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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...
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...
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...
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...
Preparing for an Interview, Part 2 10 Things You Should Be Prepared to Discuss
Listen In our previous post, we shared some things to do to prepare for the interview, including how to beef up your resume, preparing a portfolio, how to dress, good hygiene, respecting the time of the interviewers, and nonverbals to consider. Now it is time to talk about… well, what...
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...
Preparing for an Interview, Part 1
Listen It’s spring, and many of us have started daydreaming about the possibility of changing schools or moving up. In the education world that means that many of us are starting to look at the job postings on district websites, Regional Education Centers, or even Indeed. For most of us,...
Tips for Coping with Personal Mental Illness
Listen According to NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness), on average, 1 in 5 Americans in the general population experience mental illness at some point in their adult life. 1 in 25 experience severe or chronic mental illnesses. It comes as no surprise that teachers are not an exception...