Assessments that aren’t designed with language learners in mind perpetuate an equity gap, writes teacher Tan Huynh. When language specialists co-assess with subject area colleagues they can ensure the right balance of challenge and support for each student. Here’s how!
If you find yourself in a school situation where a parent or community member is unkind, unreasonable, or downright mean, principal and NBCT Rita Platt has tips to move beyond the hurt. Here’s what she does to make sure toxic remarks roll right off her back. Like a duck!
Argument Writing / Create Compose Connect
by Jeremy Hyler · Published 02/03/2021 · Last modified 02/14/2024
Using sentence starters as part of the argument writing process has jump-started many of Jeremy Hyler’s middle grades students who did not know how to begin. Hyler walks us through their process of evidence gathering and argument analysis and shares examples of their work.
The pandemic distances between teacher and student require us to monitor the individual progress of learning even more closely. Teacher educator Curtis Chandler offers a crash course for doing just that – including tips on new apps and tools for summative assessment.
How can we make sure our classrooms are places that welcome risk-taking in the name of learning, and expect and celebrate inevitable mistakes? Author and innovation leader Colleen Cruz shares five things teachers can do to create a culture where students risk, fail and rise.
Instead of continuing our 130 years of running every public school student through the system in the same way at the same time, Alex Valencic believes we need to shift our efforts to acknowledging individuality, independence, and innovation through mastery learning.
Close Reading the Media / Internet Literacy
by Frank Baker · Published 01/26/2021 · Last modified 02/13/2021
New studies continue to reveal that many students cannot evaluate internet information for truthfulness, writes media literacy expert Frank W Baker. “It has become a crisis in American education,” he says, as disinformation becomes industrialized and “truth decay” spreads.
The Unstoppable ML Teacher / Translanguaging
by Tan Huynh · Published 01/24/2021 · Last modified 08/16/2021
English learners achieve more when we let them use all of their languages to understand and retain what they’re taught in subject-area classes. Teacher Tan Huynh shares Dr. Gini Rojas’s insights about the power of translanguaging and how mono-linguistic teachers put it to use.
While the news about vaccines is promising, many students will continue to learn from home for more months to come. A big question then is how do we create and host energizing environments to sustain learning? Tara Lash and Sunday Cummins came up with this “club” strategy.
Capitol Riots / Future of History
by Lauren S. Brown · Published 01/09/2021 · Last modified 01/10/2021
As U.S. history teacher Lauren Brown prepared for her classes to resume following winter break, she considered what she would say to her students about the Capitol riots. “To say nothing says way too much.” See her full discussion of teaching ideas for now and later.
