As teachers work to offer SEL support during remote learning, they can also adapt assignments to provide students with academic challenges that engage them in higher order thinking and teamwork. Barbara Blackburn and her colleagues share examples across content areas.
Mary Tedrow shows how to cultivate students’ individual relationships with writing using a low stakes approach called a Daybook – a safe, authentic space for students to write and think that can feed into other disciplines and writing genres. Ariel Sacks calls it her “new top resource.”
Socratic Methods in the Classroom offers a bevy of theories behind the practice and templates and tips for educators to prepare to dive into this method as a way to help students demonstrate their knowledge and consider other points of view, writes teacher educator Laurie Bobley.
Unlike quick teacher check-ins, teaching conferences allow for a deep conversation with a student in just 5 or 6 minutes. And they’re not just for ELA teachers and balanced literacy. Katie McGrath shares step by step conferring tips to target learning in any content area.
Jordan Walker-Reyes recommends Lori Wilfong’s Content Area Literacy Strategies That Work to all literacy coaches and facilitators, ESL teachers, and content area teachers who want to grow students’ content area knowledge while also increasing their literacy skills.
Sometimes learning can get lost in a maze of academic vocabulary. As students move through the school day, they encounter hundreds of terms/concepts in a variety of contexts and content areas. How to help? Curtis Chandler shares lots of options for ELA and ELL teachers.
Book Reviews / Social & Emotional Learning
by MiddleWeb · Published 04/25/2019 · Last modified 11/19/2019
Teaching Tenacity offers a series of thoughtful, research-based lessons that will provide students with the tools to make the pursuit of excellence a life-long endeavor. Jeny Randall looks forward to bringing the lessons to her morning advisory time but says advisory isn’t a must.
Accessibility / The Unstoppable ML Teacher
by Valentina Gonzalez · Published 03/24/2019 · Last modified 12/11/2019
Simply making content available to students is not enough. We have to make it accessible to each and every one, including English learners. Specialist Valentina Gonzalez offers ways to identify obstacles to accessibility and create paths to learning in every subject.
In SPARK!, a book about quick writes, Paula Bourque offers a powerful teaching tool to help students find ideas, discover their voices and build confidence about writing. Teacher educator Linda Biondi notes the frequent, low-stakes writing can stretch across content areas.
If literacy coach Pam Hamilton had to choose one word to describe Word Study That Sticks, a book about words, she would select “fabulous”! Hamilton finds it is also practical, teacher-friendly, and colorful with lessons and activities across content areas.
