If educators are serious about teaching critical skills and serving the whole child, they need to get serious about SEL education and “make it a core and central organizing principle for middle school programs,” writes teacher, principal and leadership mentor Jason Ablin.
I Will Screw This Up / Technology
by Dina Strasser · Published 03/12/2023 · Last modified 05/21/2023
If we teach writing right, we’ll be fine with our kids having access to ChatGPT, says ENL/ELA teacher Dina Strasser. ChatGPT is a machine, following a formula. “It is not a student in a learning community.” She shares several instructional strategies to AI-proof your classroom.
Lesson Planning / The Unstoppable ML Teacher
by Tan Huynh · Published 03/07/2023 · Last modified 08/20/2023
This lesson planning template created by Tan Huynh and Beth Skelton serves the learning needs of both multilinguals and non-MLs in any subject. It helps assure planning is highly structured and intentional, lessons are accessible, and success is within reach of all students.
The flash fiction format is engaging, appealing, and motivating to students and to teachers, precisely because of its brevity, accessibility, and manageability, writes teacher/author Linda Rief. “For the first time I am finding joy in hearing and reading my students’ fiction.”
“Ultimately book talk videos recorded by peers are beneficial if we want to inspire middle grades reluctant readers. They need to witness peers having fun with books. It nurtures the idea that reading is worth a try.” School librarian Kristen Day shares how her “EGGs” are doing it.
Social studies teacher Megan Kelly and her students start each class with Canva-created Questions of the Day and continue Canva-assisted learning with topic explorations, visual formative assessments, student-made reports, infographics and more. All with the free version!
5th grade teacher Kathie Palmieri has been exploring ways to better infuse mathematics in other subject areas and help students gain a more positive attitude about math’s central place in their lives. She shares some ideas about SEL and two examples from her science lessons.
Mona Iehl traces her teaching growth from guiding math students through memorizing procedures to thinking deeply through productive struggle at each stage of problem solving. Over time she developed the Word Problem Workshop model she uses in her classroom and explains here.
Deciding when – and how much – to help our students can be difficult, writes new-teacher educator Curtis Chandler. It requires both a self-assessment of our own preconceptions and the ability to strike a delicate balance between high expectations and full support for all.
Whether you’re a principal facilitating a change initiative or a teacher leader facilitating a content-level team, it’s essential to set clear parameters with adult learners upfront so that neither goals, nor trust, nor people’s hard work is compromised. Elisa MacDonald shows how.
