It’s not enough to take the phones away, writes educator Tom Rademacher. Schools need to make sure there are energizing, collaborative, challenging things to do. “We need to change what it feels like to be in school and make it easy – or easier – for students to not-phone.”
Building small but mighty habits that we commit to without having to overthink what we’re doing is a far more effective and lasting approach to not just getting each day done and dusted, but to also retaining feelings of accomplishment and productivity, writes Miriam Plotinsky.
Supporting learners through effective vocabulary instruction is critical to their success. Curtis Chandler offers a “crash course” – a compendium of key principles, strategies, and research-backed methods to help students build key vocabulary skills, whatever your subject area.
Mandy Manning’s book is essential reading for teachers who are new to the world of language diversity and would be a great PD resource for general education teachers and staff. Teacher Jeanette Pine finds the book clear, concise, easy to navigate, and filled with important reminders.
Chunking 2.0 / The Unstoppable ML Teacher
by Tan Huynh · Published 11/03/2024 · Last modified 03/08/2025
Chunking alone won’t help multilingual learners with the deluge of new content they experience. Tan Huynh shares the Input-Output Loop, a strategy to make chunking more effective by assuring immediate processing time and segmenting content into units students can internalize.
Rather than despairing over grammar mistakes in their corrected papers, Jason DeHart suggests students can succeed in ELA by noting the varieties of sentences, talking about their impact on the narrative, and describing the feelings and actions these stylistic choices evoke.
Most teachers are not multilingual learner specialists, writes NBCT and 2018 NTOY Mandy Manning. But most ARE teaching MLs. Overcoming a language barrier may feel insurmountable, but it’s not. Manning shares three key strategies that help fully support MLs in general classrooms.
In the conclusion of their two-part series on supporting student research, our classroom teacher-authors share an Inquiry Chart tool educators can use to coach middle graders as they discuss how their findings are coming together, annotate their work, and plan next steps.
Tamra Stambaugh and Paula Olszewski-Kubilius provide a guidebook to move forward with gifted programs that meet the needs of students living in poverty. “This will be a resource that shapes our gifted education program a long time into the future,” writes district coordinator Kim Rensch.
This fall with some tweaks and fresh online tools and resources, Halloween can be fun and packed with learning. Check out MiddleWeb’s updated resource collection for ideas across the content areas.
