Middle School math can be frustrating and challenging, especially when the teacher feels that in addition to reaching their own learning milestones, they must backfill the deficits students have when they enter the classroom. Â As an educator I have always believed that part of my job was to take my students as far as […]
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Posted inCommon Core, Featured, Instruction & Curriculum, Middle School
Are You Using Interactive Student Notebooks? You Should Be!
Teaching full-time English and AVID found me drowning in papers – you know the feeling? A weekly stack of hundreds of papers to check off or grade left me frustrated, tired and unhappy most weekends. In an attempt to cut down on the overwhelming, mind-numbing amount of papers submitted to me by my middle school […]
Posted inEducational Apps, Featured, Languages
For The Love Of Latin: Promising Apps for Latin Teachers In and Out of the Classroom
I have not taught Latin for three years so when I was asked one week before the start of this school year to add Latin to my full load of high school Literature classes I felt a bit overwhelmed. In addition, I was told the class consisted of middle school students whose abilities ranged from […]
Posted inFeatured, Instruction & Curriculum, Middle School, Technology
The Classroom as a Transformative Space
Every educator I know spends time setting up their classroom designing the use of space to be aesthetically inviting, with little to no assistance, little to no training. That first connection with students is so important, the room they walk into tells them if they are safe, if they can be inquisitive or if they must […]
Posted inClassroom Management, Featured
Supporting Students Can be More than Academic
Supporting students has always meant letting my students know that I understood how stressful their lives can be. While we can’t control their home lives we can be aware that our schools are not necessarily very student friendly. Between earlier and earlier starting times, dress codes/uniforms, poorly scheduled rosters, and crazy standardized testing, students do […]
Posted inClassroom Management, Featured, High School, Literacy
Creating Safe Spaces Within Our Classrooms
This year I will begin my “lucky” thirteenth year in the classroom in my current district, and my second year teaching junior high. One of my strengths as a teacher is my classroom management. It’s been something that has come naturally to me ever since my days of student teaching and I credit it all to […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, High School, Instruction & Curriculum, Instructional Strategies, Literacy, Middle School
Give Students What They Want to Read for Reading Practice
The middle school or high school classroom library can be an important tool in making students life-long readers, but how to choose what goes into a classroom library for independent reading? Providing the books that student want to read is different than pre-selecting books that students should read. Yes, educators believe that students should read selections from the literary canon, for example, those […]
Posted inCurrent Events in Education, Featured, Instructional Strategies, Middle School, Uncategorized
Teachers in the United States Are NOT the Problem
For more years than I like to think about teachers in the United States have become the issue in determining why U.S. students do not perform as well as their international counterparts. The reason that there has been little success in turning our public schools around is that teachers are not the problem and until […]