Category: Articles

This Strategy Promotes Real Reading Discussions

Using the Reading Response strategy, Marilyn Pryle writes, class time becomes a time of meaningful discovery. Students do not passively ingest information but actively create ideas through their own thinking, writing and discussion. Teachers facilitate, clarify and celebrate.

Why Physical Literacy Matters for Our Students

It is not the skills or rules of sports that our students will remember from our teaching of physical literacy, writes PHE teacher Anthony De Giorgio, but the environment and experiences we provided that allowed them to not only learn, but to also have fun and be a kid.

Doodling Makes Learning More Sticky for Students

Anyone can doodle, writes Dr. Susan Daniels. When students doodle to represent concepts and ideas, they synthesize information and encode it in memory for easy recall and retrieval. It’s a well-researched strategy that can be used across grade levels and subject areas.

Summer Me’s Joys Make Way for September

As summer flirts with Labor Day, Laurie Lichtenstein recalls the joys of being her “Summer Me” – a time for long walks and paddling trips, reading books and ignoring lists. As school dreams begin again, she relishes her last August days and plans for another great year.

Sharing Genius Hour Learning with the World

The power of Genius Hour comes from sparking wonder, encouraging deep learning, and facilitating sharing so students can make public their new knowledge, creation, or innovation, locally and world wide. GH champions Denise Krebs and Gallit Zvi describe good ways to share.

In the New School Year: Simplify, Unify, Multiply

A new school year brings excitement and organizational challenges. Expert Frank Buck suggests ways to streamline online communications, simplify classroom policies through teacher collaboration, and help kids develop as responsible members of a purposeful community.

Building SEL Skills to Lessen Summer Slide

Every summer educators ask these questions: (1) How can we lessen summer learning loss? and (2) How can we help build students’ SEL skills? Sarah Tantillo and Meredith Murray share the story of a Summer Bridge program and some useful resources to address both questions.