When we provide learners with both the spark to start and the tools to keep going, we help each student move one step closer to becoming self-directed learners who view challenges as opportunities to grow. Curtis Chandler shows how motivation and engagement work together.
Too many take-home tasks focus on repetition instead of reasoning – quantity instead of quality. Curtis Chandler imagines homework as food for the brain. When it’s rich in quality and purpose, it nourishes understanding. When it’s routine busywork, it’s educational junk food.
Feel-good study methods don’t work. The best research data points to five active strategies as the most effective ways to build lasting knowledge. Teach these methods and we empower all our students to become more effective learners, says teacher educator Curtis Chandler.
Resources / Summer Reading & Learning
by Susan Curtis · Published 05/09/2025 · Last modified 05/26/2025
How can teachers help students enjoy reading and learning during summer following another challenging year? Visit MiddleWeb’s expanded resource for Summer 2025, where you’ll find teacher ideas and heaps of book and online suggestions.
Artificial Intelligence / Artificial Intelligence / New Teacher Tips / Technology
by Curtis Chandler · Published 04/15/2025 · Last modified 05/01/2025
Just like Top Gun Maverick had to trust his jet’s tech while employing his instincts and training, teachers are learning how to fly with AI as a co-pilot. The responsibility lies with us to adjust AI’s suggestions. Curtis Chandler offers dozens of teacher-tested prompts to get started.
What can you and your students accomplish the last few weeks of school? In this MiddleWeb resource educators share activities that align learning with fun, offer ideas for responding to stress, and suggest strategies to help sustain your classroom community.
New Teacher Tips / Stealth Learning
by Curtis Chandler · Published 02/23/2025 · Last modified 07/19/2025
Stealth learning and assessment blur the boundaries between learning, assessment, and fun. Teacher educator Curtis Chandler shows how simulations and practical projects help students across subjects gain knowledge while enjoying the process. Included: some lesson design tips.
Supporting learners through effective vocabulary instruction is critical to their success. Curtis Chandler offers a “crash course” – a compendium of key principles, strategies, and research-backed methods to help students build key vocabulary skills, whatever your subject area.
New Teacher Tips / Sources for Texts
by Curtis Chandler · Published 10/06/2024 · Last modified 11/15/2025
Whatever classes you teach, it can be a tremendous challenge to find engaging texts that help students develop key literacy skills. Teacher educator Curtis Chandler offers resources to find nonfiction texts online and, if needed, ready them for students with assists from AI.
Many teachers are feeling some apprehension about introducing artificial intelligence into their teaching, writes teacher educator Curtis Chandler. Yet “the truth remains that AI is an essential topic for our classrooms this year.” Here are his tips for how and what to teach.
