Making Thinking Visible / Two Teachers in the Room
by Elizabeth Stein · Published 09/05/2017 · Last modified 11/28/2019
How can co-teachers honor the strengths and needs of each learner and assure everyone becomes an important contributor to the classroom learning experience? Elizabeth Stein believes the process begins by creating a framework that makes every student’s thinking visible.
Imagine an open-ended math task that gets students asking questions as well as answering them. Jerry Burkhart shows how a problem like this can help teachers differentiate instruction for advanced students while stimulating curiosity and perseverance for all learners.
Heart of the School / Social Emotional Learning
by Rita Platt · Published 09/03/2017 · Last modified 05/12/2022
Joy is a part of a healthy climate, and in places where we spend huge chunks of time – like school – healthy climates are critical to the success of students and teachers alike. Rita Platt shares some of the ways she bring smiles and laughter into classroom culture.
Kevin Hodgson’s summer PD was packed with learning. His required online certification course moved in one direction – from the screen to his eyes. His Connected Learning MOOC featured creativity, collaboration, and fun. Just what he wants for his students this fall.
First Days of Math Class / Meaningful Math
by Michelle Russell · Published 08/21/2017 · Last modified 07/29/2021
Michelle Russell’s first week back in math class went great. Learn how she launched her classroom communities, thanks to teachers whose activities and ideas she scouted out online. Michelle has included all the students’ favorites in case you’d like to try some yourself!
Amid the enthusiasm and anticipation that typically infuse the start of school, author Debbie Silver shares advice to help teachers plan a successful year by choosing actions that will decrease stress, build stamina, and make sure they take care of themselves first.
The Flexible Classroom / Zoey's Voice
by Amber Chandler · Published 08/15/2017 · Last modified 01/16/2021
Amber Chandler introduces her rising 7th grade daughter Zoey to share “five things I wish people told me about going to middle school.” Perspective is everything, as Zoey demonstrates, with some advice she urges sixth grade teachers to share with their new students.
Mary Tarashuk is counting on Peter Brown’s fiction picture books to enliven her 4th graders’ adaptation to their new classroom and their first science unit on animal and plant adaptation. The Global Read Aloud, featuring Brown’s Roz the Wild Robot, is in the wings.
Do you want a book filled with lesson plans that you can use the next day or something based in theory that will inform your teaching decisions along the way? Pam Hamilton writes you can have it both ways in these fiction and nonfiction guides by Gravity Goldberg and Renee Houser.
We might think a new school year should start off with solemnity. But that’s not the message teacher Heather Wolpert-Gawron has garnered from her survey of 6-12th graders across the country. Students learn more when teachers share their humanity and their humor ASAP.
