Teaching and learning in grades 4-8

Leading Teams: How to Avoid “Groupthink”

“Groupthink” can happen if team members are afraid of the consequences of sharing their real thoughts and feelings. When divergent thinking is left of of the school improvement discussion, writes leadership coach Elena Aguilar, positive and lasting change isn’t likely to occur.

Principals: Teaming with Families & Community

Involving parents and families in a partnership with schools has a positive impact on students. What can principals do to ensure the partnership is sustained, vibrant and diverse? Ron Williamson and Barbara Blackburn suggest strategies to build connections.

Nurture Innovative Thinking in Math Class

With plentiful humor Gerald Aungst shows how to address math problem solving in powerful and realistic ways, helping students become innovative mathematical thinkers. Middle school math resource teacher Maia Fastabend plans to revisit his book frequently.

Grow Purposeful Writers in the Middle Grades

Writing comes alive in Paula Bourque’s book “Close Writing: Developing Purposeful Writers.” Bourque supports her strategies for engaging youngsters in writing, revising and editing with classroom stories, study guides, and videos, says teacher Linda Biondi.

Teach Students to Write Strong Paragraphs

When students struggle to write coherent essays or can’t explain their evidence well enough, it often boils down to this: they need help learning to build strong paragraphs. Literacy expert Sarah Tantillo takes us step by step through her construction process.

Use Political Covers to Teach Media Literacy

Paid ads and social media give lots of exposure to Presidential candidates. They also get free visibility from magazines, though they don’t always like what they see. Frank Baker offers a magazine-cover activity to help students build media literacy skills.

Zen Teaching: Create Focus and Simplicity

In The Zen Teacher Dan Tricarico helps teachers move from a frazzled, overwhelmed existence as “the living dead” to focus on the moment, allowing us to free our creativity and be better educators. Stressed teacher Laura Von Staden found the book very helpful.