Book Reviews / Common Core State Standards / ELA & Literacy
by MiddleWeb · Published 06/02/2013 · Last modified 12/03/2019
Reviewer Anne Anderson recommends 20 Literacy Strategies to Meet the Common Core for its research-based strategies designed to grow readers & thinkers within a CCSS framework. The payoff will justify the necessary time investment, she says.
STEM By Design / STEM Summer Activities
by Anne Jolly · Published 05/26/2013 · Last modified 12/11/2019
Anne Jolly is campaigning for a STEM summer in which kids ask questions, seek answers, & design solutions to problems. She has 9 ideas for parents & others.
California teacher and author Larry Ferlazzo is the Internet’s impresario of education resources. He tells us the story behind Websites of the Day, his great act of curation, and more.
Teachers will find creative alternatives to the traditional book report that tap into student interests and creative writing in Ban the Book Report: Promoting Frequent and Enthusiastic Reading, says reviewer Nicole Warchol.
Standardized Testing / Two Teachers in the Room
by Laurie Wasserman · Published 04/07/2013 · Last modified 12/10/2019
Special educator Laurie Wasserman shares details of how her co-teaching team and her entire middle school help students prepare for state testing.
Raptors in the City opens a web portal on peregrine falcons living in a skyscraper during spring nesting season. Engaging ideas for science classrooms!
STEM Launchers — brief activities that introduce the engineering design process and the secrets of good teamwork — can help kick off a successful year.
Helping Struggling Students / Two Teachers in the Room
by Laurie Wasserman · Published 03/03/2013 · Last modified 11/26/2019
Special educator and co-teacher Laurie Wasserman gained new insights into what it means to be a struggling student when she joined a math PD project. She shares.
Teacher Mark A. Domeier likes the concept behind Teri Lesesne’s reading ladders in Reading Ladders: Leading Students from Where They Are to Where We’d Like Them to Be, but he says they’ll have to be adapted to the realities of middle school class size.
Positive discipline is supported by brain research about adolescent learning, say the authors of U-Turn Teaching. So demonstrate, facilitate, motivate.
