When Principal Rita Platt tested positive for COVID-19 and isolated at home, her staff put pandemic plans into action while she concentrated on self-care. Writing from Wisconsin, Rita shares her coping strategies and praises her staff’s response to going all-virtual again.
Articles / Questioning / remote learning
by MiddleWeb · Published 11/02/2020 · Last modified 11/29/2020
Effective questioning during remote learning doesn’t require new strategies. Consultant Barbara Blackburn suggests building questions with higher order thinking models; including questioning stems; adding cubing for student choice; and having students source their answers.
As you work with your students on grammar instruction, Sean Ruday recommends emphasizing that grammatical concepts are key parts of writer’s craft toolkit. An understanding of the precise purpose of each tool will help them become thoughtful and artful communicators.
Writing workshop can be an exciting part of the day for students in the middle, writes author and workshop expert Lynne Dorfman. Even when middle level schedules aren’t a great fit for extended workshop writing, teachers can nurture “writerly” attitudes with daily quickwrites.
Are your students’ annotated texts hard to make sense of? Do they underline entire sections of a source and write very few comments? This can be a huge impediment to meaningful learning for some kids. Sunday Cummins offers 4 keys to sharpening their annotation skills.
If you are looking for a book that provides a realistic yet hopeful view of what it means to be an educator and a researcher by way of viewing yourself as a Scholar-Practitioner, then this book fits the bill, writes teacher educator/researcher Megan Reister.
You don’t have to be an ELA teacher to teach academic content to English learners. The goal is to guide students in using language “like an expert in a particular field would use it,” writes Tan Huynh, who shares a 4-step process used by international consultant Beth Skelton.
STEM kids need to ratchet up their know-how about the real-world problem of plastics pollution and work together on sensible solutions. As they tackle this impending global crisis, they’ll grow problem-solving competencies for a lifetime, writes STEM educator Anne Jolly.
For those with positive stories, social-emotional learning helps reinforce the skills they need to succeed. For those with stories of trauma, SEL can help balance negative experiences with positive ones. Author-educator Marilee Sprenger shows how brain research can help.
Recognizing that we are all new to the process of teaching and learning this year, teaching coach and NBCT Elizabeth Stein considers three keys for success as we move forward on our co-teaching journeys: flexibility, communication, and blending academics with SEL.
