Education
Moving Our Thinking Along
Sometimes it’s called the Socratic Method. Sometimes it’s called Higher Order Thinking Skills. And sometimes it’s called Thinking. Regardless of the name it requires the ability to analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and create in order to make logical and rational decisions. The question is how do we help them achieve this level of thought. How…
Read More5 for 5 – Take Five for a Brain Break
Brain research has shown that movement in the classroom improves our students’ focus, memory, concentration, and creates better overall attitudes. When you see your students getting a little restless – try one of these quick brain break activities to stimulate your team of young learners. Take five for a brain break! Copy My Pattern – The…
Read MoreMyth Busters: Is there a math gene?
How many of these have you heard before? “I am just not a math person.” “I wasn’t good at fractions so he isn’t either.” “I can’t do math so neither can my kids.” These are typical comments we hear when people start discussing their math history as it relates to their child. There is an…
Read MoreShow What You Know
When we think about measuring what students know and are able to do, we typically picture a traditional paper and pencil assessment scenario. Often the students are asked to take a quiz or test on some topic that has been taught and we use the paper to figure out if they know what they should.…
Read MoreDifferentiation = Achievement
Effective teachers are always working to reach the spectrum of readiness, learning styles, and backgrounds of their students, so each will make positive progress over time and grow as learners. Our children come with a wide array of needs, so an educator has to decide how to differentiate in the classroom to spark the meaningful…
Read MoreHow to Differentiate Content
Getting started with differentiation can seem overwhelming at first. Carol Ann Tomlinson, faculty member at the University of Virginia’s Curry School of Education, suggests that teachers should start small and then add on incrementally over the years. Yes, it takes years to become a true expert in differentiation! One way to start small is…
Read MoreExplaining Differentiated Assignments
As teachers we want to meet the needs of all of our students. This is difficult when there are many different learning levels and styles in our classrooms. We know that differentiated instruction works, but how do we tell parents what this actually means? How do we explain differentiated assignments? Our goal in the classroom…
Read MoreOnline Support for Differentiation
Our students are each unique and each comes with individual needs, learning styles, varied backgrounds, and interests. To be effective in our classrooms we must differentiate instruction to respect the specific learning needs of each of our young learners. As Carol Ann Tomlinson puts it, “Differentiation is responsive teaching rather than one size fits all…
Read MoreDifferentiation – What It Is and What It Is Not
In the field of education we know that one size does not fit all. Teachers must be aware of the developmental readiness, varying background knowledge, learning styles, and interests of the divers students in the classroom. Effective teachers use meaningful tasks to deliver content, modify processes, and create open-ended assessment measures to gain information and…
Read MoreImmersed in Interactive Info
Want a way to enable your students to be more independent thinkers and grow in processing and applying information? Try implementing interactive notebooks. These tools allow students to organize information through creative thinking and can be developed for most any curriculum area. Interactive notebooks are used for class notes, problem solving, and other activities where…
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