Does your email inbox make you feel overwhelmed? Every year around the new year, I attempt to get my inbox under control. Here are some email organization tips that I found to be practical and doable. This month we are tackling everything organization and time management! If you didn't read last week's post, check it out: Time Saving Tips for Your Planning Period and be sure to check ...
Time Saving Tips for Your Teacher Planning Period
A teacher’s planning period is sacred (or it should be), but it never feels like enough time to complete the 62,000 tasks a teacher needs to do each day. This is why teachers so often work nights or the weekends. Let’s talk about some ways to improve the efficiency of this time. Note: No school is the same, you may have one 90 minute planning period or two 45 minute planning ...
Strategies for Teaching Math Concepts
Let's discuss strategies for teaching math concepts using the CRA framework. Remember that the CRA framework has proven to help students grasp difficult math concepts. If you are scratching your head asking yourself, “What is the CRA framework?” be sure to go back and read this post. What is the CRA? I like this definition best. “The CRA is a three-stage learning process where ...
Higher Level Thinking with Bloom’s Taxonomy
Higher level thinking is a goal for many teachers. Students retain knowledge when they have thought deeply about it. And in order to get our students to think at a deeper level, we have to be asking questions that require them to access those parts of the brain. Encouraging higher level thinking is so interconnected to your classroom culture, the rigor of your content, and then ...
Unpacking Math Standards When Lesson Planning
Unpacking math standards helps teachers build the foundation for what content they are teaching to students. Subsequently, unpacking math standards provides a framework to create actionable lessons. Essentially, unpacking math standards helps us answer these two questions: What are students learning?How will they learn it? This is part 1 of our Instructional Design series. Come ...
Turn Worksheets into Easy Math Activities
Easy math activities - is this an oxymoron? It doesn't have to be. You don’t have to be a teacher long to see that a worksheet full of problems does not incite the excitement and enthusiasm of many of your students. However, try any of these easy math activities, and you will experience unprecedented levels of excitement from your class. Now that I am a parent, I see this ...
4 Test Review Tips for Teachers
The end of the semester is upon us. Let’s talk about some best practices for test review. First and foremost, I support best teaching practices, which involve monitoring your students throughout the year, consistently spiraling skills, and striving for high mastery. USE DATA TO REVIEW STRATEGICALLY Look at collective student data and determine the weak spots. What ...
Should Teachers Assign Homework?
Should teachers assign homework? Should you assign homework to your students? The answer to that question is dependent on a variety of factors, so let’s dive in. LISTEN ON: APPLE PODCAST | SPOTIFY What is the purpose of homework? What is your purpose behind assigning homework? Here is a quick brainstorm of how you might answer this question: The next question to ask ...
4 Time Wasters to Stop as a Teacher
The beginning of the school year is when we have the best intentions for how the school year will go. Let’s keep this energy up by committing to stop doing these 4 time wasters. These time wasters lead to stress and burn out - I can personally attest! LISTEN ON: APPLE PODCAST | SPOTIFY Point 1: Stop Bringing Your Work Home This may seem like the opposite of a time waster since ...
How to Teach Routines & Procedures that Stick
You may have the best routines and procedures planned for your classroom, but if you don’t effectively teach students HOW to implement those routines, then you and your students will not reap the benefits of time and energy saved. LISTEN ON: APPLE PODCAST | SPOTIFY Step 1: Brainstorm the Routines You Want to Teach The first thing you as the teacher need to do is KNOW all of ...