Class Apps / Measuring Engagement
by Curtis Chandler · Published 05/11/2021 · Last modified 06/12/2024
Education stakeholders agree that student engagement is essential. The challenge arises when we’re asked to define and measure it. Curtis Chandler shares a number of free methods and tools educators can use to measure three types: behavioral, emotional, and cognitive.
Amid all the other challenges of pandemic education, principal Rita Platt has noticed an uptick in communication breakdowns between teachers and parents this year. Platt relates several stories that prompted her to share some parent/teacher do’s and don’ts with staff.
Cultural Literacy / Kids on the Cusp
by Mary Tarashuk · Published 05/09/2021 · Last modified 05/10/2021
Back in her beloved Room 4T after eight months of virtual teaching, Mary Tarashuk considers how The Jetsons cartoon show influenced her nine-year old self decades ago – and what she needs to teach her mostly white, suburban 4th graders about life in the real future.
In “Activate: Deeper Learning Through Movement, Talk, and Flexible Classrooms” Katherine Mills Hernandez shows how we can be strategic and novel in our use of movement to support student learning. Elisa Waingort says the book is an important contribution to teacher PD.
Showcasing Robyn R. Jackson’s Buildership Model of leadership, AP DeAnna Miller describes how leaders can move beyond “showing the way” to including teachers in a process that will transform not only our staff and schools but also our way of thinking. DeAnna is ready to start!
Reflective and restorative practices are not new, writes middle school administrator Sara Johnson, but the pandemic has created an even greater need to view discipline as a tool to guide and support the social-emotional learning of tweens and teens. Here’s how Sara does it.
When students try to write a short response to a fact-filled passage they’ve read, some will likely lose their grounding. How do we help them leap the gap between reading and writing? Alicia Genchi and Sunday Cummins share an essential scaffold for building the bridge.
What if a STEM project became a product kids make for actual use? Anne Jolly shows how industry’s Product Design Process (PDP) expands upon the familiar engineering design popular in STEM classes, giving students new skills as they move from prototypes to the marketplace.
When the goal of argumentation is to learn from each other, the task becomes less competitive and more enriching. SS/ELA teacher Megan Kelly uses games to help students build socratic skills as they consider perspectives, identify their audiences, and argue with insight.
In Active Literacy Across the Curriculum Heidi Hayes Jacobs focuses on the crucial function of literacy in all learning regardless of age or content area. 7th grade teacher Theresa Wood says Jacobs knows what works and shows how to move forward without losing what we value.
