After the energy and excitement of the first few months, fall and winter bring the annual challenge of maintaining student engagement. This precise point in the school year provides an opportunity for teachers to maintain critical student engagement through project-based learning (PBL), which allows for collaboration and student choice. Youki Terada powerfully conveys the value […]
Elementary teachers pave the way for their students to be able to engage in rigorous project-based learning (PBL) by ensuring that they develop essential reading skills. This is accomplished through natural spelling and vocabulary practice, which can help students build content knowledge across disciplines. Unfortunately, schools do not always emphasize the importance of building content […]
Project-based learning (PBL) is a natural fit for differentiated instruction. By design, it is student-centered and student-driven, providing teachers with the space to meet a wide range of student needs. PBL allows for effective differentiation in assessment as well as in day-to-day management and instruction. PBL experts will tell you this, but I often hear […]
Imagine this: You’re transitioning to a new lesson and suddenly your classroom is filled with bouncing legs and restless bodies. There’s chattering everywhere and irritating toys everywhere. It’s time to give the brain a break. It’s common knowledge that students need frequent breaks to stay focused and excited. However, during our so-called brain breaks, students’ […]
How do you and your students start the day? Some schools have a fairly short classroom or advisory period, but how students and teachers spend that time is open-ended. In other schools, students begin learning from the first bell of the day. As educators, we always want to maximize our instructional time, and there are […]
As educators, it’s imperative that we teach students how to stay safe online, especially with the rise of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Generative AI. With rapidly evolving technological capabilities, it’s more important than ever to teach students about cybersecurity and online safety – topics that need to be discussed and explored […]
The rapid rise of generative AI has created challenges for me in assessing student work. It is becoming increasingly difficult to determine the extent to which students rely on tools such as ChatGPT in their writing. Using GPTZero, a colleague recently discovered that a student turned in a paper that was generated by ChatGPT. While […]
Giving feedback on academic or behavioral issues can be stressful for both students and teachers. However, there are ways to make the process feel supportive and affirming. Feedback is most effective in environments that emphasize caring, not just obedience. In classrooms where educators foster unconditional positive regard, or valuing and accepting each student as worthy […]
The overwhelming and sometimes overwhelming feelings are hard to control, especially for our youngest students. Over the past three years, many have experienced hardships – loss of loved ones, grief, loneliness, food and housing insecurity – and the effects of school continue. Of course, dealing with strong emotions and disorders in early elementary school is […]
Promoting student collaboration in the classroom can increase student engagement and the use of higher-level thinking skills. It is important, however, for teachers to help students develop the tools they need to collaborate effectively, and this includes learning how to collaborate using digital tools. However, many teachers find it challenging to do so, either because […]
