Hands-On Science For Young Learners
My elementary class and I have begun my most favorite science unit of all: plants and life cycles. I look forward to this unit every year. There are five concepts that I want to drive home with this...
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High School Students and Common Core
Common Core has been a controversial topic in education since it was first mentioned in 2012, then fully implemented in 2013, despite plans for a two-year transition. Personally, I have no problem with...
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Celebrating the Genres in Anne Frank’s Diary
Anne Frank: The Diary of Young Girl transcends the labels of genre. Yes, as the title suggests, it is a diary, but it is also a memoir, a narrative, an argument, an expository journal, an...
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Be Interactive: Twelve Tremendously Helpful Math Resources
When you’re teaching any subject, it’s good to have a few tricks in your teaching hat to get your students engaged in learning. When you’re looking for interactive resources, it’s time-consuming work....
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10 Great Resources for Engaging Middle School Math Students
It seems like it takes more and more to get students motivated now. Throw math work at them, and they will act like you’ve just asked them to scrub toilets. Fortunately, you can do a lot to get kids...
View ArticleFaulkner’s “I Decline to Accept the End of Man” Speech
American authors are studied in the secondary ELA classroom for their writing style and contributions to literature. 20th Century writer William Faulkner (1897 –1962) is one such author whose short...
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No More Lectures – Try Back To School Stations Instead
Author’s Back to School Passports I’m not a direct instruction kind of teacher. I’ve learned after 25 years of teaching junior high that kids need to be moving, thinking, collaborating and switching...
View ArticleMy Experience with TNCore – the Tennessee State Standards
Tennessee’s State Department of Education adopted standards labeled TNCore, modeled after the controversial Common Core. As an English and Language Arts (ELA) teacher of nine years, I would like to...
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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....
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Creating Utopia: How Kids See The World
This month, my students are learning to see the differences in the world. They’re reading The Giver, a dystopian novel written by Lois Lowry in the 1990s. The Giver relates the story of Jonas, a 12...
View ArticleWhy Data is Important
There were eight of us gathered together early Wednesday morning: 8th grade teachers of History, English, PE, Math, Science, Spanish, a para educator and a counselor. Our task? Analyzing data from last...
View ArticleWhat President Obama Didn’t Say About Standardized Testing
On Saturday, October 24th, President Obama came out with a wholehearted message about his concern about how much schools, teachers, and students were focusing on standardized testing. He began his...
View ArticleBrainPOP: A Te(a)cher’s Best Friend
Think you’ll have 5 or 10 minutes left in class? Need an engaging way to start a lesson while you take attendance, grade a few papers, or call a parent? Looking for something simple to drive home the...
View ArticleMaybe It’s The Time Of Year: Taking Another Look At Confrontation In The...
It was just a lesson on folktales, really. We’ve been reading a variety of stories from around the world in my 8th grade English classroom – sometimes with partners or small groups, but yesterday I...
View ArticleInquiry Based Research For John Steinbeck’s Novel ‘The Pearl’
I want my 8th-grade students to learn more than just the standards – I want them to learn strategies to learn, and how to utilize the best tools to show their learning. I remind them that in high...
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Math, Patterns, and MLK’s “I Have a Dream” Speech
The third Monday in January is a national holiday commemorating Martin Luther King, and February is Black History Month. If you’re an educator, and you have not already seen Nancy Duarte’s...
View ArticleFour Reasons Why I’m In Love With Chromebooks In The Classroom
I cannot deny it any longer – I’m in love with Chromebooks. Chromebooks have transformed my teaching. All those times in the last 25 years when I used to say, “Well, that would be easy if I had a class...
View ArticleWhat Teachers Are Really Searching For Online
Wonder what teachers are really searching for online? I can tell you – it’s not just lesson plans or decoration ideas. It’s not just how to deal with the unruly child, or how to motivate a reluctant...
View ArticleSocial Justice Test Prep?
I teach at a school in New York City where approximately 50% of students “opted out” of state exams last year. I’m proud to be a part of a school community where families are using their power to send...
View ArticleSchool VALUES, not “Standards”
Let’s start talking about shared core values, not common standards, please. My colleagues, my students, their parents, my own children… none of them are “common” or “standard.” This sentiment isn’t...
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