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Most schools have one day each week where the schedule is different, and classes are shorter to accommodate staff meetings. Often this day falls mid-week, disrupting a teacher’s flow, leaving a lot of teachers wondering what to do with this day. In a recent comment to one of my blogs, Andi Jackson shared a strategy […]
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As elementary students learn how to read, teachers administer reading fluency tests and listen to students read passages. During these reading fluency tests, teachers listen for speed, accuracy, and expression. Nothing can replace this formal assessment, but it’s helpful to teach students to track their words per minute between these reading fluency assessments. Tracking their […]
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The Station Rotation Model is a blended learning model where students rotate through a series of online and offline stations. This model is an easier shift for elementary teachers who are already use learning stations with students. Unfortunately, most secondary teachers do not learn how to design lessons using stations in credential school. Most of […]
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The discussion about learning and what constitutes “good learning” is almost always couched in the context of a classroom. Today’s students have more access to information and resources beyond the classroom than any prior generation. They can jump online and watch a video tutorial to learn how to do something that interests them. They can […]
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When I spoke at Californa’s Better Together Teachers Summit, I talked about the power of connecting students with an authentic audience online. I emphasized the role technology can play in helping teachers to get more eyes on student work and, as a result, motivate students to do their best work. In addition to connecting students […]
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When I work with elementary teachers, one of the biggest concerns I hear about is the fear of what students will find online. Teachers know it’s important to teach students how to search effectively, evaluate website credibility, and cite their sources, but it can be scary when teachers are working with younger students. One way […]
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Homework has been getting a lot of attention in the media. My Twitter feed is full of articles and blogs discussing the research on homework, particularly at the elementary level, and how counterproductive it can actually be. As a parent and teacher, I find this conversation is particularly interesting. As a parent, I marvel at the […]
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This week I had the pleasure of training a group of elementary teachers on blended learning strategies. As a group, they wanted to focus on: Differentiation Student choice Assessment One of the strategies we discussed with the potential to weave these three areas of focus together is a choice board. There are several different approaches to designing a […]
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This year, I’ve focused on using the Station Rotation Model to: create smaller learning communities within our larger class spend more time working in small groups with students more effectively differentiate instruction make the most of our limited technology Most of the time our Station Rotation lessons are focused on academic topics, but last month […]
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When I volunteer in my children’s elementary classrooms (1st and 3rd grade), I am struck by how frequently the teacher finds time to work directly with small groups of students to offer additional support, review concepts, assess understanding, and practice skills. At the secondary level scenes like this are less frequent. Many middle school and high school […]
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As many teachers shift to the Common Core Standards, they are attempting to incorporate more complex texts and more informational/nonfiction texts into their curriculum. If you are asking yourself, “What is a complex text for my students?” check out this blog post I wrote explaining text complexity. Many teachers are discovering that several websites offer informational texts available […]
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In my previous post “Common Core: What is a ‘complex text’ anyway?” I wrote about the three aspects of a text that the Common Core measures to determine its “complexity,” which include: 1) quantitative, 2) qualitative, 3) reader and task. Hopefully, that post helped to clarify how we as educators can evaluate the complexity of a text […]
