Susan Harris MacKay
Organizing for Assessment
The Goals and Expectations (download here: Download OpalOnline_Article_GoalsExpectations )for student learning go hand-in-hand with the school's values and guiding principles. The perennial questions are: How can…
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Connecting with a Museum Exhibit
The following was written by Marcy Berkowitz and Nicole Simpson, Early Kindergarten teachers: Being housed in the Portland Children's Museum has many more benefits and opportunities…
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Planning for Inspiration
In this follow-up to her article, The Role of Intention, Kerry Salazar contemplates issues at the heart of decisions leading to negotiated, emergent, or prescribed…
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The Power of Reflection
Lella Gandini, who serves as the liaison between the schools of Reggio Emilia and the United States, has made several visits to our Portland, Oregon area schools. …
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Children as Researchers of Their Own Learning
By Susan Harris MacKay Not too many years ago, a group of 7 – 9 year olds, my co-teachers and I created a bug museum.…
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Launching Writer’s Notebooks
Written by Mary Gage Davis As the school year began, children in Opal 3 worked for days carefully crafting maps to capture their summers, the…
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Researching Relationships
In this article, teacher Caroline Wolfe provides an example of her thinking as a teacher-researcher, actively working to develop connections between theory and practice, asking…
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Brain Buddies
What are the benefits of collaboration? Children’s perspectives Opal students know they are part of a larger project. They know people visit their classrooms and…
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The Role of Intention
In the following article, Opal School Teacher-Researcher Kerry Salazar gives us a sense of the approach a teacher-researcher might use to engage in intentional design…
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Playful Inquiry, Materials and Dialogue
By Carole Burton, Visual Arts Specialist Last year in Opal 2, the children thought hard about questions about themselves. Using materials, they wondered about the…
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