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Add More Music How the Pepper Effect Taps into the Magic of Creativity, Collaboration and Innovation by: Laura McDonell
Listen Where words fail, music speaks. (Hans Christian Anderson) A Must Read A few weeks ago, I read The Pepper Effect by Sean Gaillard. After reading Gaillard’s book, I gained a new perspective on how I can do things differently to achieve the impossible. The book helped me to think...
It’s Not Just About Books by Laura McDonell
Listen Understanding What’s Involved in Learning What if someone who had a lot of professional knowledge in an area said something you disagreed with? What if the path you were on was ready to take a turn, and you had not seen it coming? A Life-Changing Podcast Last week I...
Remembering What it is Like to be a Student by Laura Mcdonell
Listen How learning how to play chess made me a better teacher. There is No Limit to What We Can Learn. I choose to believe in a growth mindset and have confidence that I can learn almost anything. Learning does not come without challenges, and there are times when...
We Might Want It To Be Over… by Laura McDonell
Listen But...2020 Is still Worth Processing What did you love? And what do you want to be different next year? No Doubt A Challenging Year The past year has been a challenging one for many reasons. One of the tough things is that it was unpredictable. This year was unlike...
Change the Behavior, Change the Class (Part Two) by Hollie Hamaker
Listen In the second installment about changing behavior, we will talk about how rewards can impact your classroom. I highly recommend reading the first article before reading this one, as I reference it at one point a few paragraphs below. Some days, it seems impossible to create an atmosphere in...
Show Students What’s Inside Your Head: Make Your Thinking Visible By Laura McDonell
Listen I can still remember Algebra class in high school. This class was different from other math classes. It was as if I went from being taught in a foreign language to entering a classroom where English was spoken. I could not believe that I understood what the teacher was...
Listening
Listen For teachers, this has become a year of “windows”. We’ve spoken to our students through the window of a computer screen, whether through pre-recorded lessons or live classes. The screen recorder counts down and then we’re going through the details of the instruction, or watching the squares as they...
Reformation: Attitudes About Student Learning Ability
Listen We’ve all heard the idea that every student can learn, but believing that takes on a whole new level of faith when you’re in the trenches with struggling students. Our gut instinct is to get out of the situation and hand that student over to someone “more qualified” to...
Reformation: Content Delivery
Listen Lecture is incredibly difficult to get away from, isn’t it? Even in the earlier grades, it’s often difficult to let go and let discover rather than presenting all the information known to mankind in the areas in which we are certified experts. Science tells us that lecture is ineffective...
The Schoolhouse, Your House
Listen This year, we’ve all been lifted out of the familiar spaces we’ve enjoyed teaching for so long and are having to set up a home office that works well for both recorded lessons and live instruction. All the while, many of us have to think of the most important...
The Most Important Piece of the Virtual Classroom Puzzle: Re-Engagement - Laura McDonell
Listen Imagine this. You are a 10th grader. Week one, you are coming off summer break to find out that your parents signed you up for virtual learning. Frustration is an understatement as you beg and beg to go to school in person. In an effort to show...
Reformation: Adjusting Responsibilities of Learning and Control
Listen In the past, both the responsibility for learning and classroom control rested squarely on the shoulders of the teacher. If your students were loud and misbehaving, or if they failed a standardized test, you were not only held responsible for it in a figurative sense. Instead, you could lose...
Reformation: Defining Your Purpose
Listen Have you ever asked a student, “Why are you here?” when they seem to be floundering in school? We want them to find a reason for attending school that is their own, something that will drive them forward when they are worn out or have lost their will to...
The Reformation Age of Education
Listen We’ve known for some time that education was in need of a major overhaul. Many teachers and administrators have been ready for it for a long time. Some districts, a few states, and the occasional national leader have stepped up and championed the cause for change. But largely, our...
Elementary Focus: Dolls for SEL and Social Studies
Listen There are few adults who spend any time with kids who haven’t heard of the “Toy Story” franchise. In one of the movies, the toys gather around a new playmate, Forky, created by the child who is the center of their world.The child in the movie makes this “doll”...
Education Podcasts, Part 2: What We Have Learned from Them
Listen We wanted to share some of what we have learned recently from the education podcasts we have been listening to. Principal Center Radio Douglas Fisher - The Distance Learning Playbook (Jul 31) Douglas Fisher’s has some great, practical tips on distance learning! He suggests that teachers should integrate synchronous...
