Recently I’ve had great discussions with fellow educators and checked into blogs and news articles, questioning the pros and cons of flipping our classrooms. I wondered if this is right question to ask: to flip or not to flip? Key Understandings Let’s start with a key understanding: What do we mean by a flipped classroom? In a flipped classroom, teachers use a variety of technology-based media so that students do initial study of a subject outside the classroom, typically at home, via screencasts or videos teachers record themselves or with videos sourced on the web. The flip: imparting initial knowledge around a topic, typically...
Read More Post a comment (4)A colleague of mine recently shared this image: I immediately thought about our English learners and students who struggle, as well as students with special needs. Entry into the promised land of the Common Core does indeed seem to be closed. With the bar raised to new levels for all of our students and all of us as their educators, we have many questions on how to arrive at the “promised land.” How do we provide access to the Common Core for all students in our diverse classrooms? How can we accomplish all that we need to with the many changes connected...
Read More Post a comment (0)According to the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, research suggests that if students are going to grasp and retain words and comprehend text, they need repeated exposure in a variety of contexts to the words they are trying to learn. Isabel L. Beck, Margaret G. McKeown, and Linda Kucan (2002, 2008) have developed a model for conceptualizing categories of words readers encounter in texts. They outline three categories of words referred to as tiers in their book Bringing Words to Life. The text shares rich information about vocabulary instruction and includes activities and techniques that can be used...
Read More Post a comment (2)Educational magazines and journals often contain studies that lament the demise of independent reading by students. The reports are discouraging, indicating that, as students progress through school, the amount of actual reading engagement diminishes, especially with struggling readers – the ones that need reading practice the most. As we know, struggling readers are often reluctant readers, and we are also aware that reading practice promotes reading progress. I was recently in the classroom of a high school Spanish teacher, and I was amazed by the multiple bookshelves filled with a treasure trove of books. There were books of a great variety...
Read More Post a comment (1)In my last blog, I discussed the importance of inquiry-based learning to the Common Core State Standards Initiative. I also shared some steps you as a teacher can take to prepare your classroom for this instructional method. Now that you have jumped in with both feet, you will need to guide students’ investigations. Here are steps you can take to conduct an inquiry-based learning unit: 1. Model the process for utilizing resources through mini-lessons, such as: Using the table of contents, index, headings, and subheadings to locate information, Studying illustrations and photographs and their accompanying captions, Reading sections of text...
Read More Post a comment (0)The Common Core Curriculum Standards Initiative places an emphasis on inquiry-based learning. According to the standards, students learn best when teachers coach them on how to learn, rather than provide them with a steady stream of content, which they can easily forget in time. If we teach students how to discover, research, ask questions, and think critically on their own, we will successfully prepare them to be lifelong learners. In this blog, I would like to examine inquiry-based learning in Grades K–2. Inquiry comes from the Latin words in (“inward”) and quirer (“to question”), so inquiry means to question into...
Read More Post a comment (0)“Gladly would he learn, and gladly teach.” ― Geoffrey Chaucer This simple yet powerful description introduced us to the clerk, Chaucer’s devout Oxford student, of Canturbury Tales’ fame. Fast-forward some 600-plus years to meet an individual, Salman Khan, who takes this description beyond all boundaries, where the world truly comes together for shared learning in the global classroom he founded, Khan Academy. The mission is lofty: a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. Its reach is already staggering, with over a million students per month, one- to two-hundred thousand lessons delivered per day via more than 3,500 videos. The Khan Academy video...
Read More Post a comment (0)Defining Digital Citizenship: A Heroic Approach In our classrooms, we may wonder how to define digital citizenship. Where do we begin? Google it and you’ll see hundreds of entries in page after page of search results, a torrential downpour of information! I have always found inspiration in biography, a genre in which actions speak loudly through the words that document their far-reaching effects, many times profound, in some cases, truly heroic. So, let’s adopt a “heroic” approach for digital citizenship and look to those who inspire us through their presence in the digital community. When you think of a hero, what faces, what...
Read More Post a comment (0)In my last blog, I shared tips on how to stage a Reader’s Theater performance. Here are some suggestions on how to enhance your production and involve your students in the work needed to create a “Broadway” play. Lighting/Music/Sound lights go off and then on again to show the beginning of the play and/or scene changes spotlights focused on the speaker bells or whistles for cueing scene changes background music that sets the mood of the script specific sounds that relate to the play TV Production Students can work with school facilities or use their own equipment. Personnel can include: a camera person to record the...
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