If you’ve found class book clubs frustrating, it’s time to read Sara Kugler’s Better Book Clubs. She guides teachers through each step in developing clubs that will help students want to read and talk about books. Literacy leader Sarah Valter highly recommends this resource.
Last Weeks of School / New Teacher Tips
by Curtis Chandler · Published 04/12/2023 · Last modified 04/19/2025
To avoid having movies and parties consume valuable learning time during the last weeks of school, teacher educator Curtis Chandler suggests ways to celebrate and solidify knowledge gained during the year. Tips for new teachers and veterans, including a list from ChatGPT-4.
Teachers are feedback machines – “we do it all day long!” – writes classroom teacher and popular blogger Larry Ferlazzo. Here he focuses on ways to give feedback that’s particularly effective at enhancing students’ sense of competence and encouraging intrinsic motivation.
Ramp up poetry positivity with the Peel the Fruit activity from Project Zero. Throughout the year NBCT Kathie Palmieri helps her fifth graders uncover layers of poetry understanding and then invites them to write their own. Their current favorite: the Intimate Object Poem.
Many problems that emerge in the ‘wonder years’ might be alleviated with a high quality puberty education program, writes health educator Wendy Sellers. “You will benefit from cultivating a more productive classroom climate and knowing you are meeting your students’ needs.”
Scholastic’s Dwaine Millard explores how community libraries can both offer all young people opportunities to improve their access to resources and technology and provide face-to-face settings where they can form positive social norms outside the boundaries of social media.
What would it be like to spend time together with colleagues on a regular basis to learn and improve our teaching skills? To investigate that question, Anne Jolly embarked on a year-long, onsite action research project to design and test a middle school teacher collaboration process.
Do graphic novels get to stand on their own, or should they be paired with additional texts? ELA teacher Jason DeHart explores that question and concludes (no surprise) that the answer is both. See his suggestions for paired titles that will appeal to middle grades readers.
The single point rubric – a minimalist, stripped-down version of the standard 4-point rubric – provides efficiency for teachers and is impactful for students because the simplified teacher feedback fosters growth, writes Stephanie Farley. She also shares three grading tips.
The number one frustration Barbara Blackburn hears from educators is TIME! “I just don’t have time to do everything I need to.” Try her seven strategies to cope with constant planning and overflowing calendars. And remember this: perfectionism can be the enemy of completion.
