Future of History / Professional Development
by Sarah Cooper · Published 03/08/2015 · Last modified 11/16/2019
Sarah Cooper leaves her MS classroom behind for a few hours to experience life as a history student again. Her online course proves calming and stimulating, challenging and refreshing. She sees how content area PD can strengthen her classroom practice.
The authors of “Blended” clearly know their stuff, says principal/reviewer Matt Renwick, providing multiple examples of blended learning supported by technology. But Renwick questions the heavy corporate focus and one-sided citations he finds pervade the text.
Initial failures can produce big breakthroughs, as ELA consultant Sarah Tantillo found when students she was supporting failed to translate PARCC practice prompts into viable essays. Check out the tools Tantillo, teachers & tutors used to solve the problem.
CommonLit.Org is a nonprofit organization building a growing collection of supplemental texts, curated by teachers, for teachers, writes founder Michelle Brown. The free and open resource is cross-curricular, organized around themes and essential questions.
Book Reviews / Narrative for Learning
by MiddleWeb · Published 02/19/2015 · Last modified 11/14/2019
Thomas Newkirk makes a convincing argument in Minds Made for Stories that narrative is the framework for all good learning experiences, says teacher-reviewer Jenni Miller. This insight about storytelling can be used by teachers to help students learn and retain more in any subject.
When Cheryl Mizerny invited her 6th graders to pursue a “passion project” of their own choosing, she included the option to help someone in need. The results surprised her. “I greatly underestimated my students’ capacity for wanting to make a difference.”
Career & Technical Education / STEM By Design
by Anne Jolly · Published 02/15/2015 · Last modified 12/12/2019
Anne Jolly takes a closer look at the relationship between STEM and Career and Technical Education. She’s impressed by the spread of middle school CTE programs and highlights the academic, technological and social goals and methods that STEM and CTE share.
For years Amber Chandler has marched her middle school students through Grammar Bootcamp, believing that grammatically correct language is essential to be college and career ready. Now this year’s 7th graders have convinced her there might be a better way.
Book Reviews / Teaching in the Middle
by MiddleWeb · Published 01/22/2015 · Last modified 11/30/2019
Even if you think you know all there is to know about middle schoolers, says teacher-reviewer Beth Morrow, you are bound to understand their thinking and behavior differently after you finish reading What Every Middle School Teacher Should Know.
Working to bring America’s Colonial Period to life in the classroom? Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis’ new toolkit will help history teachers engage students with primary sources, digital links and visual guides. “A gold mine!” says reviewer Linda Biondi.
