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Literacy in High School, Part 1: Reading Workshop
Listen Getting teenagers to want to read can seem like an impossible task. Heck, getting teenagers to not turn to active revolt, bearing protest signs (or at least passive and indifferent expressions) upon the mere mention of reading a book could be considered a victory worth running out of your...
Creating Emotional Closure During Quarantine
Listen In the U.S., most states have already called it: school will be only online and distance ed for the rest of this school year. For many students, this is difficult.Actually, if we’re being accurate and transparent, it’s traumatizing. It is necessary, it is important, but there is a lot...
Teacher Appreciation Ideas During Remote Learning
Listen Principals love treating their teachers during Teacher Appreciation Week! Many have been preparing all year: catered lunches, dessert bars, coffee carts traveling the hallway, and/or different gifts delivered to classrooms each day. Empty school buildings mean a change of plans. With schools closed across the country and around the...
Whose Teleconference ARD Is This, Anyway?
Listen In addition to learning how to teach remotely, you have likely had to attend at least one virtual meeting of some sort of web conference platform. These meetings can be awkward enough when it is a small PLC of 5-10 people. Campus faculty meetings of 100+ can get quite...
Remote Learning Idea #2: Using Quotes to Inspire and Guide Writing
Listen This is the second in our series that is attempting to provide ideas to use for remote learning during the current pandemic and beyond. These are simple activities that can be used in a variety of ways, and our goal is to provide everything you need to take and...
Remote Learning Idea #1: Novel Studies for Secondary Students
Listen For most of us, the notion of remote learning is a totally foreign experience, but many of the things we have been doing in class can be translated to fit into this new platform. The reality is that not all parents are properly equipped to teach heavy content, and...
Resource Roundup: ELAR and Administration Books for the Pandemic
Listen As more and more schools are extending breaks and/or turning to online instruction in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more teachers and administrators find themselves going a little stir crazy. It’s been impressive and truly beautiful to see various educational resources, publishers, instructional platforms, internet providers, school...
Resource Roundup: PD for the Pandemic
Listen With states and districts closing schools suddenly due to the pandemic, some teachers are finding themselves with two weeks of “early summer”, extended spring break, or even voluntary time at home otherwise avoiding illness. If you’re faced with seemingly endless hours with little to do (after you’re tired of...
Increasing the Educational Value of Field Trips
Listen ‘Tis the season for field trips! Often, teachers view this as sort of a holiday. We may divvy up students among vetted parent volunteers and spend the day with only one or two of our students, looking around and enjoying the scenery. This is nice for us, but there...
Student-Mentoring Programs
Listen Teachers have always had to find creative ways to help students without much family support: a single parent who has to work multiple jobs, a family distracted by crisis, or children removed from an abusive situation. These issues date as far back as any form of civilization, much less...
Breaking Down Language Barriers
Listen Imagine being a five-year-old again. Imagine that you have been living with extended relatives all of your life, and one day they put you on a plane and send you halfway around the world to meet your parents in another country. Imagine being brought to a school the following...
Oppositional Defiance Disorder (ODD)
Listen What Is ODD? Oppositional Defiance Disorder is a behavioral disorder. According to the Mayo Clinic, symptoms include persistent angry or irritable moods, extreme defiance for authority figures, frequent need to argue, and vindictiveness. Students with ODD most often deal with other disorders simultaneously and in addition to ODD. Frequent...