Finding Balance as a Teacher
Teachers are asked to do everything. And by everything, I mean EVERYTHING. We are asked to create not only meaningful and rewarding learning experiences for all students, but make them all fun and engaging as well. We are asked to prepare students for career readiness, to be more compassionate and understanding than the average human being, to be perfect and never fail, to prepare students to pass standardized tests, and to develop ourselves professionally - doing all these things while still doing the work of living as a person outside of work. Where’s the balance for teachers?
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Empowering students through skillful questioning techniques
One of the most important ways teachers can assess whether their student knows the content they have been teaching, understands the directions they have laid out, or can help to clarify confusion is by asking questions. Asking questions is arguably one of the most used teacher strategies, because, let's face it: questioning is really at the heart of learning. However, not all questions are created equal. There are rules to the questions we ask.
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Scary stories for young adults: Our favorite horror novels
Kids these days are so lucky! There so many great young adult (YA) books for them to choose from. Here are a list of some of our favorites for the horror genre:
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Free Curriculum for Stamped:Racism, Antiracism, and You
This unit of study includes a presentation (Keynote, Powerpoint, and PDF formats) that contains the basic elements of any good lesson: an anticipatory set, direct instruction, guided practice, and a reflection.
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Using Cyrano de Bergerac to facilitate meaningful classroom conversations
Looking for a super engaging unit of study that is guaranteed to be the highlight of your school year and a moment in time that your students will come back to comment on? Well, look no further. Cyrano is your lesson, especially if your students are taking a world history class!
Cyrano is great because it is a play that has something for everyone from fighting and wars to love, romance, and humor. Cyrano is that original (OG) play that so many modern day movies and TV shows are based on.
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Effective ways to establish achievable goals for student motivation
Beginnings, middles, and endings are great stopping points to reflect on your progress on any project and your life. They are also good stopping points for students to reflect on their learning and progress throughout a school year in order to achieve their life goals and create lasting change.
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YA Books that We Love for Historical Fiction and Mystery/Crime
Kids these days are so lucky! There so many great young adult (YA) books for them to choose from. Here are some of our favorites for historical fiction and mystery/crime :
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Three Awesome Alternatives to Kahoot!
We have always loved using Kahoot! to help gamify our curriculum for our students, especially at the end of a unit to help support the review of the content we have taught. We also love using Kahoot! as a way for students to review the content for up and coming history tests.
This year we branched out and tried some different websites to gamify our curriculum. If you have been stuck in a Kahoot rut, fear not, dear teacher friends. We have a list of other delightful websites to try.
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How to Read More Books Throughout the Year
So, you have decided to up your reading game. That is awesome! There is nothing more satisfying than finishing a great book. What if I told you, you could read over 100 books a year, and still have time for more! I promise, with my tried and true strategies you will be cruising through your book stacks in no time.
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YA Books that We Love for Sports and Dystopian
Kids these days are so lucky! There so many great young adult (YA) books for them to choose from. Here are some of our favorites for sports and dystopian:
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Interactive History Lessons for the Classroom
Over the past decade, we have been creating and expanding our history curriculum to include some fun and interactive lessons that are engaging and require higher order thinking skills to complete. While students do benefit from note taking, they also benefit from being able to explore their learning and show their understanding of the history curriculum in a creative way.
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