Innovative Classroom Strategies

Everything seems political in our world today, whether the issue is the pandemic (masks and vaccinations), voting rights, immigration, or even which television network a person watches. At the same time, because of the Internet, there is more information – both correct and incorrect – accessible than ever before. How do you ...

Children are observed and "graded" from the time they’re born: She learned her alphabet at age 2; he has math aptitude. Or the opposite: She has trouble with numbers; he struggles with reading. Here’s the question: If you are one of those students, do you learn to believe those ...

Every January, the temptation beckons: New Year’s Resolutions. Will this be the year that we actually lose a few pounds, spend more time with your family, learn healthy recipes,  or increase your activity levels? We could. We might. We want to. The promise is there, the fresh start is ...

Imagine your boss telling you that for a certain period of time each day or week, you get to work on a project that feeds one of your passions, even if that project doesn’t directly have an impact on your current work. Sounds like a dream, right? That’s ...

To research the current state of K-12 education, to do it globally, and to create a thoughtful and fact-based prediction of what the future holds would take a lot of resources. But if there’s one thing Google has plenty of, it’s resources. And they put some of ...

The teacher writes numbers on the white board in front of the class, preparing a lesson on fractions and decimals. Two girls are passing notes. A couple of kids in the back row are laughing about a secret joke. Several students have lost focus entirely, distracted by the windows, the ...

Think about the elementary school library of your childhood: shelves, books, table, and a librarian who focused a lot of her time keeping kids quiet! Now, imagine if a corner of that library had been set up for the best of exploration, tinkering and discovery by you and your classmates. ...

(Photo credit: Monkey Business Images, via iStock)

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  Articles aimed at new teachers can sometimes seem ominous: Those are all real titles of articles aimed at teachers who will be walking into their own classroom for the first time this fall. Daunting, aren’t they? “Overwhelming is the ...

Photo credit: Siaath via iStockphoto Five years ago, researchers for the National Education Association (NEA) surveyed 1,500 teachers from pre-kindergarten to Grade 12 about standardized testing. The results were alarming: Nearly half (45 percent) of teachers said that they had considered quitting their jobs at one point because of standardized testing. The biggest ...

(Photo Credit © Highwaystarz via iStock) Teaching with video can be controversial. Decisions about whether a video is appropriate for the classroom can be subjective. And arguments for and against the practice are common; does a student learn more from a video or from a lecture? Despite the issues, the ...