Teaching and learning in grades 4-8
A Thanksgiving visitor (a student from 16 years past) offers our Kids on the Cusp blogger – 4th grade teacher Mary Tarashuk – a good hook for her latest look at New Jersey’s mandatory self-assessment rubrics for teachers. This time she reflects on what Family and Community Outreach means to her teaching.
What makes Jim Burke’s The Common Core Companion so valuable to teachers? The layout, says reviewer Anne Anderson. The 2-page spread gives teachers a big picture view of standards, “what they say, what they mean, and how to teach them.”
Reviewer Elisa Waingort highly recommends Student-Driven Learning to those who want to move toward a classroom where students are in the driver’s seat. The authors show how teachers can analyze current practice and begin leading students on hops, drives, and journeys toward ownership of learning.
Whether it’s Grandma’s biscotti recipe or a lesson plan, adding new ingredients (like digital tools) shouldn’t distract from the end result you seek, says teacher and technology consultant Mike Fisher. “The modern mindset is really about willingness, not digital knowledge. It’s about trying new things and exploring new tools and avenues for instruction WITH the students rather than FOR the students.”
Inner city middle school teacher Aaron Brock describes how he scaffolds the writing of a thesis-driven history essay with good results for students.
Too many manic, even eruptive meetings? Reviewer Lyn Hilt recommends the preventatives and interventions crafted by these authors to promote productivity.
Guest blogger Carolyn DeCristofano shares ways that she and her curriculum writing colleagues have put math square in the middle of the STEM action.
This is a must-read book for teacher leaders, says our reviewer, offering the stories of 8 educators who seek a new kind of teacher role in America’s schools.
Middle school teacher Kevin Hodgson describes how his ELA unit on video game design helped inspire a very reluctant writer to become an eager scribe.
Johnny Cataffo, our first guest blogger at Two Teachers in the Room, has filled both the special and general educator role in the co-teaching partnership.