While there are times when consensus makes sense, collaborative experiences are often most beneficial when they center on open-ended questions that invite students’ thinking. Teaching coach Gravity Goldberg shares ways to encourage exploration and creative expression in groups.
Teacher and coach Mona Iehl loves ending the school year with a choice-driven math fact fluency challenge. Students solidify their fluency before the next grade while also engaging in a fun initiative. Discover her simple 4-step process and check out the resources she shares.
When students learn to identify and name the ideas and emotions in poetry and share their own emotions through writing poems, they better understand their feelings and build empathy and understanding for others. Teacher leader Kasey Short shares methods and lots of poems.
Ramp up poetry positivity with the Peel the Fruit activity from Project Zero. Throughout the year NBCT Kathie Palmieri helps her fifth graders uncover layers of poetry understanding and then invites them to write their own. Their current favorite: the Intimate Object Poem.
Scholastic’s Dwaine Millard explores how community libraries can both offer all young people opportunities to improve their access to resources and technology and provide face-to-face settings where they can form positive social norms outside the boundaries of social media.
What would it be like to spend time together with colleagues on a regular basis to learn and improve our teaching skills? To investigate that question, Anne Jolly embarked on a year-long, onsite action research project to design and test a middle school teacher collaboration process.
Do graphic novels get to stand on their own, or should they be paired with additional texts? ELA teacher Jason DeHart explores that question and concludes (no surprise) that the answer is both. See his suggestions for paired titles that will appeal to middle grades readers.
The single point rubric – a minimalist, stripped-down version of the standard 4-point rubric – provides efficiency for teachers and is impactful for students because the simplified teacher feedback fosters growth, writes Stephanie Farley. She also shares three grading tips.
The number one frustration Barbara Blackburn hears from educators is TIME! “I just don’t have time to do everything I need to.” Try her seven strategies to cope with constant planning and overflowing calendars. And remember this: perfectionism can be the enemy of completion.
As the world becomes increasingly digital, teachers want their STEM students to be comfortable using technology and digital tools skillfully and with purpose. STEM curriculum expert Anne Jolly identifies five specific STEM skill sets and relates them to dozens of current apps.
