Kasey Short shows how your middle grades school can create a Wellness Fair to highlight that stress is normal, showcase that mental health is a priority, and provide students an opportunity to learn and practice a variety of coping skills. And kids will have fun doing it!
Shifting our STEM teaching approach to align with current workforce needs means broadening our thinking about the design process, writes Anne Jolly. That includes helping students work together to build the skills of empathy and creativity that lead to innovative solutions.
Anna M. Quinzio-Zafran and Elizabeth A. Wilkins bring together up-to-the-minute advice from award-winning educators to guide new and veteran teachers alike as they navigate the school system, form relationships with colleagues, and connect with students and families.
In his farewell reflection upon leaving the classroom, teacher Jeremy Hyler says he will be “working for an organization that believes in making every student successful through the programs they offer and not just selling a product or serving a subset of our students.”
The Columns strategy developed by Jill Brown and Jana Schmidt offers the organizing tool teachers need to provide students in grades 2-5 targeted and well-paced reading intervention, making all of the data we collect both relevant and meaningful, writes AP Ginny Hornberger.
Students with limited or interrupted formal education (SLIFE) benefit when teachers consider how SLIFEs have learned previously – most often informally in their family culture. Tan Huynh shares ways educators can blend a formal literacy focus with the relational learning they’re used to.
“Improve Every Lesson Plan with SEL” shows us how – through intentional, deliberate and embedded instruction, including differentiation and choice – teachers can assure all students gain the explicit and implicit SEL skills they need, writes middle level leader Todd Brist.
Future of History / Making History Meaningful
by Lauren S. Brown · Published 09/15/2021 · Last modified 09/21/2024
How should we teach US History? Is it mostly about caring? Or critical thinking? What about historical knowledge? Teacher Lauren Brown stands firm for content. “If we’ve learned anything from the culture wars this year it’s that too many Americans do not know their history.”
Close Reading the Media / The Emmy Awards
by MiddleWeb · Published 09/08/2021 · Last modified 09/12/2021
The Emmy Awards continue to be a rich source of teaching ideas for educators who have an interest in media, television and film literacy. Expert Frank Baker’s latest edition of his annual Emmys column offers background perspective, teaching ideas and additional resources.
Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, it’s essential to teach students about the lives lost, the heroes who helped, and the Islamophobia that followed. To examine 9/11’s legacy and impact, middle grades teacher Kasey Short recommends key online resources and four YA novels.
