To get her 4th graders off their remote screens for a good old-fashioned, hands-on collage project to strengthen fine-motor skills, Mary Tarashuk asked them to create image-filled books exploring Room 4T’s central Social Studies question this year: “Who Is America?”
Todd Whitaker has the experience, research, data, anecdotes, and feedback from teachers and administrators to help readers see what “great teachers do differently.” He reminds us of the eternal importance of educators and the impact we make, writes Linda Biondi.
Michelle Russell loves teaching statistics and her students enjoy it too. But it took her a few years to find activities that really engage them and that also reinforce the statistics standards they need to learn. Here are three ideas she recommends for the middle grades.
When we take the time to research and develop leadership styles that are true to our beliefs and values, while at the same time encouraging others to develop themselves and their own leadership styles, we become ethical and transformational leaders, writes AP DeAnna Miller.
Over the life of our nation, history has been recorded from a singularly white perspective. Pablo Wolfe, Mary Ehrenworth and Marc Todd suggest ways we can create truth-seeking communities in our schools and “inoculate our students against the viral spread of falsehood.”
Instead of continuing our 130 years of running every public school student through the system in the same way at the same time, Alex Valencic believes we need to shift our efforts to acknowledging individuality, independence, and innovation through mastery learning.
Close Reading the Media / Internet Literacy
by Frank Baker · Published 01/26/2021 · Last modified 02/13/2021
New studies continue to reveal that many students cannot evaluate internet information for truthfulness, writes media literacy expert Frank W Baker. “It has become a crisis in American education,” he says, as disinformation becomes industrialized and “truth decay” spreads.
Jason DeHart knows the unique characteristics of visual literature can grab kids’ attention. He shares ideas from his research and middle school teaching experience about using comics and graphic novels in the classroom – and includes lots of winning titles for grades 4-8.
Differentiating Instruction with Menus: Literature (3-5) provides a variety of excellent activities to involve students in thoughtful and purposeful engagement with and response to texts. Some teachers may wish to substitute more diverse texts, writes Sarah Pennington.
For five years Marilyn Pryle has begun every class with 10 minutes of choice reading, inside a Book Club model. Would in work in a hybrid classroom? Yes! Her experience this year “reinforces the truths I already know.” Students want to read. Escaping into a story feels good.
