10 Ways to Wrap Up Your Lesson

Michele HaikenBlog, Differentiation, Lesson Planning, Reflect Better, Student Engagement

TL;DR: Teachers should gather students for reflection and check understanding in the last few minutes of class to ensure everyone met the objective and address any confusion. Ten favorite ways to wrap up a lesson include exit tickets, 3-2-1 summaries, sentence-phrase-word reflections, stop and jot activities, captioning visuals, AEIOU reflections, rock-paper-scissors reflections, What’s In the Cards reflection protocol, quiz games, … Read More

Supporting Student Productive Struggle

Teach Better TeamBlog, Innovation, Leadership, Lesson Planning

In This Post: The definition of student productive struggle. Why productive struggle is important for students. Ways to promote productive struggle in your classroom, from planning to implementation. This week some of our school leaders and intervention professionals held a fall data meeting. One of the discussions, besides progress or increased needs, focused on the productive struggle of learners. Productive … Read More

Using Words to Cultivate Classroom Community

Teach Better TeamBlog, Classroom Management, Student Engagement

In This Post: The value of words to build classroom community. One activity to cultivate a meaningful, positive classroom community. The importance of keeping your classroom community strong. Words are powerful. Powerful in the way they are strung together to say something, in the tone and demeanor in which they sound or look, and in the way they can make … Read More

Differentiate the Learning Not the Assignments

Kristen KoppersBlog, Lesson Planning, Personalized Learning

In This Post: Identify how to differentiate learning experiences versus only modifying assignments. See an example of how to differentiate your lesson instead of the materials or activities. Lighten your workload! Modify your instruction for all students to succeed instead of differentiating materials for each unique learner. Many times, we think of Differentiated Instruction (DI) as a method to make … Read More