Extended teacher absences are more frequent than ever. Recently teacher Megan Kelly had to be away. Here she shares how she tweaks class organization and systems to make sure her middle schoolers thrive in her absence and her substitutes succeed in their important role.
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.
Learning Transformed offers a still timely blueprint of practical ideas to reinvent schools so all students receive a useful education, all teachers are treated as professionals, and all families and community members are welcome and value the role schools play, says teacher Theresa Wood.
If you’ve found class book clubs frustrating, it’s time to read Sara Kugler’s Better Book Clubs. She guides teachers through each step in developing clubs that will help students want to read and talk about books. Literacy leader Sarah Valter highly recommends this resource.
Teachers are feedback machines – “we do it all day long!” – writes classroom teacher and popular blogger Larry Ferlazzo. Here he focuses on ways to give feedback that’s particularly effective at enhancing students’ sense of competence and encouraging intrinsic motivation.
Authentic Literacy Instruction cuts through the literacy fog and all the opposing claims about reading instruction to present practical, actionable techniques teachers can use with any curriculum in grades 6-12, says ELA/reading teacher Erin Corrigan-Smith.
Ramp up poetry positivity with the Peel the Fruit activity from Project Zero. Throughout the year NBCT Kathie Palmieri helps her fifth graders uncover layers of poetry understanding and then invites them to write their own. Their current favorite: the Intimate Object Poem.
Scholastic’s Dwaine Millard explores how community libraries can both offer all young people opportunities to improve their access to resources and technology and provide face-to-face settings where they can form positive social norms outside the boundaries of social media.
What would it be like to spend time together with colleagues on a regular basis to learn and improve our teaching skills? To investigate that question, Anne Jolly embarked on a year-long, onsite action research project to design and test a middle school teacher collaboration process.
Phelps and Lewis offer a comprehensive guide to setting goals, delineating a process that is sure to be impactful for gifted learners. Specialists working with 2E or underachieving students will appreciate the strengths-first framing, writes gifted education leader Kim Rensch.
