Tagged: student engagement

Do We Really Have High Expectations for All?

When it comes to high expectations, learning consultant Barbara Blackburn says actions speak louder than beliefs. Using her own classroom mistakes as a backdrop, she points out the teacher behaviors that signal struggling learners whether we mean what we say.

Using Games to Teach Core Science Concepts

Faced with students struggling to learn complex science ideas in traditional ways, middle school teacher John Coveyou turned to classroom gaming as a solution. His colorful card games teach core concepts like ion-bonding, DNA principles and protein building.

Misconceptions about Mindset, Rigor, and Grit

Using Mindset, Rigor, and Grit as examples, veteran teacher Cheryl Mizerny weighs the potential value of trendy pedagogical ideas while pointing out how easily they can be misinterpreted or poorly implemented by educators, to the detriment of students.

Help Your Students Get Into the Learning Flow

Students in a state of “flow” learn faster, are more focused, enjoy learning, and often increase the level of challenge. Teacher-author Larry Ferlazzo distills the research and has ideas for teachers that can help students achieve flow regularly in class.

10 Things I Learned Sitting in a Classroom

A week of sitting in a teaching seminar has left Sarah Cooper inspired but also thoughtful about how students experience daily classroom life. “I felt new empathy for having to follow teachers’ instructions all day long.” Read her 10 takeaways.

The 5 Rules of Student Engagement

Teachers who fail to actively involve students in learning experiences are mired in mediocrity, says educator Barbara Blackburn. The author of Rigor Is Not a 4-Letter Word shares five rules for student engagement she’s discovered, with examples from her own teaching and consulting.

The Best Kept Teaching Secret: Written Conversations

The Best-Kept Teaching Secret “will be a book that I’ll refer to often,” says MiddleWeb reviewer Sandy Wisneski. Smokey and Elaine Daniels offer ideas that are both powerful and simple to implement, she writes, showing teachers how to bring life to “written conversations.”