Your Students By Telling Them Unbelievable Stories [Video]



If you're interested in getting a review copy of my upcoming book, Teaching is Not a Four Letter Word: How to Stop Worrying and Love the Job, email me at teachforever@gmail.com.

Mr. D TV is my weekly video series where I give advice to teachers on just about any topic. If you have a question you'd like me to answer, email me. If you like the video, check out the last week's episode or my YouTube channel for more. See you next week!

Friday, March 12, 2010

Save Ink, Your Children, Your Sense of Humor and More [Five for Friday]

2 Dead Economists In An Extreme Rap Battle [Consumerist] - Keynes vs. Hayek throw down over their economic theories.  I'm waiting for Alexander Hamilton vs. Thomas Jefferson in a battle of nascent political parties.

Extreme Word Problem Writing [The Number Warrior] - I'm all for new and exciting ways to engage students, but I think word problems can be more effective if they just make more sense and are a bit more relevant.  These extreme questions are certainly interesting if not useless in the classroom, similar to those in the SAT parody book I reviewed recently.

Printliminator Quickly, Easily Makes Any Page Printer Friendly [Lifehacker] - Save on ink, paper and copies with this handy tool.  I've also shared similar resources here.

Stop Overscheduling Your Children! [Wired: GeekDad] - Jenny Williams makes a case for giving your kids time to be kids.

Free Math, Language Arts and Geography Games [The Innovative Educator]

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Read My Guest Post on Educational Games Research

Last week I wrote my take on the present and future of educational video games for John Rice over at Educational Games Research:

No Need to Reinvent the Wheel to Revolutionize Educational Video Games

I'm interested to hear your thoughts and feedback.  I encourage you to check out the rest of EGR as well; it's one of my must-read blogs.  Keep an eye out for a guest post from John in the near future, right here!

Friday, March 5, 2010

Graduation Rates, Faculty Meeting Fun & More [Five for Friday]

  1. 10 Things to Do When You Only Have 5 Minutes Left in Class [TheApple]
  2. Faculty Meeting Pet Peeves [Sup Teach?] - They must have visited many schools I've taught in!
  3. Innovative Ideas That Make Sense for Those Hungry for Math Instruction [The Innovative Educator]
  4. Whose Job Is It Anyway? [Math Tales from the Spring] - Mrs. H makes an excellent point about graduation rates.
  5. 3 Ways Educators Are Embracing Social Technology [Mashable]

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

See the Ultimate Number Line Game in Action [Video]

In October, I shared my idea for the Ultimate Number Line Game as a kinesthetic way to teach number sense.  Now I have a video of the game in action!  The first half of this short clip shows the setup and explains the concept, and the second shows the kids enjoying the game.



These students are in grades 2-5.  We told them to play it like a relay (one throws the dice, the other moves to the right spot, then switch).  If you've tried a version of this game and have pictures or video, please contact me so we can share it with everybody.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

A Hilarious Alternative to Boring SAT Test Prep

When I first opened The BSAT Official Study Guide: 350 Questions You'll Never See on the SAT! by John Forster and Marc Segan, I expected a chuckle, or perhaps a polite half-laugh.  When I started laughing out loud, I had to put it down for a bit so as not to scare the people around me.  This book is really funny, and although you can't give it to a college-bound student who lacks a sense of humor (or has parents with that particular affliction), it would make a great gift for most others.

This parody of SAT prep books is actually really similar to the structure of the test and legitimate prep books, although the content is obviously quite different.  As with all good parodies, it's the degree of faithfulness to the original that makes it truly effective.  It would certainly help a stressed out junior or senior relax before taking (or retaking) the test, which will help them do better and not psyche themselves out.

Teachers could also use parts of this book to review test-taking strategies (carefully picking the questions to use), to reduce stress heading into a real test, and as a source of funny questions to tack onto assignments and tests of their own.  It would also be helpful if you're interested in reliving and/or understanding what their high school students are going through, especially if it's been a while since you were in their shoes.

There's math, reading passages, analogies, essays and all of the typical types of sections you would see on the real test.  Here are some sample questions:
Mathematics: Ashley is twice as popular as Brittany, but half as popular as Desiree.  Camille is three times as popular as Desiree, but actually would love to have long straight hair.  How much more popular is Camille than Brittany?

A) 6 times as popular
B) 12 times as popular
C) Camille would actually love to have long straight hair.
D) 3 times as popular
E) Is this math?  That is so not popular!

Sentence Completions: The freshman realized it was time to do his laundry when -------.

A) he opened the laundry bag and the carbon-monoxide detector went off
B) his jeans jumped up from the floor and wrapped themselves around his neck
C) his roommate moved into a hotel
D) Campus Security cordoned off his room as a biohazard
E) he heard the wailing and grinding of zipper teeth from the floor of his closet

Essay: Why aren't white people cool?  Would it help if they could jump?
These are admittedly some of the tamer entries, and I must again stress that someone who is easily offended will flip out over the content of this book.  For everyone else, it's a great way to help calm someone gearing up for the SAT.

Get The BSAT Official Study Guide: 350 Questions You'll Never See on the SAT! at Amazon.  Read more about the book and the authors at BSAT World.

Also, I'm giving away a copy of the book.  All I ask is that you share your most hilarious and/or horrifying test taking experience, SAT or otherwise, in the comments below by midnight CST this Saturday, 3/6.  Good luck!

Monday, March 1, 2010

Where Should You Teach Next Year? [Video]



Here's the "Evolution of Mr. D" series I mentioned in the video.

Mr. D TV is my weekly video series where I give advice to teachers on just about any topic. If you have a question you'd like me to answer, email it to teachforever@gmail.com. If you like the video, check out the last week's episode or my YouTube channel for more. See you next week!