This article from Makezine.com hit my inbox recently. Woodshop, machine shop, handsaws and chisels can all cause injury and at times, death. Constant vigilance and evaluation of our skills is the only way to reduce the our chances, and our students chances, of injury. Take a moment today to evaluate your own practices and routinesContinue reading “A Quick Reminder – Keep Safe Today”
Tag Archives: teaching Strategies
This Week in the Classroom: Setting Up the Classroom in Stations
Success in the classroom begins before the students even set foot in the workshop. Yesterday saw the re-opening of school after a long Spring Break. My “classroom” looked like this: Let’s take a closer look. First, a young man has been building and designing a bookshelf over the past quarter. He’s just getting started sizing stock. Continue reading “This Week in the Classroom: Setting Up the Classroom in Stations”
This Week in the Classroom: What Do Plants Eat? And How Does It Grow Leaves? And Other Teaching Errors
What exactly, is a plant’s food? And where do the raw elements that make up a tree trunk come from? Take a moment and think up two answers. I had a student ask these questions on a recent field trip. The answer given by the speaking biologist to the second question was wrong. In fact,Continue reading “This Week in the Classroom: What Do Plants Eat? And How Does It Grow Leaves? And Other Teaching Errors”
Teacher Resources: TEDTalks on Education
The TED Talks started in the 1980’s as a Silicon-Valley conference focused on software, technology and design. Now, it’s the destination for smart hipsters and brilliant researchers, visionaries and experimenters to express their passions and become the circus attraction. I’ve been watching a few of these talks on and off for a year or so. Continue reading “Teacher Resources: TEDTalks on Education”
This Week in the Shop: Refurbish A Children’s Bike
The 16″ childrens’ bike project has cleared my outbox. I’m busy in reflection mode with the students, examining all the different parts of our work for ways to improve the product, teaching and quality next time. I thought the bike itself came out well: If you’ve followed the blog over the past two months, thenContinue reading “This Week in the Shop: Refurbish A Children’s Bike”
How To: Teach Sawing to a Young Student
I have a perfect record in the woodshop. No fatalities. I have had two injuries though this year (I average about one a quarter or semester). Both happened due to good sawing habits gone bad. This picture shows my basic hand-saw set up when I cut a board to size. I’m right-handed and for south-pawed students,Continue reading “How To: Teach Sawing to a Young Student”
This Week in the Classroom: Quality from a Student
Finished only one true project this week in the shop. Instead of trying to complete projects with the students, I slowed down and tried to focus on the journey, and focus on quality. What does it look like in my shop, and do I facilitate it, or do my students discover it for themselves? WhatContinue reading “This Week in the Classroom: Quality from a Student”
This Week In the Classroom: New Tools and Old Tools In the Shop (It’s Not What You Think)
Just got the best new, free tool in the woodshop today. It looks like this: It’s a printed out (thank god the paper-waster nazi wasn’t around) version of the ENTIRE trilogy of Mission Furniture and How to Make It published by Project Gutenberg via Popular Mechanics from 1910. The students flip through it and findContinue reading “This Week In the Classroom: New Tools and Old Tools In the Shop (It’s Not What You Think)”
This Week In the Classroom: To Sand or Not to Sand…
Returned to school last week with so much to do and catch up on (I did make it to Boston and missed a long day full of meetings and schedule-making). I had several gorgeous “woodworking-as-the-way” moments, only one of which I’ll share. One of my neurologically different students asked to meet the teacher he wasContinue reading “This Week In the Classroom: To Sand or Not to Sand…”
WSC Designs 