Close Reading the Media / The Emmy Awards
by Frank Baker · Published 08/31/2017 · Last modified 09/08/2021
As the Emmys return in September to celebrate the art and craft of television, how do we encourage students to view the programming from a media literacy perspective, with the thinking parts of their brains turned on? Frank Baker ties television studies to CCSS.
Close Reading the Media / News Literacy
by Frank Baker · Published 08/28/2017 · Last modified 12/03/2019
How do today’s students access news and what do they understand about its origins? In his Close Reading the Media column, expert Frank W. Baker offers ideas and activities for engaging students in critical thinking about how they share and consume news in social media.
Future of History / Student Speaking
by Lauren S. Brown · Published 08/27/2017 · Last modified 11/25/2019
We all want our students to contribute more to class by doing more of the talking. But getting kids to participate effectively is easier said than done. Lauren Brown applies Erik Palmer’s PVLEGS and Dave Stuart Jr.’s pop-up debates to help students grow as speakers.
Jody Spiro provides leaders with three essential building blocks to improve school culture, instruction, and learning communities and offers case studies and videos showing how those building blocks apply to selected strategies, says teacher-leader Rebecca Berger.
If you are a STEM teacher, you’ve likely made productive teamwork one of your goals. Just as likely, you’ve probably learned that simply putting kids in groups does not automatically make this happen. Anne Jolly shares a step by step process to build successful teams.
Each student Amy Estersohn shared the book “Which One Doesn’t Belong” with spent time lost deep in thought among the geometric images and was able to articulate a reasonable explanation for why a shape didn’t belong. The teacher’s guide can help build math discussion.
Mary Tarashuk is counting on Peter Brown’s fiction picture books to enliven her 4th graders’ adaptation to their new classroom and their first science unit on animal and plant adaptation. The Global Read Aloud, featuring Brown’s Roz the Wild Robot, is in the wings.
Heart of the School / Social Justice
by Rita Platt · Published 08/14/2017 · Last modified 12/10/2019
In her first post at a new MiddleWeb blog, “Heart of the School,” teacher-librarian Rita Platt responds to a weekend of civil strife and a deepening discussion about race and diversity in America with eight steps she believes can promote social justice through education.
William Ferriter and Paul Cancellieri pack their book on rethinking student feedback with knowledge and helpful advice that can benefit teachers and empower students as learners, says educator Bill Ivey. He shares possible applications for his own classroom.
We might think a new school year should start off with solemnity. But that’s not the message teacher Heather Wolpert-Gawron has garnered from her survey of 6-12th graders across the country. Students learn more when teachers share their humanity and their humor ASAP.
