Want to start a writing club to reach beyond curriculum boundaries and provide a comfortable, social experience for all writers? Sharon Ratliff did just that and shares what worked for students as they took the lead in setting it up and now meet regularly across grade levels.
New Teacher Tips / Strong Class Closures
by Curtis Chandler · Published 10/09/2023 · Last modified 07/28/2024
Don’t devote all your class prep time to the start and middle of lessons, says teaching expert Curtis Chandler. Closure is critical if the learning is going to stick. See his wide selection of quick and meaningful wrap-ups to reinforce each lesson, including student favorites.
“I read professional books like movie critics watch films: with a critical lens and respect for my time,” writes veteran principal Matt Renwick. “If I am going to dedicate hours to a text that is supposed to help me improve as an educational leader, it needs to deliver.”
Nancy Akhavan’s Literacy Walks is well organized, concise and thorough in its explanation of the walk-through process at school and district levels. Its insights about trust, judgment and effective collaboration will also be valuable to coaches and PLCs, writes Beth Hassinger.
Making her first forays into using AI in lesson planning, NBCT Kathleen Palmieri is amazed at ChatGPT’s grade level suggestions based on lesson plan objectives. Follow along as she shows how the chatbot developed math and social studies material attuned to her fifth graders.
Teacher and coach Mona Iehl shows how using one high quality math task enables educators to better meet all students’ needs without the alienating effects of some differentiation strategies such as ability grouping or creating activities at varying degrees of difficulty.
There’s no right answer to how to help kids come through a shooter drill feeling happy, safe and confident because it’s impossible, writes teacher Dina Strasser. But she believes some of the answer is to guide them in using their own ways of making sense out of the incomprehensible.
With examples from all levels of education, The New Classroom Instruction That Works is a useful tool for beginning teachers and lifelong educators alike. Goodwin and Rouleau capture proven researched-based strategies for every classroom, writes teacher leader Hannah Mickey.
Where there are challenges, there are also opportunities for creativity, novelty, and adventure to put a barricade between us and burnout. Stephanie Farley offers strategies to help teachers avoid or at least soften the sense of emotional exhaustion that leads to collapse.
Students in the middle grades think in polarities and will go to great lengths to avoid embarrassment, writes author and school counselor Phyllis Fagell. But with the right supports, they can learn to take risks – asking questions, joining discussions and learning more.
