Working through the end of the school year

I don't know about your students, but so many of mine, coupled with Senioritis, were done after state testing. (The well had run dry, no blood from a turnip -- all those sayings applied!) With just a few precious weeks left in the school year, what do you do to keep the kids energized and on board with learning?

One thing I knew for sure when it came to my high school students: They had to feel as if they weren't actually doing work. (Yep, I had to trick them.) (Rebecca Alber at Edutopia)

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If you're looking for grants and other resources, check this out!

The Big List of Educational Grants and Resources

Get a roundup of educational grants, contests, awards, free toolkits, and classroom guides aimed at helping students, classrooms, schools, and communities. Check this page weekly to get the latest updates!

The above comes from Edutopia; to learn more, click the above hyperlinked text.  

It might seem true, but..

Valid neuroscience research is an increasingly useful resource for guiding interventions in education. But not all "neurocontent" is created equal. With the overall rise in accessible education content has come a rise in the niche of neurological educational content -- content developed for educators based on how the brain works.

One of the more common snags here is the advent of "neuromyths," or content purportedly based on neuroscience that, while sounding plausible, is incorrect. (Judy Willis at Edutopia)

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The importance of creating curiosity

It's no secret that curiosity makes learning more effective and enjoyable. Curious students not only ask questions, but also actively seek out the answers. Without curiosity, Sir Isaac Newton would have never formulated the laws of physics, Alexander Fleming probably wouldn't have discovered penicillin, and Marie Curie's pioneering research on radioactivity may not exist. (Marianne Stenger at Edutopia)

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Using photos to help students understand 'the word and the world'

Enter most schools and you will hear about literacy instruction or the "literacy block." However, literacy is not a subject -- it is something much bigger. Paulo Freire encouraged a broader definition of literacy to include the ability to understand both "the word and the world." Literacy includes reading, writing, listening, speaking, and analyzing a wide range of texts that include both print and non-print texts. (Tabitha Dell'Angelo at Edutopia)

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Games as student assessment

Over the past several years, there has been tremendous interest among educators in the use of digital games as serious learning. Advocates of game-based learning for K-12 students cite the value of digital games to teach and reinforce skills that prepare students for college and career, such as collaboration, problem solving, creativity, and communication.

Not as often discussed is our ability to use students' in-game actions as evidence for the assessment of skills and knowledge, including those not easily measured by traditional multiple-choice tests. (Kristen DiCerbo at Edutopia)

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Getting started getting started

Because of pressure to teach bell-to-bell -- the pedagogical equivalent of force-feeding geese to make foie gras -- many classrooms now start with bell work, short exercises that students complete while the instructor attends to attendance and other administrative chores. Journal prompts and concept questions can focus students on nutritious academic content and initiate a positive tempo for the next 90 minutes of class.

With the help of graduate student David Fictum, I collected several creative, practical and entertaining exercises that can function as bell ringers or sponge activities. Here they are: (Todd Finley at Edutopia) 

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While the activities Finley highlights are directed at students, some of them could be used as writing prompts and activities for teachers themselves. 

From a teacher to a principal

Being back in the classroom has given me a refreshed perspective. Below, I would like to share with administrators some helpful observations and suggestions that may improve your relationship with the teachers you serve.

Observation #1: Students are different than when we were students

Lesson learned: Teachers must either engage students at their level with interesting learning activities or fight the battle of wills to force them into compliance with worksheets and controllable activities. In the former, students will want to learn, in the latter, passive aggression will force the teacher to always watch his back and not trust students. In this situation, even good students will actively try to undermine the teacher. (Ben Johnson at Edutopia)

Teaching critical thinking

Ideally, teaching kids how to think critically becomes an integral part of your approach, no matter what subject you teach. But if you're just getting started, here are some concrete ways you can begin leveraging your students' critical-thinking skills in the classroom and beyond.

1. Questions, questions, questions.

Questioning is at the heart of critical thinking, so you want to create an environment where intellectual curiosity is fostered and questions are encouraged. For Jared Kushida, who teaches a global politics class called War and Peace at KIPP King Collegiate, "lecturing" means integrating a flow of questions throughout a lesson. "I rarely go on for more than 30 seconds without asking a question, and I rarely stop at that one question," he explains. (Mariko Nobori at Edutopia) 

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Boosting teacher morale

Teacher morale isn't a popular topic, and that makes sense on the surface. Teachers are professionals, like engineers, doctors, farmers or business leaders, and no one is going out of their way to make sure that engineers are "keeping their head up" or that farmers "feel good about their craft."

