Being a STEM teacher in 2022 will likely be a new experience every day, even for veterans, writes curriculum designer Anne Jolly. To help out, she suggests ways STEM teachers can care for themselves and ways to sustain kids’ STEM skills, sharing many resources that can help.
Active listening is a key skill for school leaders, especially when faced with the need to mediate complex or volatile issues. Consultants Ron Williamson and Barbara Blackburn describe 5 barriers to effective listening and 10 tips to help every leader become more successful.
Book Reviews / Social & Emotional Learning
by MiddleWeb · Published 01/06/2022 · Last modified 09/07/2022
Jeffrey Benson’s book is the perfect supplement to any school or district’s SEL program. The book offers ready-to-use advice for SEL implementation, writes Michael DiClemente, and will be especially welcomed by educators apprehensive about adding any more to their plate.
Frank Buck revisits the Wild West movie days in his quest to help educators defy the daily deluge of unsolicited or redundant email that steals their time. Get the details on how to circle the wagons, energize the pony express, and deny those emails entry to your inbox.
Whether his soon-to-be teachers are spending an hour or all day with students, the question teacher educator Curtis Chandler most often hears from them is this: “How can I better support my students who are English language learners?” His 2022 resolution – prepare them better.
When students tackle fact-rich texts, teachers may need to shift into focused instruction mode, modeling the strategic processing nonfiction readers use to make sense of new information. Cummins and Webb share a teacher-student partnership scenario.
To help in assessing students’ digital stories, Katie Caprino and Alyssa Marzili share tips on ways to engage middle graders in thinking about their stories’ purpose, genre, tone and audience, how to structure peer feedback, and how to use digital tools for ongoing evaluation.
In response to a pandemic spike in discipline referrals and educator burnout, AP DeAnna Miller urges school leaders make a concerted effort to be visible even though it is hard, to take time to listen even when they seem to lack the time, and to do something restorative for themselves.
After a year of having her classroom book collection in pandemic disarray, Katie Durkin was ready for a restart. “I’d been researching the benefits of promoting student voice and choice by having them assist in organizing an in-class library. Now I wanted to give it a try.”
Curtis Chandler looks into implicit bias, the unconscious stereotypes that drive each of us, including educators, to behave and make decisions in certain ways. He shares a Teacher Tracker Tool that can help uncover patterns and make sure we treat all students fairly.
