For those with positive stories, social-emotional learning helps reinforce the skills they need to succeed. For those with stories of trauma, SEL can help balance negative experiences with positive ones. Author-educator Marilee Sprenger shows how brain research can help.
Long-term English Learners / The Unstoppable ML Teacher
by Tan Huynh · Published 10/12/2020 · Last modified 06/12/2024
It’s past time to rethink the label “Long-term English Learner,” writes EL teacher Tan Huyhn. He shares Dr. Maneka Brooks’ ideas for involving students designated as LTELs in their own learning, including text sets that relate to their experiences beyond the classroom.
Positive phone calls and texts to students’ families are powerful, writes principal and NBCT Rita Platt. Parents and caregivers enjoy hearing good things and will be more responsive when you get in touch with less happy news. Rita includes several starter scripts and scheduling ideas.
Media Literacy is a new elective course at Jeremy Hyler’s middle school this year, and he’s excited to be teaching it. “Could there be a more urgent time?” Hyler shares some of his 7th grade course design, includes his key resources, and reports on the first five weeks.
With the topsy-turvy world of the Covid pandemic crowding all of us this fall, we have to be mindful of how teachers new to the classroom are experiencing their unique first year. Assistant Principal DeAnna Miller shares some ways she is working to provide extra support.
Gilmore and Deos’s Integrating Technology targets teachers in its early chapters and IT leaders later on in its broad messaging. The authors present a useful theoretical model, says reviewer Jeny Randall, short on “how to” examples but long on vision for the future.
It's Not Easy Being Tween / Pandemic Teaching
by Cheryl Mizerny · Published 09/30/2020 · Last modified 10/01/2020
Millions of teachers are facing multiple professional and health challenges. Cheryl Mizerny reflects on the existential threat of Covid-19, the pedagogic and personal demands of sustaining hybrid classrooms, and how administrators, parents, and society can reduce the stress.
With the post-pandemic and political stressors all around us, teaching is more challenging than ever. Dr. Curtis Chandler suggests ways educators can use research-based strategies to reduce teaching stress, hold those stressors at bay, and bolster our capacity to support our schools and serve our students well.
Rather than approach math using only a curriculum that follows textbook lessons, we can boost learning by teaching math as a science. Middle grades educator and NBCT Kathleen Palmieri is learning how to incorporate data studies to help students relate math to the real world.
Science consultant Kathy Renfrew hopes we can shift our attention away from “remediation” by building on the bright spots we’ve experienced during pandemic teaching. She shares the story of a STEAM engineering design project and how it was adapted for distance learning.
