It may be Valentine’s Day, but what does that actually mean for an educator? In This Post: Valentine’s Day, like any holiday, brings its own special set of challenges for teachers. You can choose to simply survive Valentine’s Day, or focus on still connecting your content and engaging your students. Providing opportunities to share happiness is one way of connecting … Read More
Give Students a Voice and Teach Them to Build a Better World
In this post: We are crafting the future leaders of our world, what do we need them to be able to do? If we’re not asking our students what they need, we’re missing opportunities to be better. Feedback can be scary, but it can also be incredibly valuable. You can’t put every suggestion into practice, but you can listen, learn, … Read More
Strategies for A Better Start to Your Class
Starting each class period off the right way is key to the success of any lesson plan. There is no one way to start a class. There are plenty of options – find what fits your style and your students’ needs. Educators focus so much on effective lesson planning, posting targets, differentiating for students, and communicating with parents. But let’s … Read More
Humanizing School: 3 Ways to Make Students Feel Valid and Valued
We can try to humanize school with help from students. Students provided feedback through student-centered discussions on humanizing schools. Students were more interested in foundational changes than they were in educational technology or systems. The 3 major categories students’ responses fall into are trusting students, valuing their knowledge, and providing meaningful feedback. Recently, in a training with a local non-profit, … Read More
Student Reflection: How to Ensure It’s Done, Done Well, and Done With Grit
Research shows daily student reflection and goal setting has positive effects on students. The missing piece of implementing reflection and goal setting in many classrooms is student ownership. Allowing students to choose the medium used, providing open-ended questions, sharing (some) of that reflection with stakeholders, embedding it into routine to make it a habit, reflection checks, and reflection on the … Read More
