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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...
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...
Tips for Combating Student Anxiety
Listen Childhood has always been filled with stressors, but recent studies show that childhood anxiety is on the rise. The Child Mind Institute says that 30% of children now experience significant anxiety, although many of these children never receive treatment. The CDC says that the number of diagnoses increased from...
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...
Writing Centers that Inspire
Listen Every grade level and subject can benefit from a writing center. Where most elementary classrooms are used to using a “center” approach to learning, fewer secondary teachers are familiar with the concept, but secondary teachers are starting to catch on and use the strategies, as well. A writing center...
Providing Meaningful Professional Development
Listen If we’re being honest, most of us have been subjected to hours of professional development that either didn’t apply to us, didn’t interest us, or were not the best use of our time. If we’re being honest, few among us have neglected to grade papers we’ve smuggled into a...
Using Curriculum in the Elementary Classroom
Listen A curriculum is what you make of it. Unfortunately, no one really tells teachers in most districts what to make of curriculum. Few schools tell you how much or how often to use it, and even fewer tell you exactly how. When you adopt a new curriculum, there is...
Combatting Personal Bias in the Classroom
Listen Humans have a natural tendency to want to group themselves with other people who are similar. It’s likely an instinct that at one point helped us survive and keep our families intact. Now, however, the instinct can be less helpful. There are many ways we separate ourselves including race,...
Dysgraphia and Writing Disorders: Beginning with Dyslexia
Listen The first cases of dyslexia were written about in the 1880s, around the time both Samuel Orton and Anna Gillingham were both born. In the 1920s, the two had started working toward what is now known as the Orton-Gillingham approach, which laid the foundation for educating students with dyslexia...
New Elementary Substitute Survival Guide
Listen Substitutes are incredibly vital members of the school district community. A good substitute is a teacher’s absolute best friend. While many teachers will leave work for the students to do and lessons for you to teach while they are gone, for the first few times you sub, they may...
Working with Young and Inexperienced Parents of Students
Listen Parenting is a tough gig, and when working with younger children, it’s especially clear when your student is coming from a family with very young parents who have little social support. Educators are in a unique position to help young and inexperienced parents. Here are a few things we’ve...
Goal-Setting with Young Students (Pre-K through 2nd Grade)
Listen Goals are like a road map. Setting and achieving goals are important life skills, and people aren’t born knowing how to do it. Many of the most successful people in the world rely on setting goals as motivation and a way to harness self-direction. Teaching children to set goals,...