If you’ve ever sat in on a professional development session with me, you’ve heard my spiel, “From here on out, you’re a math person. Even if you feel you have no connection to mathematics, you need to channel your inner actor or actress and become a math person.
Instruction
Do you want to generate interest in non-fiction? Then start reading it yourself. Fifteen years ago when my then high school principal walked into the library and told me that we needed to start doing more with non-fiction, I thought, “Please, no.” I was a romance, verse novel aficionado. But he was correct. Non-fiction is important.
Relationships with our students are key. As educators, we know this is vital to student success. Research tells us there is a positive correlation between student engagement and academic success.
Students need to be part of experiences that are bigger than themselves. Having conversations centered in understanding, acceptance and empathy with others can be a great way to make connections outside of the classroom.
“When are we ever going to use this?” The dreaded, yet inevitable, question that arises every year for math educators. With the abstract nature of many standards in the high school math curriculum, I can certainly empathize with the sentiment of this question.
Whether you have student roles in a class that last for a semester or for a few minutes, it is important they are well-defined! Roles can be used in every subject and in many different types of projects. Roles also help to foster the 4 C’s in your classroom!
Finding the right tools to do our jobs as educators more effectively can seem an endless pursuit. For those of us who taught English, it may even be reminiscent of the rabbit hole from Alice in Wonderland, or make us appear to our administrators like Don Quixote on a mission.
I love to cook. For me, it is so satisfying to create something for the people I love to be able to enjoy and savor. When I cook, I tend to follow a recipe, so I can get just the right flavors and consistency. In looking at this upcoming school year, I have come to realize I follow a few tried and true recipes for teaching music as well.
It’s Back to School time and we’re thinking about how to set up our physical classrooms and our digital spaces.
There have been plenty of times I have reached out to a teacher on the other side of the world hoping for a super cool connection only to have it not work out due to time zone differences.