Further complicating matters, teachers "get summers off," and are at the helm of one of the most visibly struggling industries in the United States. Sympathy doesn't come naturally under these circumstances. (Terry Heick at Edutopia)

Primary source resources

The Common Core Learning Standards describe the importance of teaching students how to comprehend informational text. They are asked to read closely, make inferences, cite evidence, analyze arguments and interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text. Primary source documents are artifacts created by individuals during a particular period in history. This could be a letter, speech, photograph or journal entry. If you're looking to integrate social studies into your literacy block, try out one of these resources for primary source documents. (Monica Burns at Edutopia)

Integrating technology to help students learn math CCSS

Aligning instruction to meet the Common Core State Standards is the new norm for educators across most of the United States. In the middle school math classroom, technology can be used to help students reach mastery of these Common Core skills. Let's take a look at a sixth grade geometry standard and how, using technology, teachers can promote engagement through student-centered exploration of this skill. (Monica Burns at Edutopia)

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Remembering 9/11 with students

Whether it's with a moment of silence or an outpouring of service, schools across the country are considering how to help their students observe the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. A wide range of resources are available to assist educators as they seek learning opportunities around this emotion-charged date. (from Edutopia)

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Considerations when teaching listening skills

Ah, listening, the neglected literacy skill. I know when I was a high school English teacher this was not necessarily a primary focus; I was too busy honing the more measurable literacy skills -- reading, writing, and speaking. But when we think about career and college readiness, listening skills are just as important. This is evidenced by the listening standards found in the Common Core and also the integral role listening plays in collaboration andcommunication, two of the four Cs of 21st century learning. (Rebecca Alber at Edutopia)

Edutopia's guide to connecting home to school

Home-to-School Connections Guide

Edutopia is thrilled to share with you our classroom resource guide highlighting solutions for connecting home and school in order to improve student learning and success. Whether you're a teacher, parent, or district administrator, this guide provides you with relevant and valuable tools and resources for how best to strengthen the bonds between schools, families, and communities for student learning and success. (2011) 

Check out the above link to get to an Edutopia page where you can download the guide. 

Gaming for good

Over the years, many video games with social themes have been developed. In 2005, the United Nations World Food Programme released Food Force. Food Force was a downloadable game, developed by game publisher Konami, in which players delivered food to people in need. Another game for social change was MTV's Darfur Is Dying. Released in 2006, this online game put players in the role of a refugee in civil war-torn Darfur. (Matthew Darber at Edutopia)

Thinking about student-centered lessons

Summer is the time to look over those unit plans. As you reflect and rethink lessons, here's something to consider: How can you turn direct instruction into experiences where students instead discover?

We all know that designing learning activities takes time and brainpower -- both often very limited during the mad rush of the school year. (And when we are short on time, we teachers much too often turn to direct instruction.) So for those of us who philosophically see ourselves more as "a guide on the side," rather than "a sage on the stage," it's in our pedagogical DNA to sacrifice some of summer and continue to develop such constructivist, student-centered lessons.  (Rebecca Alber at Edutopia)

A different view of classroom talk

Whole class discussions are, after lecture, the second most frequently used teaching strategy, one mandated by the Common Core State Standards because of its many rewards: increased perspective-taking, understanding, empathy, and higher-order thinking, among others. These benefits, however, do not manifest without a skillful and knowledgeable facilitator.

Unfortunately, a preponderance of evidence demonstrates that many teachers mistakenly conflate discussion with recitation. (Todd Finley at Edutopia)

Considering education this summer

As summer reflections on the past school year turn into aspirations for the next year, it's important to keep in mind the big picture of change in education. Five shifts in how we think about schools and education in general will help to regenerate the learning ecosystem, and will provoke our imagination about new possibilities for teaching and learning. (Andrea Saveri at Edutopia)

Getting students to read....more

I'm an evangelist.

A book evangelist, that is. I hand out books to students and colleagues, booktalking them in class, at lunch, and even in my email signature. I want my students to read widely and read often, to pick up a book instead of browsing Tumblr every time they are bored. But I have no desire to assess my students for each book they read during the year. I'm a voracious reader, but I don't take a quiz after each book I finish. If I did, I don't think I would be a reader for very long! I do want my students to think about some of the books that have affected them and influenced them, though. And I want them to plan ahead and think about the books they want to read in the future. In other words, I want them to be readers. (Sarah Mulhern Gross at Edutopia)