Teacher To Teacher Lesson Resources

Goodness, it doesn't get much better than this. Vetted teaching ideas and lesson plans from across the curriculum, nicely organized for easy searching. Follow this link to the presentation archive for the 2007 summer Teacher To Teacher workshops, sponsored at various sites around the nation by the U.S. Department of Education. This page lists all the presentations (K-12) in alpha-order, and by clicking in the left margin, you can examine presentation-clusters by subject area and theme. Click on a specific entry and you'll be taken to a page with a brief synoposis and two PDF downloads (presentation slides and handouts). Open the presentation PDF to find an email address for the teacher-author, if you'd like to query for more information.


GEM: The Gateway to 21st Century Skills

The "Gateway to 21st Century Skills" evolved from the GEM project, an effort by the US Department of Education to create a central database or "catalog" of resources from federal, state, university, nonprofit, and commercial sites. The revitalized Catalog, now supported by major sponsors like the National Education Assocation, offers an easy way to explore more than 50,000 educational resources, using a sophisticated search engine similar to Google or Yahoo -- but with one big plus, detailed, coherent descriptions! You'll find lesson plans, reports, teaching tips, great thematic websites and plenty more! Take a few minutes to learn how to search effectively, and you'll have mastered a tool that you will want to use again and again. This link leads to a how-to page that will get you off to a quick start. Note that the actual search tool is contained in a small, simple box in the upper right-hand corner of the page. It took us awhile to figure that out!


Edutopia - George Lucas Educational Foundation

One of the best sites on the Web for information and ideas about cutting-edge teaching and learning. There's an emphasis on technology, but the resources here go far beyond the tools. You'll find stories about innovative middle schools, videos that show ideas in action, interviews with experts, and whole sets of information around themes like Project-Based Learning and Technology Integration. See all of Edutopia's priority topics. You'll definitely want to explore this site -- it's worth a couple of hours!


Education World

Supported by advertising and corporate contributions, the Education World site just gets better and better -- it's both broad and deep, offering original material on important education topics, lesson plans and teaching ideas, a massive index to internet sites, and -- most important -- an energetic and innovative staff that continues to search for ways to best serve educators. This link leads to a site guide that will ease exploration of this large site.


PBS Teacher Source

Includes more than 1,000 free lesson plans (matched to standards), teacher guides and online activities--and you can explore these resources by subject or grade level or with keywords. The site includes information about how teachers and media specialists can legally tape PBS shows for classroom use. The site allows you to set up a free account and receive newsletters about upcoming PBS offerings, tailored to your local viewing area. There's also info about ordering PBS videos. Want to learn more about teaching with technology? PBS offers PD programs.


DiscoverySchool.com for Teachers

Lesson plans, teaching tools, chat listservs, classroom customizers, a clip art gallery, a puzzle generator, and access to Kathy Shrock's famous collection of education weblinks in every imaginable category. Then there's the brainbuster feature (great for daily startups), the Science Fair Central, etc. etc. Impressive!


Marco Polo and Thinkfinity

For quite a few years, the MarcoPolo program has provided no-cost, standards-based Internet content for the K-12 teacher and classroom, developed by national content experts. Online resources include panel-reviewed links to top sites in many disciplines, professionally developed lesson plans, classroom activities, and materials to help with daily classroom planning. Marco Polo has now been integrated into the Verizon Thinkfinity search engine, making it an even more accessible and powerful resource. Go directly to the search interface and select content and grade levels you're interested in. Also check out the New Resources page for the latest contributions from teachers and curriculum developers.


The Annenberg Teachers' Lab

Experiment with new teaching and learning ideas in math and science -- and identify activities you can use in the classroom. This site features four labs based on the professional development series and workshops broadcast on the Annenberg/CPB Math and Science Project Channel. Each Lab combines online activities with background information and interactive polls or worksheets participants can use in their classrooms, plus links to related Web sites. And be sure to visit the Annenberg/CPB homesite to find resources in every content area.


Meaningful Teaching

Learn how three middle grades teachers (English, history and science) strengthened their lessons and their teaching practice by applying frameworks and ideas developed by Harvard's ALPS project. You'll find links leading to three teacher profiles -- A Year of Teaching 7th Grade English; A Year of Teaching 8th Grade Science; and The Colonial Biography Unit for 7th Grade History. You'll find detailed information about teacher planning, lesson construction, examples of student work, and much more!


Apple Learning Interchange
http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/
Microsoft Education Community
http://www.microsoft.com/education/schools.mspx

Here are materials of interest to teachers, offered by both Apple and Microsoft. Both sites include lesson plans and other resources, often technology-oriented or web-based. We found the Microsoft materials to be more product-oriented, but they often included more details (including handouts, etc.). Both Apple and Microsoft include lesson plan search engines, and you can also search how-to articles at the Microsoft site. Apple offers a free membership to the ALI Community and users can subscribe to RSS feeds that alert them when new material of interest is added.