Practical Lessons from Innovative Schools
Listen We’ve seen the videos of young teachers rapping multiplication facts in high heels from desktops. We all know about Ron Clark academy and being Slide Certified. There are many ingenious schools and teachers and methods that get tremendous results. How do we take the things we see working in...
Your Most Marketable Skills, Part 1
Listen Communication, Instruction, and Complex Thinking Skills Educators in some parts of the U.S. have started seeing the economic repercussions of the pandemic. Some places have started to shed staff as budgets crumble and belts tighten.In other places, teachers are finding returning to teaching in the fall in either virtual...
Teaching Culturally Responsive Literature: Part 5, Asian American Literature
Listen A year ago, Hollywood was all abuzz with the release of Crazy Rich Asians. It was the first all-Asian cast movie to be released from a major studio in over 25 years. How is it that a cultural subpopulation of over 21,000,000 has received such little attention in modern...
Non-Education Careers That Fit Well with Education Experience
Listen Whether you’ve been ousted from your position as the result of downsizing, you’re choosing a different path because of issues with the setup of the next school year, or you’re just looking for a way to add income to your salary each month, there are many non-education jobs that...
Teaching CTE Courses Virtually
Listen How do cosmetology students get the experience cutting hair or doing manicures, especially when teacher modeling and feedback is the major component of instruction? In Ag classes, the animals still have to be fed and cared for, and many students’ animals are housed at the school’s ag barn. Health...
Teaching Culturally Responsive Literature: Part 3, Hispanic/Latinx Literature
Listen Students of Latin heritage cannot be placed into a box, though they are often stereotyped. While there are 20 countries in Central and South America, many teachers just assume that Hispanic students are of Mexican descent. Trouble with the English language is often quite incorrectly associated with an...
Teaching Culturally Responsive Literature: Part 2, African American Literature
Listen Many teachers and administrators are grappling with how to address the social concerns that the recent events in our country have brought up. The truth is that the protests and riots have only brought to the forefront issues that our students carry with them into our classrooms every day. ...
Adapted Physical Education
Listen For many, the Life Skills hallway on a school campus is a place of joy. Administrators can be found high-fiving and dancing with the students as a reprieve from their burdensome load. General education students often enjoy volunteering and assisting. Visitors can be greeted by peels of laughter and...
Be the Change
Listen If you’ve ever walked into a break room at lunchtime, you know that all of the educational experts are sitting in that room talking about the problems and solutions of day-to-day classroom life. And yet, it seems as though the experts are never the people making the decisions! Teachers...
The Necessity of Time Off for Educators -For Building Administrators
Listen Countless educators made the sudden switch from face-to-face learning to crisis remote learning this year and have been working 10 to 12 hour days just to stay on top of things for months. Now that the school year has come to a close, many of those educators are exhausted,...
District Toolkit Needs Learning In 2020-2021
Listen States and local districts across the United States are preparing to pivot away from crisis learning and toward something a little more stable and workable for the 2020-2021 school year. As educators and former educators ourselves, we can see the daunting tasks district and building administrators are facing that...
What Do Schools Need to Do to Prepare for the Fall? Part 2
Listen In our previous article in this series, we addressed the fact that schools need to prepare plans A, B, & C as well as a hybrid of the three and the fact that teachers will need continued support. Consider Accessibility for Both Students and Teachers The last three months...
What Do Schools Need to Do to Prepare for the Fall? Part 1
Listen We only have three months to get ready for whatever school is going to look like in the fall. With so many unknowns, we are all having to plan for several different scenarios. One of the big lessons learned from the experiences this spring is that we have to...
Current Practical Application for Models for Early Childhood Education
Listen Every day of the pandemic seems to create more questions and fewer answers on how to educate our youngest students. However, in their fear, worry, and caution, educators may be forgetting that there are some excellent models already in existence from which we can pull experiences and resources that...
Blended Learning in the Secondary Classroom
Listen Secondary teachers have been experimenting with blended learning for a while now. “Flipped Classroom” has definitely been on buzzword lists for several years, but for most teachers, it is just another experimental, trendy practice that will hopefully go away soon like so many other fads that have come through...
Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students - In the General Education Classroom
Listen Most students who are born with serious hearing impairments are identified as infants or when they are very young. By the time they enter the general education classroom, they’ve got an I.E.P with accommodations., assistance as needed, and a support system in place. However, if you’re teaching a student...
How Administrators Can Help Prepare Teachers for Blended Learning, Pt. 2
Listen Remember, one positive that can come out of this bleak and trying time is a fundamental shift in the structure of formal education across the board. Now is the time to move forward into what we all know is the right way to teach. Here are a few more...
