1-833-933-4TFD Blog
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...