Kids on the Cusp / New Teacher Advice
by Mary Tarashuk · Published 06/19/2017 · Last modified 11/11/2019
Trying to “fit it all in” can lead to frustration and lost opportunities for new educators. As 4th grade teacher Mary Tarashuk looks back to her own first year, she recalls her preoccupation with the ticking clock and how she learned to take time for what matters.
Andi McNair’s “Genius Hour” is a valuable resource for educators who want to release potential in students but do not know how or where to start. Reviewer Terry Carter praises McNair’s focus on scaffolding strategies that can help students pursue their passions.
Building Community / Two Teachers in the Room
by Elizabeth Stein · Published 06/12/2017 · Last modified 11/25/2019
Here’s your invitation to stay connected and continue learning through the summer months. Instructional coach Elizabeth Stein looks at four essential questions for co-teachers and welcomes you to the conversation to share your observations and experience. Bookmark it!
How can teachers use brain-friendly strategies to help students encode, store and retrieve vocabulary words? Educator and author Marilee Sprenger shares some high-interest activities designed for each stage of learning academic words. Some just require a few minutes!
Book Reviews / Social & Emotional Learning
by MiddleWeb · Published 06/08/2017 · Last modified 11/12/2019
Carla Tantillo Philibert’s Everyday SEL in Elementary School gives inspiring, practical advice and lessons to help educators in classrooms and schoolwide meet their students’ social and emotional needs, says upper elementary teacher Linda Biondi.
Jenny Grant Rankin’s First Aid for Teacher Burnout: How You Can Find Peace and Success is the perfect salve for the tired teacher’s soul. This short book is packed full of great ideas to relieve, rejuvenate, and energize, says teacher-librarian Rita Platt.
Close Reading the Media / Infographics
by Frank Baker · Published 05/30/2017 · Last modified 11/21/2019
Increasingly information is being conveyed in visual terms, and the flashy graphics can both clarify and mislead. Media literacy expert Frank Baker has teaching ideas to help students think more deeply about the infographics and visual data flooding our brains.
Future of History / Teaching with Movies
by Sarah Cooper · Published 05/29/2017 · Last modified 11/27/2019
Showing short video clips to her history students is easy for Sarah Cooper to justify, but with full-length movies she is more cautious about the time investment. Here she shares three films that make the cut: Iron Jawed Angels, Glory, and All the President’s Men.
Baby Boomer teachers are rapidly retiring and being replaced by members of Generation Y or “Millennials” who hold very different beliefs about the workplace and the way principals work with them. Ronald Williamson and Barbara Blackburn share ideas to help them thrive.
If a school can agree to have both ELA and content area teachers use the ideas in “Strategic Journeys for Building Logical Reasoning” there is potential for students to achieve more intense thinking rather than surface learning, says reviewer Mary Langer Thompson.
