Making Questions Count / Questioning Matters
by MiddleWeb · Published 06/19/2023 · Last modified 10/15/2023
Author and expert on classroom questioning Dr. Jackie Walsh partners with instructional coach Emily Brokaw and content-area teacher Anna Salazar for a new blog series exploring questioning strategies that strengthen teaching practice and empower students to self-assess and build knowledge.
The best tool in your classroom is YOU, the teacher. You’re the listener, questioner, connector. With summer at hand, math teacher Mona Iehl shares ways to prep yourself for next year. Relax, yes. Then reflect on what you’ve learned and envision a few manageable new approaches.
Teachers want to create a space for their students to speak with authenticity and agency, writes author and English teacher Marilyn Pryle. She and 7th grade teacher Sharon Ratliff share ways to use Pryle’s Reading Responses strategy to deepen student thinking about literature.
When our students are struggling with anxiety, they need support in developing strategies to help break down their problems. Chunking a problem and examining possible options can help make it feel more manageable. School psychologist Katelyn Oellerich shares some examples.
With finals fast approaching, Stephanie Farley created a summative assessment experience to encourage every student to demonstrate their mastery of the learning targets as well as be acknowledged and appreciated for their contributions. The exam period “dinner party” was a hit.
Aileen Hower and Lynne Dorfman refresh our thinking about the advantages of facilitation over too much center-stage teaching. If we learn how to facilitate effectively and balance instructional methods, students will retain more and reteaching time will shrink significantly.
As society experiences increasing complexity, educators and education struggle to keep up. Principal Matt Renwick takes a look at AI/ChatGPT challenges and shares a process school leaders can use to support teachers’ use of new technology. Don’t miss the template he includes.
In Unjournaling by Dawn DiPrince and Cheryl Thurston, students will find the book’s 250 prompts interesting and challenging, and teachers will appreciate the flexibility and variety this second edition brings to class. Everyone will have fun too, promises Anne Anderson.
Co-teaching Strategies / The Unstoppable ML Teacher
by Tan Huynh · Published 04/26/2023 · Last modified 05/01/2023
As he develops new co-teaching relationships, language specialist Tan Huynh focuses on two essential strategies: establishing schedules and making “relationship deposits” that build the teacher to teacher connections needed to assure the classroom works for all students.
Math teacher Michelle Russell remembers her own anxiety each year when the time came to teach statistics to middle schoolers. She shares two fun activities she’s discovered that address 6th and 8th grade standards: cup stacking and the candy grab! Student handouts included.
