Professional Learning for Busy Educators

As an inquiry teacher, who values learner agency, do you always teach or model first, only letting go when you think they are ready?

Or are students free to have a go, explore, experiment, test theories, formulate ideas… while you observe the learning, allowing your observations to inform when and whom to teach or support and when to step aside?

Recently, a high school teacher on our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE asked readers to suggest the best social studies websites around. As usual, our teacher friends came through in force! We’ve rounded up the links as well as the official tout from each website. Check it out and share your picks for the best social studies websites in the comments.

As a K-5 Instructional Coach, my eyes were open wide the first time I stepped into a 1st Grade Classroom. The teacher was actually teaching the kids HOW to read.

I immediately sent an email to my former high school colleagues saying that I had no idea what it was like in an Elementary school (and we should be lucky of the issues we had to deal with at HS)!

Flash forward 10 years and I’ve spent a ton of time working with Elementary schools, teachers, and students in some way or capacity (administrator, teaching, curriculum design, technology, consulting etc).

I’ve learned so much from Elementary teachers around this country who continue to inspire me, but nothing has made me more focused in on what innovation and project-based learning looks like than my own crew of kids.

Yes, I have four kids, all 9 and under (it is a blast…and a bit crazy at our house!). Two are in school right now, and I love seeing their faces light up when they come home working on a project or feeling excited about the day’s learning activities.

I get to see what Project-Based Learning looks like in an Elementary Classroom and the difference it can make in a student’s learning life.

So, when I got the question a few weeks ago from an Elementary teacher, “What does this ACTUALLY look like in an Elementary classroom?”, I was pumped to put together this article with lots of real examples of PBL K-5.

Silence is a rare commodity these days. There's traffic, construction, air-conditioning, your neighbor's lawnmower ... and all this unwanted sound can have a surprising impact on your health, says noise researcher Mathias Basner. Discover the science behind how noise affects your health and sleep -- and how you can get more of the benefits of the sound of silenc

In the last decade, rates of anxiety-related disorders in teenagers have steadily risen, particularly in girls. Researchers and psychologists posit several hypotheses about why these rates are on the rise -- from digital hyperconnectivity to heightened external pressures to simply a greater awareness, and therefore diagnosis, of mental health concerns.

Whatever the causes, Dr. Lisa Damour has hopeful news for parents and teens: first, some degree of stress and anxiety is not only normal but essential for human growth. And if those levels become untenable, there are tested strategies for reining anxiety back in.

Teachers thoughtfully develop grading policies in their classrooms that they believe will promote learning. But what if those same policies unintentionally add to the inequity in the system?

Yes, diet and exercise matter, but so do these other simple interventions you can start doing today.

High school students ask this question partly to challenge the teacher’s authority, but they may really want to know the answer.

The types of skills required to care for and advocate for oneself and others — self-regulation, responsibility, empathy, and discipline, among others — are becoming increasingly central to the work of schools and teachers, and increasingly relevant to the lifelong success of students. 

More and more, educators are recognizing that these skills — often called “social and emotional” skills — are inextricably intertwined with the academic skills. Nine out of 10 teachers believe that social emotional skills can and should be taught. But four out of five want more support to address their students’ social emotional development. How do teachers catch up their practices with what they know is possible?

A new report from the Aspen Institute’s National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development draws on a large volume of research on social-emotional learning, three new research reports written over the last two years, as well as surveys with parents, students, and teachers — all generating new recommendations for teaching the whole child and for supporting the academic, social, and emotional wellbeing of students. It will take significant system-wide and school-wide changes to make sure every child gets this kind of holistic education; teachers cannot do that work alone.

But with the following considerations and actions, teachers can begin to break the silos that stuff social-emotional learning into a specific unit or class, and instead embed it throughout the day.

When seeing is no longer believing
Inside the Pentagon’s race against deepfake videos
Advances in artificial intelligence could soon make creating convincing fake audio and video – known as “deepfakes” – relatively easy. Making a person appear to say or do something they did not has the potential to take the war of disinformation to a whole new level. Scroll down for more on deepfakes and what the US government is doing to combat them.

To shed light on some of the amazing features that characterize language, we are sharing with you this collection of TED Ed videos covering  some interesting linguistic phenomena. Have a look and share with us what you think of them.

I’ve been teaching English for many years, across multiple grade levels, from middle school to high school to college. I’ve read (and have written) heaps of education books and research articles. And yet the premise for this post is so simple, I’m willing to bet that any one of our students can pin it down without a moment’s hesitation.

What is the most essential ingredient to a rockstar lesson?

It’s student engagement.

Americans are notorious for using filler words. While moderate use in a casual environment could be helpful it is advised to avoid excessive use, especially in a professional setting. If you're using too many filler words, it is time to stop the habit.

More and more people are turning to social media to learn their Indigenous languages, and two Ojibway speakers are using different techniques to connect with language learners across the country on Facebook.

Every Thursday at 9:30 p.m. CT, James Vukelich turns his phone's camera toward himself, and hits "go live" on Facebook. He starts off with a traditional Ojibway language — or Anishinaabemowin — greeting and delivers the "word of the day," connecting with and teaching the language to his online friends.

"For me, putting stuff on social media is a way to get language materials to [people] for free that they can use at a touch of their fingertips," said Vukelich.

Vukelich is from the Turtle Mountain Indian Reserve in Minnesota. He said his mother, grandmother, grandfather and uncles all went to boarding schools in the United States — like Canada's residential schools — and the language was lost for two generations in his family.

"I didn't hear the language until I was 24 years old," said Vukelich.

"This is the perfect STEAM Challenge for the chilly weather we are having! It will teach students all about why we put salt on icy roads during winter.

Are you up for the challenge? Can you determine what makes ice melt faster?

This challenge will take around an hour to complete. "

"Shouldn't teaching be a creative profession? In my mind, most every profession should have opportunities for creativity. I think humans are made to be creative. And if we don't have the chance to use those abilities, we are mostly going through the motions. We're merely "doing" or "implementing" without much opportunity to use our unique gifts or strengths.

I'm referring to creativity here in the broadest sense. It's not just artistic creativity, although that's an important kind for sure. I'm talking about the ability to have ideas, initiate plans, and solve complex problems. Much creativity is needed for these types of activities."

“We as teachers have a lot to learn from coaches,” said Jeff Gilbert, a former teacher and coach and now principal of Hillsdale High School in San Mateo, California. Most important, student learning would improve if teachers included more public performances in their instruction, he said.

In sports, players practice their skills in order to play the game better, and coaches modify what and how they train based on the athletes’ performance. Students in the classroom would benefit from similar high-stakes public performances, where they demonstrate what they’ve learned. In this way, the learning has a purpose, the same as throwing and catching drills in baseball.

Learning grounded in performance also allows teachers to give students constant feedback, like a coach who tweaks a player’s stance or swing. Though it’s more difficult for teachers to assess how well students are learning—unlike coaches, who can see immediately whether what they’ve taught has stuck—projects that include performances give more opportunities for immediate feedback.

Greg Kintzele is a amiable, blonde seventh-grader from Denver who was always close with his grandmother. They would hike together in the mountains in Colorado where they live, and play a lot of games, too. Especially Scrabble.

"She'd always come up with all these words and I'd be like, 'Is that a word?' and then she'd be like, 'Oh yes it is. You can check it in the dictionary," Greg says.

And usually she was right.

Then he noticed his grandmother starting to change. Her mood became sharper and she couldn't seem to remember the grandson she'd known for a decade.

"I felt kind of hurt," he says. "I've known her since I was a baby," but now he says she asks him what his name is.