The Dog in BYOD-- make sure you have tissues ready

On the Moose River near Jackman, ME

Brody is 8.5 years old and with his graying muzzle, it is evident that he is starting to show his age. I'm reminded that my super-hero dog is mortal. This scares me.


Brody has been a faithful companion, trail buddy, swim partner, and emotional rock for 8.5 years now. For 7 of those years he has walked the halls of Southern Regional with me, saying hi to students and staff, offering an ear for reading,  snoozing while I teach, and soothing anyone in need.

You have to understand that while Brody is my family pet, he has been a therapy dog for over 2,000 people a year for the past 7 years. He isn't just my dog, and he is much much more than an unofficial school mascot. Brody is a founding member of the PAWS therapy dog program at Southern.

A portion of The Southern PAWS pack: Brody, Sage, & Dusty (Not pictured: Marker & Harley)

8.5 years ago my district went through a crisis: we had multiple deaths from car accidents, suicides, and illness. In a 2 year period, we had over 10 student/staff deaths. One of those deaths broke me and it took a puppy, my husband, and amazing staff (B.D. especially!) at my school to put me back together. One of my swimmers, left me a suicide note on my desk, the cliche, "By the time you read this...." By the time I read her note, she was gone. After staying after school with me, she had walked with me to the main entrance, as I continued on to my car, she ran back to my room and put the note on my desk. That night, she killed herself. I have learned that despite no matter how many times I go over in my mind ways to prevent her death or things I could have done differently, there is nothing I could actually do. It was out of my control. 8.5 years later, I have accepted & excepted that as much as anyone can accept & except it: LIFE goes on, even after death.

Brody is 2nd from the right wearing a purple ribbon.

Two weeks after my swimmer's death, our 6 week old chocolate lab puppy was delivered from the breeder. Oh, those sad puppy dog eyes! Raising and training Brody over the course of the next year helped get me through the depression, and it was from our basic obedience trainer that I first learned about therapy dogs.

Brody on his first morning "walk".

The science behind therapy dogs focuses on one simple premise: petting a dog makes one feel good. Studies have been done on the physical effect of interacting with animals. I could bore you with A Dog's Purpose and Garth Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain and don't tell me you don't think of your own dog while reading and get teary-eyed.
statistics on how one's blood pressure is lowered when petting, but the simple fact is this: being with a dog makes a person happy. Why else did we domesticate dogs and let them in our homes eons ago? Go read Bruce Cameron's

Thank you  R.M. for this great shot! Brody plays "Sandy" in Annie.

Long story short, I realized what an amazing and simple thing therapy dogs could do for students in the classroom and the overall school environment, and made it my mission to get Brody certified. Longer story shorter, after getting certified, another teacher and I wrote proposals, gave presentations and the two of us got approval to start the Pets Assisting Willing Students (PAWS) therapy dog program. As far as I know, we are the only high school in NJ that has therapy dogs in school 5 days a week.

In the 7 years of the program, we've had 5 dogs (Brody, Sage, Dusty, Marker, & Harley) attend classes, participate in an after school reading program (BARK: Books And Reading with K-9s), interact with students, visit the special ed and autism classrooms, and when called upon, participate in crisis intervention and management. Brody even played the role of "Sandy" in the school's production of Annie. In the 7 years that Brody has attended school-- he still hasn't made it out of the 9th grade-- he and the other PAWS pack members have impacted thousands of people, staff and students alike.

In my classroom, I have ZERO truancy. I have ZERO lates. My behavior issues have also decreased. I have witnessed the surliest, meanest looking student in school, break into a big, goofy grin and get o the floor to pet Brody. I have watched regular education students stop in the halls to talk to a special education student who was walking Brody on leash. A dog is a bridge that connects us to ourselves and each other.


While I fear his mortality, Brody's years of service aren't over yet, and if he has made you smile, laugh, and be happy to be here (even from looking at these pictures), then he has done his job.

Here are some shots of the PAWS pack in action over the years.

Always remember, more wag & less bark!

Go get your dreams, like a lab retrieves a ball!

Happy Tails!

Start the Year with Contracts, 9/11 & BWP

Breaking Down the First Week:
1. BWP
2. Class Contract for Mid-level classes
3. Class Procedures for all
4. Using Edmodo for posting activities and assignments and having online discussions
5. Using Quizlet as a study resource
6. Student reflection responses

Blank White Page Project was a big hit for starting off the year. Students were intrigued about the idea of questioning and researching for the sake of questioning and researching. I'm still in the process of categorizing my students' questions, but I'm hopeful that in October, I can get them started on the researching process. This was certainly a quick way for me to get to know my students. They revealed much about themselves in the questions they asked. I am looking forward to getting them connected to students across the country. This will be a valuable lesson in learning to be part of a greater community.


On to the Contracts: My "general" or "average" level classes are usually where I have the most behavior problems. Could it be a vicious cycle: student is placed in general/average level and will therefore act in a general/average way because he/she was not identified as advanced despite possessing unrecognized "advanced" potential? In the MS, students are labeled as advanced or general, but when they move up to 9th grade, there are 4 tracks to take: Basic, General, Advanced, Honors.   Placement is based on test scores and marking period grades, but it isn't a perfect system. I've also noticed a pattern: the students who are more well-behaved (good at playing the game of school) are placed in Advanced. There are some smart students in those General classes, but the lack of maturity in 9th grade impedes learning.  My opinion: too many tracks for 9th graders and if the student is not placed in his/her desired track, the student shuts down. To combat this vicious cycle, this year the classes and I negotiated an academic contract and am implementing a hybrid-mastery model.

