Tuesday nights are #edchat nights on Twitter, and educators across the country, even across the globe, discuss topics of general interest for an hour. On May 7, the topic posted was: What is BIG Shift in ed that everyone is looking for? Is there 1 idea that can positively affect education? While I was surfing the column […]
Instruction & Curriculum
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum, Teacher Branding
Teacher Branding 101: Present On Your Area of Expertise
As teachers, how many times have we sat in professional development and listened to an educational consultant tell us what would work with our students? They bring all kinds of pretty data, display boards and all sorts of testimonials, but for some reason their presentations usually do not move me, or other teachers. Many of my […]
Posted inInstruction & Curriculum, Literacy
Part IV: Reading to Learn: Comprehension
The purpose of reading is to learn. A text has the ability to transport us to other times and places, it can expand our knowledge and experience base and it is everywhere in our worlds. Understanding words, texts, passages, poetry, and books is an important part of reading. It is the end goal. To teach […]
Posted inCommon Core, Current Events in Education, From the Front Lines, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy
Knowing the Ending Need Not Be a Spoiler
Enter the spoiler alert. Because the number of ways people hear about stories is increasing, spoiler alerts for books and films are offered as a “heads-up,” a means to prevent plot details from becoming public. Knowing the end of a story might mean that the strategy of “predicting” a story has been compromised. However, there are genres […]
Posted inClassroom Management, Instruction & Curriculum
“Mom, I Mean Ms…” Classroom Management Ideas I Learned From My Mom
My mother is an amazing woman. She has a calm sense about her in every situation I have ever observed her in. She has four unique and different children she has watched struggle, grow, develop, fail and succeed. She is my center and what I strive to be. In the classroom, we are mothers to […]
Posted inElementary School, Featured, Instruction & Curriculum, Kindergarten, Technology
Paper or Paperless Classrooms?
Ready or not, my rural high school is preparing to deliver 1:1 iPads to our entire middle and high school populations next fall. Furtive conversations abound in halls and at lunch gatherings as we debate the possibilities and traditional needs of classroom learning. There has always been a fine line between reliance on products that facilitate […]
Posted inFrom the Front Lines, Instruction & Curriculum, Principals' Corner, Uncategorized
Put Administrators in the Classroom!
When anyone thinks of the job of a high school principal one may think of one who’s always in the patrolling the school’s hallway to catch students misbehaving, congratulating student athletes or assisting a teacher with a difficult students. We watch these images of administrators are all over classic movies such as cult classic, Ferris […]
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Literacy
Interdisciplinary Approach for ELLs
The Common Core State Standards have demanded that we change the way we teach. With new standards and a new emphasis on college and career readiness that must be able to reach all students, as teachers we need to adapt. With so much to cover in one short (though it may not always feel like […]