All students need excellent instruction every year of their school experience to reach their potential, writes principal coach Matt Renwick. That’s why an instructional framework is so important for a building team to select or develop and for a faculty to commit to as a school.
In Teaching Beyond the Timeline, China Harvey and Lisa Herzig show how to make history more relevant, exciting and connected to the present by using thematic history that integrates chronology. Sarah Cooper enthusiastically recommends sharing the book and its friendly intricacy.
To move toward equitable mathematics education, Dr. Lidia Gonzalez shows how math teachers can help students see beyond harmful beliefs by answering 3 questions: “What is mathematics?”, “What does it mean to be good at math?” and “How do we see our math development over time?”
Rotation stations can help differentiate instruction as teachers prepare middle graders for an upcoming unit or topic or support re-teaching and enrichment after completing a unit of study. Dr. Laura Robb details one teacher’s strategies in an ELA classroom with 28 students.
You need your break! Don’t fill your summer ruminating endlessly about lessons and classes to come. Instead try the “habit stacking” strategy and prepare for the next school year without getting mired in the weeds. Teacher and coach Miriam Plotinsky shares nine possibilities.
When asked to help implement health/biology curriculum, the authors decided to focus on active learning strategies that succeeded in exciting and engaging the adolescent girls in their classes. They conclude that well-designed hands-on learning is worth the extra time and effort.
Educators tend to fill every moment with our voices, writes teaching coach Patty McGee. Yet the most powerful learning can happen when we are silent, making room for student-to-student communication, customized feedback, and a trusted space for students to reveal what they know.
If we can teach kids to think about their futures with more specificity and positivity, then we can have a significant impact on not only their self-image but their well-being – critical work in our anxiety-ridden, social media-saturated times, writes teacher leader Stephanie Farley.
As the school year ends, it’s easy for students to lose their momentum. One way to help ease students into summer mode, but still sneak in some math review, is to find engaging activities. Kathleen Palmieri shares favorites from Jo Boaler that can also be saved for fall warm-ups.
A Year for the Books is, in equal parts, about love of reading and how to organize a student-centered classroom environment for elementary and middle school students. ELA teacher Laurie Miller Hornik especially likes “Turning Beliefs about Teaching and Learning Into Actions.”