In order for this to work, I and the students both need to follow through. I need to stay organized and up to date on assignments, and the students need to honor holding themselves to a higher standard. Edmodo's quiz feature will help with managing tests. I have two options to explore:

1. Create a small group with in my class for retakes, loading the retake tests to just the small group and selecting the students as needed. I'm toying with the idea of delineating each retake group: instead of one large retake group, create a group for each unit. I'm just afraid that I will have too many small groups within the main class group. And if I deselect students from the small group, I think their scores get erased as well, so I want to make sure I think this through.
2. My other option is to create an additional class for students to join to take the retakes. I would be able to set permissions to read-only if needed, but their scores would be in a separate gradebook. I want all scores in one place....maybe this won't work.

A third option is to forgo technology for the retakes and do paper-pen tests. I have a cache of them at my fingertips. I'm still in the process of moving to paperless environment, so this would alleviate the issue of having to get multiple versions on the web. Ugh, I dunno....trials and errors!

The writing revisions will be the most time consuming on my part. I need to mull this over more. I intend on doing more frequent small formative writing that is not graded, but I need to make sure the students are getting valid feedback. Peer assessment will help, but it won't be able to do all. I could do screencast videos and discuss common errors, but I don't know if students will be able to apply the general comments to their specific writing.  Must mull this....The goal is to be efficient and effective!

Speaking of small groups, the 9-11 mini-discussion in assigned Edmodo small groups went well. Students examined two infographs, read articles from a New York Times site, found something interesting and wrote a post in their small group about what they found interesting and why. Part two of the activity involved students watching an amazing video from Mrs. Syollis' class on how to write a quality comment and then applied the newly acquired knowledge to replying to other group members' posts.

Finally for week one, students reflected on this week using a google form. Many enjoyed the 9-11 activity-- weird to think that they enjoyed learning about something that was so gut-wrenching. I have to keep reminding myself that they do not have an active memory of this event. I clearly remember everything about that day, my students were too young to understand. I received positive responses on the contract process, the introduction to Edmodo and Quizlet, and overall favorable outlook for the year.

Week 1 is DONE!

The Beast of the East

Me, going down & up a hill

While this title sounds like something my cross-country, Californian colleagues might call me (#thatsajoke), this is really referring to the 10K McGuire Mud Run held at Fort Dix, NJ.


Yes, 10k.... And I'm not a great runner. I don't usually run. But the focus in this race is on the process: my mom, siblings & I encouraging each other and using team work to overcome ridiculously muddy obstacles. Run up a big muddy hill and when you reach the top, you'll see what I mean.

My mom & brother give me a boost.

My brother gives me a hand up.

During today's race, I ran into  (figuratively) one of my students in class this year. Talk about awkward: We just finished the first 3 days of school and are still in the "getting to know you" phase, and here I am dressed in silly costumes with my family covered in mud. But the great thing was, I got to cheer that student on while really climbing a giant muddy hill, not a metaphorical one, and he and his family cheered me on while I made my climb. How many times in one's teaching career can that be done? And there is more: we, the student and I, both know exactly what obstacles and challenges we each faced and overcame. How often can that be said in the classroom? 


Teaching is similar to doing a mud run: it is a messy process that requires teamwork and problem solving skills to surmount obstacles.Often times we, students and teachers, forget that we are facing the same challenges and engaging in the same process.  Do you think this student will look at me differently after this run-in? Do you think I will know that this student is capable of meeting challenges?

But I do know this: both he and I know that we are capable of doing great things with just a bit of teamwork.

One of the Big Hills-- Student's mom is the one climbing on the right. My Student is waiting to go; he'll be up next.
My mom (very last person in red with bi on back) and I (all the way to the left in black with my bib on back)
watch on and wait our turn.

The Students are Coming!

Tomorrow starts the first day with students, and as a way to ease them (all of us) back into the schedule, we have 1/2 days with 20 minute periods. The next few days will be hectic as well with class meetings and the inevitable shaking out the kinks of student schedules. Despite the distractions, I'm starting off the year with a list of things I want to do balanced with things I'm told to do.

So, to start the year off, I begin with the Blank White Page.

As a way to BUILD the classroom climate, students will be given as their syllabus/class expectations a blank white piece of paper. I have my syllabus and class expectations from previous years, and I'm sure they know what the usual things will be on the list, so I refuse to belabor it and talk to the students. Instead, I want them to have a voice and to tell ME what they expect from this class and me, the teacher. Obviously, the comments of "no homework," "Easy A" will be addressed. We are all in this together, so why not establish class expectations together? With 7 other periods reading off their class expectations and giving the usual lectures, I hope this will intrigue them and help them to be invested in the class.

The Blank White Class Expectation page will then lead into the BWP inquiry project. More on this later....

Other items on my To-Do list include (in no particular order):

1. Creating a flipped-mastery unit for the mandatory SAT vocab words the entire district is using. Don't get me started on authentic vocabulary acquisition, but I hope this Word of the Day bit will be as painless as possible. I have the list of words, but just need to create the activities & quizzes.

2. Creating a flipped-mastery unit for the mandatory grammar skills. Grammar will also be integrated into daily lessons and activities, but I'd like to make grammar as painless as possible, too. I'm waiting on the list of skills that the 9th grade is supposed to cover.

3. Adapting some of my paper permission slips (BYOD, PAWS program) to an online format using Google forms. This won't take me long to do once I get the students on Edmodo.



I'm excited for this year with really going paperless, integrating BYOD, and delving more into the flipped classroom model. On my short list of classroom tools, we'll be using Edmodo (of course!), Google docs/forms/sites, TodaysMeet.com, Quizlet, and Socrative.

More to come soon!