Guest posts by expert educators
Stephanie Farley has come to realize that she’s a hybrid kind of person – she enjoys the blurring of traditional lines between categories. Here she shares how she uses elements of fiction to help students conceptualize and improve their nonfiction writing. And vice versa.
The most important step in learning to solve math word problems is reflection, writes math coach Mona Iehl, “yet it’s often overlooked or sacrificed for the sake of time.” Iehl shares her workshop approach to problem solving and how she builds quick reflections into her lessons.
Exploring human experiences through personal stories promotes discussions that focus on facts and individual realities rather than generalizations and stereotypes and helps students develop empathy, compassion and understanding, writes Kasey Short. Reading suggestions included!
Effective questions build in opportunities to scaffold student learning. Teaching coach Barbara R. Blackburn suggests creating questions that encourage multiple answers, include hints and context, allow students to help each other, and provide a clear indicator of success.
Kathie Palmieri has been exploring the significance of vocabulary and the use of context clues to decipher meaning across all the core subject areas. After researching and working with her own students, she shares her findings on the impact of word study on academic success.
Rather than despairing over grammar mistakes in their corrected papers, Jason DeHart suggests students can succeed in ELA by noting the varieties of sentences, talking about their impact on the narrative, and describing the feelings and actions these stylistic choices evoke.
Most teachers are not multilingual learner specialists, writes NBCT and 2018 NTOY Mandy Manning. But most ARE teaching MLs. Overcoming a language barrier may feel insurmountable, but it’s not. Manning shares three key strategies that help fully support MLs in general classrooms.
Ron Williamson and Barbara Blackburn advocate for a three-step teacher evaluation process that emphasizes pre- and post-observation conferences designed to promote full teacher ownership and collaboration, with an emphasis on recognizing strengths and planning for growth.
In the conclusion of their two-part series on supporting student research, our classroom teacher-authors share an Inquiry Chart tool educators can use to coach middle graders as they discuss how their findings are coming together, annotate their work, and plan next steps.
In her 3rd article offering questions to help grow critical readers, Marilyn Pryle says we must help students examine what a text is HIDING. “To navigate the information that bombards them outside of school, students must have the skills to detect the bias, lie, or hidden intention.”
