How do you facilitate learning in your classroom?  Is work done in desks, tables, up moving around, in bean bag chairs, on the floor, at the board, or in explorations?  The space in which a child learns is important.  If a school gets it wrong, learning can be constrained or even completely stifled.  Some learning rooms are unique learning spaces ...

Discussion boards is a great way to get your questions answered, especially for students.  It would be a great idea to set up a discussion board for just you classes or school, but most of the time the discussion boards are online and for everyone.  There are discussion boards for AP Calculus listed below.  This is great for teachers who haven't ...

Friday I attended a learning leaders meeting about instructional coaching. I have to admit, I’d not heard of instructional, literacy, or math coaches before this summer. I’ve posted before about the metaphor Ian Jukes used to compare teachers to rubber bands: we stretch teachers like rubber bands when we give them new and innovative ideas, but ...

I finally got around to setting up a class blog this summer, and I have it running pretty efficiently right now. Check it out:  nrenglish.wordpress.com On the first day of school, I showed kids the blog and asked them to take a Google docs survey that I created and embedded into wordpress–yes, it sounds complicated, but it was much easier than ...

Comment Period Extended for Content Frameworks – Curriculum Matters – Education Week. You now have until August 31.  Make your suggestions known! Check out the Smarter Balanced assessment schedule and previous explanations of the info I’ve gleaned about these assessments.  Also, check out my webinar notes that addressed expectations for CCS in ...

Kasich, fellow Republicans to propose SB 5 deal to unions | The Columbus Dispatch. It’s fantastic that the mistakes have finally been realized.  I would support NO DEAL to this bill at is stands, and instead, starting at square one by including all stakeholders in a discussion about a possible compromise on a new bill.  Kasich’s tactic to create ...

This will be my fifth year as an educator and, probably, the first year in which I feel confident, competent, and ready to branch out to new teaching strategies.  All new teachers need to be told that teaching gets better with time.  For me, years one and two flew by in a blur, year three was when I got the hang of classroom management, and year ...

I found this question intriguing.  Even more intriguing are the variety of answers: Pedagogy,  Teacher Training, Working Conditions, Assessment, Standards, Teacher Evaluation Systems, Policy–Local, State, National, Technology, Teaching/Learning Styles, School Choice/Vouchers, Management/Administration Systems The list goes on and on….As does the ...

Free Technology for Teachers: Ten Common Challenges We’ll Face This Fall – Challenge #6: Cell Phones. We can wage an endless battle that is bound to get worse in the future, or we can engage those devices and make them work for us. How many of us have used the money excuse to avoid using technology in our classrooms?  Now there is no excuse.  ...

Educational Leadership:Best of Educational Leadership 2010–2011:Teaching the iGeneration. You should read this article. Did you read it?  If you’re skimming, you should really go back and read it. As a part of the “Net Generation,” I agree there is a clear difference between those of us born in the 1980′s and those born in the 1990′s (what ...