How Administrators Can Help Prepare Teachers for Blended Learning, Pt. 1
Listen Educators are all over the spectrum when it comes to how they feel about the changes facing schools in light of the current pandemic with its indefinite timeline. Some are excited about the shift to a blended learning model, considering it long overdue. Others acknowledge that it is good,...
Troubleshooting for Elementary Blended Learning in the Classroom
Listen In our last article, we explored what blended learning looks like in the elementary classroom setting. Because blended learning is used a lot more in the late elementary and secondary settings, there are some “kinks” to be worked out. Here are some suggestions on ways to do that. All...
Elementary Classroom-Based Blended Learning
Listen There are many more resources available for blended learning in the secondary classroom, and the idea of blended learning is, on the whole, a bit of a different challenge for elementary teachers because so much of it relies on technology. Remote aspects of blended learning are even more complicated,...
Using Epic! for Remote Elementary Reading
Listen Many of us already use Epic! with our students, but we went behind the scenes to see if there were any new or interesting parts of the site that aren’t commonly known amongst educators. If you’ve used it, you probably already know all the most exciting aspects, like the...
How Other Countries Are Coping with Restarting School
Listen Students and educators alike have been terribly disappointed by the fact that school won’t be resuming face-to-face classes for this school year. Although there are many disadvantages to those involved in remote learning, there are some things that can be taken into consideration as advantages. One great advantage is...
Remote Learning Idea #6: Teaching High School Using Children’s Books
Listen This weird season of remote learning is the perfect time to try something new and make a bit of a fool of yourself if it will get your students’ attention and keep it while also providing a meaningful learning experience. One of our writers’ favorite things to do when...
Non-Standard Units of Measurement in Early Math
We recently had a great question from a teacher. She asked if anyone else hated teaching non-standard units of measurement in math. That reminded those of us who teach math of many years of the same frustration and struggle. However, when we sat down and talked about it as a...
Time Management for Online Classes
Listen It’s difficult to manage new technology while you’re also trying to manage your class and teach content. In order to make it easier, create an outline template that you can follow to stay on track. 45-Minute Lesson Example Greet and Hello, -00:10 to 00:00 If it’s possible, open the...
Remote Teaching Idea #5: Professional Development with Movies
Listen “Cal-COO-lus? What is Cal-COO-lus?” I’m pretty sure that I watched Stand and Deliver every year in at least one class throughout high school and possibly even junior high. By the time I became a teacher, it was Freedom Writers that we kept showing our students. And the teachers not...
Rules and Tools for Classroom Management
Listen Online learning is a brave new world. You may feel that you’re starting to get the hang of the online learning experience, but you hope to add a little more depth in the coming weeks. That’s hard to do when your online classroom is like the Wild, Wild West...
Helping Parents Teach Their Children
Listen Parents are struggling. They are not okay right now. They may be reaching out to you for help, and you may be thinking to yourself, “I didn’t sign up to teach parents how to teach.” However, this is where we’re at. Parents have been tasked with becoming their child’s...
Resource Roundup: Engaging Activities for Online Ed
Listen Things are stressful right now. That’s probably an understatement, but it’s a statement in the right direction. It’s also really difficult to get some of our students to show up for online education and subsequently keep them engaged. One of the most requested discussion focuses on many of the...
Remote Learning Idea #4: Teaching with Movies
Listen Alright class, today we are going to study the historical and cultural context of England during the Neoclassical Period which spanned from roughly 1600 to wah-waah wah-waah wah-waah-waah-waaaaaaaaaaaaah... This is bad enough during a “normal” school year (whatever that means) in a traditional classroom. It can be so frustrating...
Equipment and Setup Recommendations for Online Teaching
Listen There’s a lot of advice out there for teachers who’ve recently had to start teaching online. You can find a lot of information about platforms, how to upload work, and ways to get started. We wanted to offer some advice that we weren’t finding in other places that established...
5 Pro Tips for Working From Home
Listen Many teachers have suddenly found themselves teaching from the most unexpected place: home. Although you may have lots of new colleagues (your family members and pets), access to a refrigerator and pantry, and plenty of comfortable places to work from, the challenge to adjust to working in that environment...
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...
8 Tips for Teaching Classes Online
Listen UPDATE 2: 3/14/2020, 5:30 P.M. The free version of Zoom is back up and in order. UPDATE: (3/13/2020, 12:31 P.M.) We recommended Zoom below as a free service, but in the past 12 hours, we’ve become aware that their free services are temporarily suspended because they are overwhelmed...