International Mindedness / Wide Open Learning
by Megan Kelly · Published 10/28/2018 · Last modified 11/25/2019
Having taught internationally since 2003, Megan Kelly loves to share her experience and enthusiasm with her students in hope they’ll become more globally minded and curious people. Here she shares strategies she uses in her classroom to open the world up to middle graders.
Co-teaching Conversations / Two Teachers in the Room
by Elizabeth Stein · Published 10/23/2018 · Last modified 11/24/2019
Co-teaching and UDL coach Elizabeth Stein has found a tool that has the potential to break down communication barriers that get in the way of what co-teachers really need to do. She recommends the Four A’s Text Protocol to energize co-teacher dialogue and collaboration.
With the “let’s be nice” novelty of the first weeks of school fading, you’re tired and the kids are restless. It may be time to refresh your systems for maintaining positive behavior. Discover ways to overcome the challenges of DEVOLSON in Rita Platt’s resource-rich post.
Jerry Burkhart’s explorations challenge accelerated students with Common Core based math study while engaging other students with creative, and differentiated, problems to solve. Kathleen Palmieri notes the fully developed resources that support the explorations.
In Leading School Change, Todd Whitaker focuses on strategies to successfully navigate cultural changes, using specific examples. Educator Laura Von Staden particularly likes his coverage of how standardization has as a cost, often holding back the best teachers.
Inclusion / It's Not Easy Being Tween
by Cheryl Mizerny · Published 10/09/2018 · Last modified 12/11/2019
Veteran special and general education teacher Cheryl Mizerny describes ways that general educators can be most effective teaching all students within inclusion classrooms. She highlights necessary underlying beliefs, key assumptions, and hallmarks of inclusive teaching.
If every elementary, English and history teacher did even one of the book’s activities each year, our understanding of our students would deepen immeasurably, as would their appreciation of their families and their communities, both local and global, writes Sarah Cooper.
In Group Work That Works, Paul Vermette and Cynthia Kline draw on research and experience to provide a thorough plan, supported by extensive resources, for implementing collaborative learning. Educator Linda Biondi recommends the book to hesitant secondary teachers.
How we start lessons makes a huge difference in learning during the remainder of our class instruction time. Teaching consultant and author Barbara Blackburn shares strategies to employ three keys to beginning lessons with a bang: focus, activation, and excitement.
When we plunge into interactive learning, we get curious, look closely, ask questions, hypothesize, jot, mimic, create, play, discover, and draw conclusions. Grammar study with a makerspace mindset can build all these things in, says literacy consultant Patty McGee.
