Social Media / Two Teachers in the Room
by Elizabeth Stein · Published 05/18/2014 · Last modified 12/03/2019
Elizabeth Stein constantly searches for professional development opportunities to strengthen co-teaching. Her district offers excellent PD, and she values virtual colleagues she’s found online. Lately her favorite PD comes with her own hashtag: #coteachat.
STEM By Design / STEM Misconceptions
by Anne Jolly · Published 05/18/2014 · Last modified 11/28/2019
STEM doesn’t deserve some of the fallout that’s pummeled it of late. What’s an education initiative devoted to correcting deficiencies in education to do? Anne Jolly takes on some of the jaw-dropping attacks and works to set the record straight.
Book Reviews / Personal Learning Networks
by MiddleWeb · Published 05/16/2014 · Last modified 05/19/2014
Organized and user friendly, Professional Learning in the Digital Age by Kristen Swanson provides educator cases, face-to-face protocols, research snippets and to-do lists to help teachers move through the process of developing their PLN, says reviewer Nicole Miller.
The topic of dictionaries came up in assorted conversations in the past few weeks, reminding Kevin Hodgson both of the power of those esteemed books of words as symbols of thought and scholarship, and the ways in which technology is completely altering the ease and means of how we find information when we need it.
Flipped Lesson / Two Teachers in the Room
by Elizabeth Stein · Published 05/04/2014 · Last modified 12/11/2019
When special ed teacher Elizabeth Stein worked with her science co-teacher on their first flipped lesson, one student’s response clinched the concept for them: “I just wish we had more time to be the teachers in class—I like taking charge of my own learning.”
If asking student writers to develop voice, stamina and range isn’t hard enough, says teacher educator Troy Hicks, we now have digital tools to contend with. Watch as Hicks helps his 6th grade daughter think through her creation of a book report video.
Too much close reading is boring, say Mike Fisher & Danielle Hardt, as students comb through fiction, constantly analyzing lots of text. Ask them to read and write digital microstories. They’ll build evaluation & synthesis skills and have some fun.
If persistent inequalities in urban and rural classrooms continue across the public system, reading expert Laura Robb says, it will be impossible for many children in poverty to achieve the deeper levels of learning anticipated by the Common Core.
Teaching allegory / Working Draft
by Kevin Hodgson · Published 03/25/2014 · Last modified 11/23/2019
A convergence of events – from the Cold War-tinged Ukraine crisis to World Read Aloud Day and the birthday of Dr. Seuss – helped inspire 6th grade ELA teacher Kevin Hodgson’s recent lessons on allegory and the difference between nonfiction and truth.
Numerous historical adaptions have been nominated for Academy Awards in recent years. Media literacy expert Frank W. Baker offers ideas and resources to help students examine their historical accuracy and address a middle-level Common Core standard.
